How much was Croatia's finals worth in promotional sense?

It's undeniable that this promotional effect was greater than the results of all the investments that Croatia has made into its promotion in the world since its birth combined.

Football is the most popular sport on the planet (208 FIFA members, over 250 million registered players, 192 UN members), so it is understandable why the World Championship attracts so much attention across the globe, and also represents a fantastic promotion model for each participating country, especially those that achieve notable results. This promotional effect is especially important for a small and young country such as the Republic of Croatia.

Therefore, this planetary and historical success, apart from the sporting dimension, has an unprecedented promotional dimension and a positive effect on the country, of course in all parts of society and the world. There are different ratings on the actual promotion value of this World Cup overall, especially in the long run. Still, looking at different data and consulting with a number of media and experts, I tried to find a model that would point to the promotion value for the Republic of Croatia, if not the whole competition in the long run, at least of the finals and the promotional effect in the short term.

For the purposes of this projection, a precise calculation is not possible, or would be too expensive. I have presented the promotional values of the World Cup finals with several indicators that could lead to a projection of the promotional value of the finals:

- current media prices (source: HTV 2018., prime time, ratings and CPT) for paid airing of messages,
- finals were followed-watched by far more than one billion viewers via TV, people across the world (source: FIFA, Brazil 2014,...