[KS] Soccer: More people watched South Korea vs Togo in 2006 than saw the Superbowl

[Afostercarter at aol.com]

Dear friends and colleagues,
 
Even those of us who have spent a lifetime avoiding sport, 
as spectator or participant, can hardly be unaware that  the
football World Cup is imminent. (Or soccer, if you  insist.)
 
As I'm sure you know, this is the first final to which both 
Korean states have won through. North Korea is back  for
the first time since England 1966, memorably recalled in 
The Game of their Lives: the first  in Dan Gordon and Nick 
Bonner's remarkable trio of movies made in and about 
North Korea.  _http://www.verymuchso.co.uk/_ (http://www.verymuchso.co.uk/) 
 
As the article below brings home, what this means is  that
at least for a few weeks literally hundreds of millions  of
people, in every corner of the planet and from every walk 
of life, who normally never think about Korea, will do  so.
The numbers cited below are remarkable. Who knew?
(One can almost forgive that cruel  "unglamorous"...)
 
Of course, Korea has been much in the media  already
of late. Let's hope football makes for better  news.
 
Go Korea!
 
Best wishes
Aidan FC
 
 
Aidan  Foster-Carter 
Honorary Senior Research  Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University, UK 
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com)      
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com)    W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)      
Flat 1,  40 Magdalen Road,  Exeter,  Devon,  EX2 4TE,  England,  UK 
T: (+44, no 0)     07970 741307 (mobile);     01392 257753 (home)    
Skype:  Aidan.Foster.Carter   Twitter:  fcaidan
 
 
___________________________________
 
_http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3e02bc2c-6a86-11df-b282-00144feab49a.html_ 
(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3e02bc2c-6a86-11df-b282-00144feab49a.html)  
 
 
The cup’s changing line-up of mankind
By Simon Kuper 
Published: May 28 2010 20:43 | 
 
 
You wouldn’t have thought many people would have watched  Togo vs South 
Korea at the World Cup of 2006. These were unglamorous teams,  meeting in the 
first round. Nonetheless, the game’s average live global  TV audience was 
109m viewers. That was more than saw last year’s Super  Bowl of American 
football, or Champions League final, or probably any  non-sporting TV programme. 
And the 109m doesn’t include hordes who watched  outside their homes, in bars 
or on big screens. 
Next month’s tournament could be the most watched media  event in history, 
competing only with the Beijing Olympics, says Kevin Alavy,  director at 
Initiative, futures sport + entertainment, a research agency.  
Mr Alavy gave me some insight into some of the data he has  gathered on 
world cups. The agency has collected reliable TV data from 55  countries, as 
opposed to the inflated figures trumpeted by the sports events  themselves. 
Initiative’s numbers capture something of the World Cup’s  uniqueness.  
The context is that almost all TV programmes are losing  viewers. When most 
people only had a couple of channels, whole nations would  sink into the 
sofa at the same time for favourite programmes. Now with hundreds  of channels 
plus DVD and the internet, that hardly happens. Audiences keep  
splintering. The generic sports programme around the world loses about 5 per  cent of 
its viewers each year. Only a handful of big sports events are keeping  their 
audiences: the Olympics, Super Bowl, Champions League final and big  
international football tournaments. And the World Cup does better than just hold  
on, says Mr Alavy: “We’re expecting this year’s World Cup to be more viewed 
than  ever before.” 
While other programmes become ever more niche, almost  every demographic 
now watches the World Cup. That sets the tournament apart from  even the 
biggest club matches. Togo-Korea drew 10 times more global live viewers  at home 
than any game in England’s Premier League.  
Even young people watch the tournament: a third of the  audience is aged 16 
to 34. Mr Alavy notes: “Many sports events, such as golf and  cycling, have 
a horrible time trying to appeal to young viewers.” 
Women watch. In 2006 they made up 41 per cent of the World  Cup’s audience. 
In some countries, like Venezuela, most viewers were female. The  notion of 
“world cup widows” has become outdated, says Mr Alavy. “Now there must  be 
world cup widowers.”  
Upmarket viewers watch. In 2002 they were still  fractionally less 
interested than the average person, but by 2006 were 6 per  cent more likely to 
watch than the average.  
No longer is the phrase “World Cup” a misnomer. Until 1990  the tournament 
should have been called the European-Latin American duopoly. Now,  though, 
the cup penetrates almost the whole world. 
Mr Alavy says the three most populous countries, China,  India and the US, 
are still in Initiative’s bottom five for average  viewing of the cup. If 
these countries continue to switch on, then one day Togo  vs South Korea might 
truly stop the world. 
For now, the tournament’s keenest viewers are the Croats,  Dutch and 
Norwegians. The UK, says Mr Alavy, never makes the top 10 of average  viewers. The 
amplified British tabloid noise is not reflected in the  population’s 
behaviour. Many Britons prefer to consume international football in  the form of 
sex scandals.  
Yet the World Cup may still be the most communal  experience the country 
gets. The tournament provides some of the national glue  once supplied by 
churches or royal weddings. And the shared experience seems to  make lonely 
people happier. The Greek epidemiologists Eleni Petridou, Fotis  Papadapoulos 
and Nick Dessypris have shown that in most European countries the  suicide 
rate falls during big tournaments.  
The World Cup briefly turns a nation into a family, and it  also creates 
something approximating the universal family of man. Initiative  expects this 
World Cup to draw 5 per cent more viewers than the last one. If  that 
applies to the final, then 670m people, or a tenth of mankind, might see at  least 
part of the game live. 
_simonkuper-ft at hotmail.com_ (mailto:simonkuper-ft at hotmail.com) 
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