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UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

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Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the tickets to the tournament this year were just outrageously priced. Football is historically a working class sport, but $1,000 to watch a team like DR Congo in the group stage is next level criminality. And it's only going to get worse from here.

FIFA looked at this World Cup as an experiment. They wanted to see whether turning the monetization knob all the way to 11 would encounter significant resistance or whether fans would still watch/attend. The US, with its plethora of expensive stadiums and lax regulatory environment for price gouging compared to Europe, was the perfect testing environment. They upped the number of teams to 48 to get more games, used d…

There was pushback if you look at per-team attendance situations, but there's more than enough people living in the US making a ton of money that can easily afford the crazy prices. It did lower how many people from some big football nations decide to follow their team around. Not just due to the prices, but the travel distances. Just consider the practical logistics for, say, Spain's run. 2 games in Atlanta (Cabo verde and Saudi Arabia), then go play Uruguay in Guadalajara, then Austria in SoFi/L.A, then Portugal in the Dallas metro, back to SoFi for Belgium, again to Arlington for France, and New Jersey for Argentina: That's a lot of travel and hotel changing, because there's no reasonable way to go to a game and come back in the same day.

For all the problems in Qatar's world cup, a fan could watch two games a day, live,because the stadiums were that close. The 2026 bid maximized distances about as much as one could, vs, say, at least limit it all to the west coast, which would still be a lot by normal standards, bout would mean fewer huge metros where you could dip your toe in and ask for a ton of money, as there'd be very few games there.

And again, we are talking a team that won, and was among the favorites to win from day 1, just not being able to fill 1/3rd of the stadium, or anything close.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports people (I was listening to Bill Simmons) rated it pretty highly. There was nothing egregious and it was widely attended.

The way that the Iran team was only allowed into the USA on match days was a disgrace. Refusing entry to a Somali referee on the spurious grounds of links to terrorism was a disgrace. The overturning of Falorin Balogun's ban was a disgrace. The ticket prices were a disgrace. The transport to the stadiums was a shambles. I could go on.

I attended games in Dallas and was shocked at how well the city / FIFA handled transportation. Especially for a city that usually has none.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I would guess: "hydration breaks" to inject commercials, half-time shows that felt alien to much of the core audience, and various rule-bending shenanigans (Ronaldo, Balogun).

The fact that you had 'hydration breaks' in enclosed, fully air-conditioned stadiums is very telling.

Not all stadiums were enclosed

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#235
post #142

Why is this out of the gate bad? Note that this is not taking FIFA to private equity, but creating an investors owned subsidiary to run events and commercial operations where the non profit arm will still own 80% of it. With the right protections it could help FIFA make more money and reinvest in the sport, particularly women’s football. FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. Soccer is…

> Soccer is by far the most popular sport on the planet, the fact that it makes a lot less money than hockey is insane.

The NFL makes much less money than nVidia The world has gone mad! That's just insane.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#236
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. FIFA holds one significant money-making tournament for a month every 4 years (all due respect to the Women's World Cup in terms of prestige, but its revenue is a small fraction of the Men's World Cup). The NHL runs 6 months a year annually.

That’s part of their poor commercial vision. Even the World Cup brings less revenue than one season of the NBA. Doesn’t even make sense to compare it with the NFL.

So what. The point of the World Cup is a worldwide celebration of soccer, interchange of culture. It belongs to the people.

It's one of the only things left whose purpose is not just to make as much money as possible.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#237
post #229

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This is UEFA we are talking about. Remember that when (FIFA president) Blatter was investigated for corruption, (UEFA president) Platini was also banned.

...and Infantino was the UEFA secretary under Platini before taking Blatter's place as head of FIFA.

It's almost like you cut the head off a snake, and it grows back a slimier and more poisonous head.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would non-fans even care? It was a 3 minute break, non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters". I think this is the kind of thing purists care about but most people don't, most don't even know it is new.

> non-fans would not have any idea that you were going for 2 halves to 4 "quarters" … By non-fans do you mean people who have literally never heard of football, or something? I’m very far from a fan, no interest at all. But, I mean, I know there are two halves. Everybody knows that.

I think by non fans they just mean americans, it’s almost impossiible to not be aware of the basic rules outside of there.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydration breaks a tad weird. Half time shows were pretty subtle, didn’t change the length of the break except for the final. There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing. Def always things to improve but I had fun, all people around me seemed to have fun. I flew in an out and always was either public transportation or uefa provided shuttles… It was really well run. Not something you can…

> There’s no soccer competition Ahhhh, you're American!

I’m spanish living in the US
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