Women's volleyball is one of the few sports where the women's match is more enjoyable to watch than men's game. Men's got better with the new passing rules, it slowed down the game a lot, but before it was just ridiculous. Power Serve, grab pass to the setter, set in the right spot, can't defend the spike. Very few rallies Now with the new rules that you can't do any more of those ridiculous overhand grab passes, the setter is starting to move a whole lot more, and miss a lot more sets. So the spikes are not just about power anymore, you have to put the ball away from the defense. That's why Brazil has been suffering a lot during the time with the new rules. All of the Brazilian players are AMAZING attackers of the perfect set ball. Now they are re-learning to deal with not so perfect sets, while the setters are re-learning how to deal with 35% passing rates instead of the ridiculous 60%.
Same with Brasil. If Brasil were coming in as a favorite, the media would have ran with it, and everybody would have been talking about it. Remember the Marta hype 4 years ago? But Brasil wasn't supposed to contend this year, so nobody cared.
When did Brazil run with it, when Santos eliminated it's womens team to pay Neymar and Pato Rodriguez more? The ratings were the same atrociousness when Brazil was a favorite. I don't recall there being any more media attention either year. There were plenty of stories this year, no one commented or people would comment with my line about the USA only caring because it can win and the anti-gay stuff you see in brazil. USA has always cared about the womans wc, of course they are favorites, but it's not comparable to brazil. How's it even a fair competition when you have tons of womans college soccer teams here?
Brasil and the US are exactly the same in terms of front runner fans. If the team is supposed to win, everybody talks and follows it. If they suck, people rip the team or the sport saying they could care less. And from my memory, maybe I'm wrong, Brasil was all about the 2011 Womens WC team.
In Brazil, the problem is with casual fans, unlike US, where fans flip flop teams. Most casual fans only appear when the team is winning and they disappear and don't care when they aren't doing well.