I like Grant a lot, and he does appear to be a big supporter of women's soccer. But I just finished his Masters of Modern Soccer interview book, and he did not interview one female. Sometimes, you need to read between the lines...
I guess he deleted that tweet, lol Ahh ⚽️ ⚽️ ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/98LUVWz6pI— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) July 4, 2019 All good then Still think it's terribly disrespectful that CONCACAF and CONMEBOL scheduled their men's finals on the same day as the women's World Cup final (and FIFA let it happen), but you already knew that.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) July 4, 2019 I will also agree with this. I don't think it's too much to ask that they don't clash with a World Cup final.
That is the dumbest-worded apology ever (not that I think anyone should be cowed, even if they're stupid and wrong). What a tool. The finals are in completely different time zones. Blame FIFA for putting the WWC on an odd-year quadrennial cycle. Then blame them for switching it (hypothetically) to even off-years...oh, wait, the Olympics...
For context, the men's R16 match against Belgium in 2014 did 16.4m on cable (ESPN). It did another 5.1m on Univision. An interesting phenomenon with the women is how poorly they do on Spanish television. When they played a Spanish speaking country (Chile and Spain) they got between 700k and 800k viewers. When they haven't they got 400k. The men averaged 4.95m on Univision in 2014.
Yes, hopefully the womens team can generate that kind of interest. If/when they do, they will earn the kind of money they hope for. I hope they can make it happen.
No it doesn't. "Deprived" is not = to human rights. Women not having the vote, even rich women, was a human rights issue.
Still think it's terribly disrespectful that CONCACAF and CONMEBOL scheduled their men's finals on the same day as the women's World Cup final (and FIFA let it happen), but you already knew that.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) July 4, 2019 Okie dokie Grant, I’ll watch the women in the morning and men in the evening. How horrible that we have to watch two sporting events with 10 hours of each other.
Which despite providing good data was misleading in itself. They did an audit of the last 10 years of game revenue. This was the breakdown. So 141.44m for the men and 79.02m for the women. Notice also that the women only generated more than the men one single time (FY2016) yet the WSJ uses the 2016-18 range. Even in the worst year for the USMNT (FY2018) they still slightly out-earned the women. But really game revenue is only one of the six different revenue streams so this isn't even definitive.
I'm a bit of a wonk on this stuff so here it goes. The USWNT are averaging 5.27m viewers on Fox and Telemundo over the 6 games of the Women's World Cup. Their largest audience was 8.05m against England and their smallest was 3.10m against Thailand.
There are numerous examples where different sports organizations put on events at the same time. During the NBA/NHL finals, MLB games are going on every night. The dates for the finals are set well in advance and could be scheduled around. During Super Bowl Sunday, there are college BB games all throughout the morning/afternoon. Hell, pro basketball/baseball take away viewers from their own sports during their postseason tournaments with fixed dates. Both professional leagues play during the two NCAA tournaments. Who complains about having more sports to watch? In Grant's case, he has more content to cover.
Sure, but this is not really different organizations, it's FIFA. They have control over the international calendar. If they wanted to make CONCACAF, which is essentially a FIFA subsidiary, change its final, they could. That said, I'm not really sure that one takes away from the other too much. Then again, I'm not a journalist or a sports network that has to juggle my coverage.
What evidence do you have for this? And why would they change the date of finals that don't overlap and, therefore, don't compete with each other? These tournaments can only be held in the summer in-between seasons for the vast majority of the world. There are finite number of dates in which these finals can be played.