Actually, it's based on a Mercedes ad depicting a German standup comic - a marvellous, self-deprecating dash of good humor. Also, Berti Vogts' comment comparing German soccer to Brasil by comparing the way they dance. We Germans, he said, are as graceful as refrigerators. Nevertheless, they win more often than not, and their automotive engineers laugh all the way to the bank. And I'm sure Prinz and Meinert and co. are laughing even now. So get a grip, girlz, and enjoy the win. There may not be another WWC.
Why not? Of course there will be. It should always be a profitable event - outside the US it would simply need a little downsizing (stadium-wise). Even sports like women's handball or field hockey stage successful (even profitable!) world cups - I'm convinced women's soccer will always beat them in terms of popularity.
??? 12 M (33% market shares for ARD) watching women's soccer is more than impressive. This is more than the men had on Saturday in the ECQ against Iceland; an average Bundesliga Sportschau is watched by 6 M. For sure, a men's world cup final would have about 20 M, but besides men's soccer and Formula One there is no sports event reaching a similar rating.
It was great to see the support http://www.dfb.de/ was giving the WWC - headline stories, and not just for the Final. It's encouraging to learn that so many German and Scandinavian football fans have taken the women's game to heart. I only wish England had been so progressive in their approach to the women's game, but thanks to this and the previous WW Cup and the above mentioned nations/areas (as well as USA and now Canada) some media interest is seeping over the pond, and for the UK I think it will be a case of "better late than never" as the decade unfolds. WWC 2003 was great fun to watch, exciting and entertaining stuff, and my hat is off to the finalists for a very enjoyable showdown, and considering the distance, audible support from both sets of fans. Well done. The WWC will survive and ultimately flourish in one form or another. As someone already said, lesser sports have women's world cups, soccer will continue to do so, too. And I'll be watching, one way or the other!
They were on pretty much every newspaper cover and on every news-show. So they got the coverage, they deserved. A news-channel ("n-tv") even had live coverage of the team's homecoming and official celebrations in Frankfurt today! Concerning the ratings: it should be one of the highest national TV rating for any women's sporting event in Germany of all time! (not really sure about some Steffi Graf-matches or the Olympics, though) It's definitely a phenomal rating!
Even i watched the final ! (ok, more like 40 minutes of it, but this is still a Women's soccer record for me. And i would have seen the whole final, if MTV hadn't played some decent videos for some odd reason-[sing]I was made for lovin' you baby-you were made for lovin' me-and I can't get enough of you baby-can you get enough of me ?[/sing]) Unfortunately they will probably go back to the "usual" coverage as soon as the hype is over.
Well, there might be a little hype about the NT now. It's possible that they are moved back to a better kickoff time in the future (they had a game in Gütersloh last year that kicked off at 2 pm on a weekday - probably they wondered why only 2.000 and almost no adult were in the stadium...), but ARD is not very flexible with this. For Women's Bundesliga this will hardly have an effect. Maybe the attendance will rise to an average of about 1.000 within the next weeks, but it will get less afterwards again.
Not quite up on the facts The U19 World Cup held in Canada in the summer of 2002 drew 50,000 to the final. I think your comment may apply to Europe, South America but not Canada (which last I looked, was outside the USA). Canada had asked to host one of the groups for this World Cup but were turned down by FIFA. TV ratings are enormous for Canada's women as well. It was stated during the tournament that the Swedish team was getting very good ratings back home as well.
Re: Not quite up on the facts ? So why is there any danger of not having another WC? Maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't really find a connection between this initial question and your comment. What's so different or bad about Canada's situation? And why would Canada have any effect on the event of the next WWC?
Reply to Deutschland_HSV I was responding to the 'WC will need downsizing" comment as I think there is a tremendous interest in the tournament in Canada. No 'downsizing' would be required in North America and likely Asia.