I see no down side to a World Cup every two years. Of course there's opposition from clubs but I couldn't care less about club soccer. A World Cup every four years is really antiquated if you think about it. This is not 1930 when it took weeks to take a boat ride to the World Cup Venue. With Modern technology and Modern athletes and Modern schedules we can cram things into a modern life rotation that fits the modern fan's needs. Especially in a growing market like the USA. The World Cup gets the best television ratings in both English and Spanish compared to other competitions. I think the numbers could get better the more the regular joe sports fan is exposed to the greatest show on earth as often as possible. And the USA would not be the only market to like this change. So many small teams would have more chances to finally get their shot at glory from every continent and corner of the earth.
The only way this would happen is if they made a rule that all nations that qualified but didn't make the last 16 were ineligible for the next tournament. I think we would see the same group of nations that are usually there every two years instead of every four.
With the Expanded Euro we have seen many teams make it to that tournament that had either waited many years to make it back in or have never made it before. The same will happen in a 48 team World Cup. Or at least they will have a chance to make it in. Having it every two years doubles the chances.
The expansion to 48 teams is a much bigger factor of course, but Homie's point is not difficult to follow. If a given team has a 15% chance of qualifying in any given cycle (or in other words an 85% chance of not qualifying), over two tournaments there is a 27.75% chance that they will qualify for one of the two tournaments (.85 * .85 = .7225, so 72.25% chance they will qualify for neither). Over four tournaments, there is a 47.8% chance they qualify for at least one tournament. So if there are four tournaments over 8 years instead of two, the probability that this team qualifies for at least one WC over the course of those 8 years is 47.8% instead of 27.75%.
The ratings are not going to increase when you hold something more often. That is backwards logic. Imagine if the NFL season was 32 games long instead of 16. When something is less rare, less special with less build-up it will garner less attention, not more. I also don't think we need to get into another international football versus club football discussion. That's pretty unrelated to this. This is going to be more about what the FIFA members want and what the players prefer. As mentioned above, CONMEBOL and UEFA are quite strongly against a biennial world cup.
The more you expose a market to the very best competition the more they want to see it. USA fans love seeing the best of the best as often as possible. I know it is anecdotal evidence but most average American sports fans I know say they love World Cups and wish that is was every year.
We seem to be one step closer : https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/concacaf-open-fifas-biennial-world-cup-proposal-2021-09-13/
Sure, because casual fans aren't getting up at 5:00am to watch Tottenham v Leicester. So they want more WCs because that's the only soccer they really care to watch. But (of course) they are already watching the WC, so no increase in ratings. I can see more WCs translating to more interest in MLS ))
The more people see the best tournament in the world the more possibilities it can grow in popularity. The more something grows in popularity the more likely ratings can grow. Especially if the USA does well in tournaments with their young talent which can be fun to watch in 2026, 2028,2030, 2032, etc.
Sure, but I mean that's a very US-centric view on it. WC viewership globally is already super high. Trying to increase ratings is not even on anyone's radar. Nobody is worried about that. This is all about the fact that 90% of FIFA revenue comes from the WC, so more tournaments means more money for them.
Of course it is USA-centric. That part of my post was specifically about the popularity of the USA, tapping into that market and the ratings growing. And I live in the USA. Duh.
And a lot of that money can come from Television Networks in the USA (The last WC contracts between English and Spanish combined was about a billion dollars.) And more money can come in from USA sponsors.
Because the powers on the pitch have very little voting power within FIFA, as I noted in a previous post. Only 80 of FIFA's 222 members have ever played in a World Cup....or in other words 142 of FIFA's members have NEVER played in a World Cup. Most of them never will. All they care about is the revenue that the WC generate for them. So of course, the more the merrier. But at some point, the "big" footballing nations are going to get tired of having no political power within FIFA and having their interests ignored. And that's when they are going to say "F**K FIFA". Because they don't need FIFA as much as FIFA needs them. People want to watch Argentina-England, Brazil-Germany and USA-Italy. They couldn't care less about watching Angola play Antigua or Kenya play Kazhakstan.... So if they pull out of FIFA, then that hugely devalues the FIFA World Cup.....
Bit of an optimistic read from Reuters... Concacaf's "open" in the sense that they're willing to hear the pro-biennial World Cup side out (and discourage brinksmanship), but that's different from outright support. We have to keep in mind that the post-2024 discussions are throwing everything NT-related on the table, so even maintaining the status quo is going to take some negotiation, what with Euro clubs eager to cut down NT games as much as they can.
The Euros usually have one or two teams making their first appearance, then in 2016 when it expanded there were five. But in 2020 there were only two again - and one of those was North Macedonia via the Nations League D route which doesn't look like happening again. So yes, by doubling the frequency of the tournament the trickle of debutantes will roughly double, but to say that "So many small teams would have more chances to finally get their shot at glory from every continent and corner of the earth" makes it sound like a really dramatic change! Meanwhile, Wikipedia tells us that in 2020 "For the first time, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Wales reached successive European Championship tournaments." This sounds more like Almango's "I think we would see the same group of nations that are usually there every two years instead of every four". It's obviously the other end of the spectrum, but maybe not far from the truth.
I might add by group I didn't mean the same 48 teams, but I would be very surprised if after 4 tournaments of 48 2 years apart we would have more than 60 nations appear.
The current FIFA international men's calendar runs through 2024. The negotiations with the confeds (and eventually the clubs as well) is to determine how the calendar will work beyond that year, e.g. Wenger's suggestion of having a month of the season for NT games only rather than the current four FIFA breaks in September, October, November and March.
Depends on the region IMO. CAF I expect to see alot of different countries qualifying from one WC to the next because there's no standout nations and no big drop off in quality after the top few. But CONCACAF I expect far fewer newbies. The HEX has had a similar composition cycle after cycle since the 1990s! And I'd expect even fewer changes in CONMEBOL. Of course the qualifying formats would have to change too. They'll need to be shorter which could lead to more random outcomes. With more "surprises" from the shorter qualifying combined with more teams being invited from the weaker confederations, the expanded WC would have a very different feel. Group stage might feel more like UEFA qualifying with all the cannon fodder that will be included.
I am starting to look forward to that day. Having the WC every 2 years really devalues the tournament. A guy like Ronaldo would play in about a dozen WCs in his career! Its all getting a bit silly. Anyway, I still doubt that the biennial WC idea will fly (at least not as early as 2028). If it was still a 32-team tournament maybe. But with it being expanded and the Club WC also being expanded, I think a biennial WC will be viewed as too much change at once.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wo...-slams-biennial-world-cup-plans-as-inadequate FIFPRO, the players union, has come out strongly against the biennial world cup proposal.
Wenger is crazy if he thinks you can fit an entire WC qualifying cycle inside of a single calendar month. Realistically, you can play 7 matches in 30 days....but there isn't a single Federation that doesn't have 10+ matches required to qualify....
Merge WCQ with qualifying for continental championships (i.e. use continental championship qualifying as prelims for WCQ), divide teams into tiers and only allow teams from higher tiers to qualify, qualify a certain number of teams automatically from confed championships, neutral site qualifiers (e.g. you could have a 6-team group played at a neutral site), etc. There are ways to do it, though all of these ideas have their issues.