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    Yep. Always worth remembering that 8.4 million watched a Test match (2005 Ashes, fourth Test) when it was live on Channel 4.

    The figures for the 2009 Ashes, then on Sky, were lower by around 90 per cent.
    Last edited by Kevin S; 22-06-2019, 22:46.

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      Kids still seem to love cricket, by the way. I've spent every Saturday morning this summer at sessions of All Stars. Probably about 50 kids had signed up and it turns out all you have to do is give kids some space, bats and balls, tell them roughly what to do and they'll have a whale of a time.

      The Hundred isn't the answer because the game isn't the problem. It's the reach.

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        The BBC, and for that matter, Phil Neville, seem to be well into the old Africa shtick.

        Cameroon are big, enthusiastic, unpredictable, possibly dangerous physically, can't defend.

        England will have to rely on their discipline and professionalism to overcome them. And being English, will have to match them physically...

        I thought this sort of crap had been called out enough in the past?

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          Well, Cameroon should have had at least two red cards for violent conduct. And others for major dissent. Oh, and also allegedly made false allegations of racism at half-time because an on-side goal against them was justifiably given. Frankly, the ref should have refused to deal with them any further and abandoned the game at that point.
          So, um, that preview has been rather borne out. It stemmed from similar, if slightly less extreme, play in the group stage.

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            Only just had a read of this thread, but to reply to Janik's excellent post from the opening page, we actually had a sweepstake at work for this tournament (I got Canada). And I've had quite a few conversations about it - seems quite a few of the people I work with are indeed watching.

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              Loads of pubs have details about which Women's WC matches they're showing. Can hardly remember any saying they're showing Cricket World Cup games. Despite that actually taking place in this country.

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                Yeah, I have to say I've found myself barely caring about the cricket world cup.

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                  I went past Nat West HQ on the bus the other day, there are the most BEAUTIFUL huge window displays, on huge scale, of Eoin Morgan et al, and Heather Knight et al, in kit ready to compete. They look just fantastic. Why are they not employing old media in this way, to actually get people to give a shit?

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                    Well, I suppose I stand corrected by events. I also have to say that I'm intensely involved in this world Cup, especially being in France.

                    Cricket, which I loved, has sort of drifted away from me in last 2 or 3 years.

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                      It‘s actually quite hard to watch games in France if you don‘t have Canal+. Tons of bars don‘t have a TV, and if they do then they don‘t necessarily have a subscription for Canal+. Only the French games are on TF1. Tonight I cycled 9km to the nearest town to catch the France game at a sports bar. The sports bar was closed until July 1st (French opening times - be it shops, restaurants, hotel receptions, museums, swimming pools, offices - are an exercise in random numbers. Only guarantee - when you decide to go, they‘ll be fucking closed), so I ate at the restaurant opposite and asked them if there was anywhere in town with a TV. They directed me to the kebab house. I walked in and saw a TV with football on, rejoiced inside, ordered a drink, sat down, and realised it was Paraguay v Columbia. So I cycled back and have picked up spotty English radio commentary and am following on The Guardian. It‘s been better in cities where games are actually taking place.

                      Sports press coverage is excellent, though. L‘ Équipe has had several pages of coverage every day, and there appear to be several other sports newspapers too.

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                        Originally posted by Flynnie View Post

                        The cricket WC is suffering in interest because it’s on Sky, end of. The 2015 Rugby World Cup blew away this year’s cricket WC in interest from the general public, and that’s due to ITV. Hell, they got 8 million for the final with no Home Nation in sight. They played the vast majority of games in Premier League stadiums, some well away from the rugby heartlands, and filled them up.
                        A minor point of pedantry but only 16 of the 48 games were in club football stadia (and some of them were not PL grounds - Brighton (D2 at the time), Leeds and Franchise).

                        There were 25 matches at rugby stadia (Twickenham, Millennium, Sandy Park and Kingsholm) with the remaining 7 at Wembley and the Olympic Stadium (not a PL stadium at the time).
                        Last edited by Ray de Galles; 23-06-2019, 22:01.

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                          Originally posted by Jimski View Post
                          Yeah, I have to say I've found myself barely caring about the cricket world cup.
                          I'm sort of the opposite, I'd quite like to follow more of the WWC but have only caught bits of about four or five games because I've been so immersed in the Cricket World Cup (and because of a trip to see two Wales men's Euro 2020 qualifiers, I suppose).

                          Because the Cricket is on my doorstep and I'm doing a fair few matches (and because it's been a cracking tournament so far) it wins out. That would probably be different had Wales qualified for the WWC (I'd probably have gone out to a few games at least, having done a couple of the qualifiers) or if it was in Britain.

                          Of course, like any major football tournament it only really gets going if and when England are knocked out.

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                            The scheduling is diabolical.

                            That FIFA chose to have the Women's World Cup contested at the same time as the Copa America, CAN and Gold Cup (yes, I know, but it is a thing here) is nuts.

                            And that's before one gets to the Cricket.

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                              The same time as the Men's u21 Euros too.

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                                I just simultaneously watched Mallorca-Deportvo, Argentina-Qatar and France-Brazil.

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                                  The WWC is on during the morning here. Most people are either at work, or have things to do which hurts a bit. The Gold Cup, in the evening, is something of a damp squib in Canada as traditionally little is expected of our men's team so coverage is minimal.* It may pick up as they progress, if they do.

                                  * I meant to ask this earlier. Is Canada the only country where the national women's team gets significantly more attention than men's? Does Norway's? Anywhere else?

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                                    I'm actually a lot more interested in the cricket, even though I can only see highlights and the scores. I feel completely alienated from Big Football these days, even the women's world cup.

                                    I suspect that holding the games in the afternoon, in addition to the limitations of Sky, are hindering the CWC. But the crowds at the matches look to be full.

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                                      I'm totally split between the two, flipping between the real broadcast of the WWC and my dodgy feed of the CWC - I'm probably marginally more interested in the cricket so far because the individual games seem a little more competitive. The group stages of both tournaments seem to be almost pre-determined, which isn't helping either tournament greatly.

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                                        Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                        I meant to ask this earlier. Is Canada the only country where the national women's team gets significantly more attention than men's? Does Norway's? Anywhere else?
                                        The US, surely. For the same reasons - the Women's side are world beaters. The Men's ... are not.

                                        I assume that if you asked Americans to list the first three soccer players who came to mind that Messi, Ronaldo and Beckham would feature very highly on the lists. Possibly Pele, Cruyff and Maradona for older fans. But if any American names were to feature, I would guess that Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Hope Solo, Abby Wambach and Heather O'Reilly would be at least as likely to feature as USMNT alumni such as Jozy Altidore, Brad Friedel, et al. Probably more so. And if the Americans surveyed were asked to name the first three US Soccer players who popped into their head, then I the list would surely be female heavy, possibly even dominated at the top end.


                                        But in Norway? Not so much. The difference in perception and treatment of the Women's National team to their rather less successful Men's side is part of why Ada and Andrine Hegerberg do not play for the team. Ada is probably on honeymoon in fact, seeing as she used the free summer to get married (to a fellow professional footballer) last month.

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                                          Yes, and that difference is very much at the core of the women's lawsuit against the USSF seeking equal compensation with the men.

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                                            In relation to Amor's point about the profile of the two teams in Canada, how is John Herdman viewed after ditching the Women for the Men?

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                                              In relation to Amor's point about the profile of the two teams in Canada, how is John Herdman viewed after ditching the Women for the Men?

                                              There were some mumblings to begin with mostly from the media who are always inclined, with reason, to see the CSA as bumbling incompetents, but they quietened pretty quickly. The players were supportive and the Women's and Men's teams are stronger than they were before he moved over, so it's all good. That might change if Canada loses today, they're definitely expected to go further than they did four years ago and if they don't questions will be asked.

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                                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                Yes, and that difference is very much at the core of the women's lawsuit against the USSF seeking equal compensation with the men.
                                                I just read that this is going to arbitration. That's positive, I guess. So it will be resolved and they'll get a better deal, I hope.

                                                But again, comparing their deal to the men's all a bit apples-and-oranges because of how the USSF helps subsidize WPS. Yes, the USWNT is more successful than the men's but MLS is doing a lot better than any of the women's leagues. That isn't to say that MLS deserves to be doing better, but it is. And the men have many more options abroad. For them, playing for the national team is a personal goal and can be fairly lucrative, but it is not the difference between making a living at soccer or not. So they have more leverage over USSF. Whereas, that is not the case for most of the women. My understanding is that the non-national team (including Mexico and Canada) players in WPS make like $12,000 a year or something like that. That's like pro lacrosse money.


                                                My fear would be that the USWNT get the same deal as the men and it makes them deservedly rich, but then WPS dies again.

                                                The truth that nobody in the US wants to acknowledge is that the USWNT (and, I suppose, the Canadian WNT) has been much more successful than their male counterparts over the years largely because the level of competition is so much worse. Perhaps American women are just inherently better suited to soccer than American men and perhaps their coaches have been better than the men's, but I don't see much reason to believe that is the major difference, because the soccer system that produced the women's team and their coaches is pretty much the same one that produced the 1990 and 1994 US men's team.

                                                Most of the US women's team came up through the pay-for-play youth club system (not many play for their high school anymore) and played three or four years in the NCAA. That's great for college women's soccer and great for those women's non-sports careers, but that's the same system that everyone agrees is a millstone around the neck of men's player development in the US. It could be argued that women's soccer players develop slower, so playing in college makes more sense for them while men need to be in a pro environment as teenagers to reach the same levels. But all the evidence from other sports - most notably tennis and swimming - suggest the opposite is actually true.

                                                It has been ok for the women because the development system in the rest of the world isn't any better. Indeed, a number of the players for the other national teams played college soccer in the US too. But if fan and sponsor interest in women's soccer continues to grow outside the US, that's going to change. It's already changing. There's more money for women's soccer in Europe now and, I understand it, they're building their player-development and club system largely around the men's system which, of course, is still way better than ours. Top players will not play college soccer if they can sign a decent pro deal by the time they're 18. And if most of those deals are available in Europe, rather than the US, that's going to greatly favor European players, obviously.

                                                If the US continues to rely on the rich suburban youth teams and the NCAA to develop players, it's going to find itself in the same position as the men's team very soon. Well, maybe not the exact same position because the Thailands and Chiles of the world will probably still lag behind the US for a while longer, but I wouldn't be surprised if England and Germany, among others, clearly surpass the US soon and their domestic leagues are better than ours. Maybe they already are.

                                                To avoid that fate, women's soccer in the US needs to do what MLS and USSF is struggling to do on the men's side - develop players to be pros from an earlier age, build free academies, find more players of color and/or limited means, etc. And to do that, it either needs the WPS teams to create free academies and all that and/or get MLS to also run academies for girls, but I don't understand how MLS can afford to do what is doing, let alone increase its investment into academies by 50%.

                                                And there won't be money for any of that if the audience for women's soccer only shows up for the Olympics and the world cup.

                                                And I'm sure all the women (and men) involved with actually running women's soccer know all of this. Of course the USSF knows it, which is why it is chiseling the USWNT players.

                                                But I sense that much of the media and fanbase does not.

                                                What is needed, probably, are some very smart and deep-pocketed investors - perhaps affiliated with MLS or not - to plow money into WPS so that they're playing on good pitches in facilities that fans want to come to and are on a proper TV network where sports fans will hear about them, not fucking Lifetime.
                                                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 24-06-2019, 17:25.

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                                                  The NWSL has both a minimum and maximum. I looked them up when posting about Sam Kerr's mooted move to Chelsea. From memory the floor is $~14,000 and the max $~42,000 or thereabouts. With an overall team cap of $~420,000.

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                                                    Yeah, few young women with college degrees (which most of them have) are going to try to live on that kind of money in a major city for very long.

                                                    I think I recall the $12k number from an article about Maddy Evans retiring mid-season to start an assistant coaching job at a D2 college. That job probably wouldn't pay a lot either, but it's the first rung on the ladder and it was in the city she wanted to be in.
                                                    Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 24-06-2019, 19:47.

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