Agreed. There is no doubt it will continue ... this year's final registered huge TV ratings in both Sweden and Germany. Oddly enough, the US flop has been great for extending the event's international prestige.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'mythical' here, but From http://www.econ.unt.edu/research/pdf/00-13RTJmls.pdf
Decent link. My guess is that "mythical" refers to the belief of some (who weren't around) who "remember" the Cosmos drawing over 70,000 for a match with Tampa, and four or so other teams having average attendances nearly double what the best MLS teams draw... WITHOUT remembering the downside, that for every Cosmos match with 50,000 people, there were matches in places like Philadelphia or Memphis or Denver or even occasionally Chicago that were listed as "2532" or some such, when the actual number was closer to 532.
Don't have a link or a cite, but a German poster on another thread reported 12 million viewers in Germany for the final. If true, that would qualify as huge by any standard.
I have a link http://www.dfb.de/news/display.php?id=1809 The average number of viewers was 10.37 million viewers, according to that report. At the peak, 13.58 million viewers watched. But even the average was more viewers than the German MNT had during Saturday's EC qualifier and more viweres than watched Michael Schumacher achieve his 6th title. So, it's really huge even compared to other Sports highlights. They had reasonably hoped for 4 or 5 millions and dreamed of 7 millions. But this... outstanding.
From FIFA: "It is with great pleasure that we recognise the tremendous strides women's football has made in recent years. Having long since wiped out any misconceptions of football being predominantly a men's sport, today football proudly counts over 30 million female players worldwide.... FIFA is determined not to rest on past success, but rather is committed to continue pushing forward as there still remains much work to be done in the development of women's football across the globe.... FIFA acknowledges its need and responsibility to nurture and support administrators and coaches of national associations that do have women's programmes, and to help them build on the future by providing manageable and quantifiable milestones for associations to aspire to.... There is much to be proud of and much work to do as well. Above all, it is the duty of FIFA and all of our football family to do everything in its power to promote a world of social equality where every woman has an opportunity to enjoy playing football, as the beautiful game is meant for one and all."
how many competitions does fifa have for women? 2. men? 1 FIFA World Cup 2 FIFA World Youth Championship 3 FIFA U17 World Championship 4 FIFA Confederations Cup 5 FIFA Futsal World Championship 6 FIFA Club World Championship i think the two female championships are more important than at least one of these...
Sweden had 3.8 million viewers, or over 40% of the population of about 9 million. Great job by both countries.
Also impressive is that about 5,000 people came to the victory celebration in Frankfurt. And, I think 12-13,000 welcomed back the silver medallists in Stockholm. Who knows if that level of interest will be sustainable. But, given that kind of growth in two of the world's wealthiest countries, plus the emphasis that FIFA has put on the women's game, the idea that the WWC might soon end up on the chopping block seems pretty bizarre.
I thought it was pretty fickle of ABC to not show the awards ceremony. They said that they had to cover golf! In '99 whe US and China went into double overtime they covered the entire thing, including the ceremony and an hour of interviews. What's the world (or just the US) coming to?
You left out the Olympics... The sports in the Olympics are run by the world coverning bodies of each sport. FIFA sets the rules on who can compete in the Olympics... so I would count it?
I believe it would count. The International Olympics Committee (IOC) and FIFA set the rules for soccer for the Olympics games. This is the reason why England, Wales, Nothern Ireland, Scotland national teams can not play in the Olympics Games and there is some type of barrier preventing they from forming an Untied Kingdon (UK) national team, I forget why. From all I read, this realationship have not been harmonious all the times especially over the point of automonic selection of the Olympics Game host nation teams in Olympics men and women soccer tournanment. FIFA complained about the Australia Men national team for Sydney 2000 and they are complaining about Greece Women national team for Athens 2004. They were not and are not going to be competitive against basically the top 10 soccer national teams in the world that normally play in the Olmpics soccer tournment. FIFA wants only the very best national teams for the Olympics soccer tournment, no freebie for the host nation if it does not a good enough ranking.