I saw this article online: http://www.pe.com/sports/soccer/stories/PE_SP_nwwc08.5821b.html Has anyone else heard anything, even a scrap of a rumor, about this? Relevant quotes: This is not good news, if true. Sachin
I can't see FIFA going back on its "Future of Football is Feminine" statement, especially if Germany were to take home the Cup. If anything, the competitions leading to the WWC need to be expanded! 100,000 people in Azteca cannot be wrong. None of this Gold Cup thing; we want to see a CONCACAF Hexagonal for Our Women. US vs. Canada in Arizona in July! US vs. Mexico in Foxboro in February!
I'm not entirely sure but I'd go with the following: 1. The whole Kirch media fiasco which essentially meant FIFA lost tons of presold ad revenue and rights fees. 2. The massive costs associated with so many venues across two countries. Avaya may have built a world class network, but they commanded a world-class fee to do it. 3. Diminished interest as top European and South American teams were knocked out early. 4. It's FIFA, they exist to lose money. Those are my best guesses. Sachin
I believe that statement is right up there with "Read my lips: no new taxes," and "This (pick a club) has complet confidence in (pick a manager)."
wasn't the 2007 wwc given to china... I would suspect China would welcome hosting it... World Championships exist in a variety of sports... if fifa wants to get rid of the WWC, I assume the u-19 for women goes too... How many Finns showed up for the u-17 in finland... stadiums looked like the current wwc attendance wise...... female football isn't going to go away on the planet... the prcise incarnation, no one knows currently... be cursious to see how euro 2005 goes over in england.
All the more reason to bring the men's cup back to the US. Put the games here and make tons of money or put the games elsewhere and roll the dice.
PEOPLE STILL CAME. You can't say that "Latinos don't care about women's football." There is now huge interest thanks to the WUSA, Maribel Dominguez, the play of Brazil, Monica Gerardo and, most importantly, a Latin-American news media who sees soccer as soccer and athletes as athletes. I still have a headline from La Nacion USA's Washington edition from the summer of 2002 that led off with the headline, "The Women Have Taken Over D.C." with FRONT PAGE stories on the Mystics and Freedom in the playoffs. And Telefutura/Galavision has shown MORE GAMES OF THE WWC THAN THE MOUSE EARS!!!!!!!!! The competition between the Univision family of networks and Telemundo was such that Telemundo showed the US-Mexico match almost as a defensive marketing mechanism (a "me-too" gesture) against the onslaught of women's soccer matches to start later in the month! Perhaps some of the euromensoccersnobs need to heed this!
Yes, Blatter said, "Africa will definitely host the 2010 World Cup" a couple of years ago after Germany won the 2006 hosting privileges. Actually, I believe FIFA is starting to look at specific African country bids right now. http://www.soccerage.com/en/13/70139.html
They also gave better coverage of the matches with more respect to each game and team than Mickey Mouse.
Yes, and Nigeria just pulled out of the running because it couldn't afford to bid. Given the exorbitant amounts of money Japan and South Korea spent (read: squandered) on stadiums for 2002, I can't imagine there's an African country that can even contemplate hosting in 2010.
The WWC here in Mexico has gotten no coverage at all. They only mention some scores and show stock footage. The big crowd of the Mexico-Japan game happened because of a lack of soccer here and a big campaign from Televisa and Azteca so that people would notice it and support it. The game also was free so that ticket scalpers didn´t get to take a lot of tickets like what happened in the gold cup final.
FIFA would never get away with it. I could see the U-19 championship being history and scaling back the men's youth championships - at worst scaling the WWC back to 12 teams... but the women's world cup isn't going anywhere.
I see only few countries that FIFA will generate profit over WWC : USA, China , (probably) Norway and Germany (after this WC run succes )
If China wanted '03, they'll probably still want to host at least one. Give them one and Germany one and that gives the women's game another 8 years to find a foothold.
Having trouble believing that WC2002 lost money. In USA Today just yesterday there was a small piece on the WWC and the last line also mentioned how WC2006 in Germany is expected to bring in a net profit of close to $1 billion for FIFA. It would be amazing to go from losing money in 2002 to making a billion bucks in four years.
Don't forget though that the Chinese basically turned off to this year's event. Even though it is somewhat understandable that they were bitter that it could not be held in China, they didn't even get that excited about their team. Perhaps the time zone problem drastically reduced their viewing audience, but even the newspapers didn't cover the China-Canada match that much. Not too good as an indication of future support. Especially since the Chinese team is very veteren and most of the stars are going to retire a la Sun Wen http://newslink.nandomedia.com/Spor...up/archive/v-adn/story/1018131p-7146417c.html
That's a good one. Really. The only promo I saw for the WWC games on Galavision (I think) were promoting "creatividad, pasion y BELLEZA." That's creativity, passion and BEAUTY for you anglophones out there. Not exactly what I would call seeing "soccer as soccer, and athletes as athletes."
Well ain't no way the final is selling out at 100 to 450 a pop. I scalped Italy - Brazil final tix for 300 bucks each an hour before the 94. You can buy tix on ebay right now for pennies on the dollar. I'm having trouble unloading 32 seats to the 3rd palce match.
Honestly, if you go to worldstadiums.com and look at the stadiums in south africa, there are enough there to hold the tourney as is. Granted they are rugby grounds most, but we held the wc in football stadiums, and the fa cup is in a rugby ground. I think they need to have fiewer sites honestly, like 12 at most but possibly 8. Even with 64 games, 8 sites is very doable. Granted south african stadiums need some renovation but they are there. I think they need seats too.