SociableSport

"We are able to show that bringing the game to Australia and having the Asian continent with us at the same time-zone will benefit not only Australia, not only Asia, but the whole football world"
Frank Lowy, Chief of Australia's FIFA World Cup Bid and Australia's Richest Man

Asia comprises the world's fastest growing economies, the fastest growing television and media audiences and the fastest growing consumer markets. Intuitively, Lowy's claim seems to be sensible. But how valid is this regional bias? The three points below try to open this up a bit.

1. The combined audiences for West and East are broadly similar

By looking at FIFA's published TV and Out Of Home (which includes pubs and other public viewing areas) cumulative viewing figures by region we can compare the 2002 World Cup held in Asia with the 2006 World Cup held in Europe.

In terms of the number of viewers, comparing Europe with Asia is hard to swing in Europe's favour. In 2002 there were 2.7 Asian viewers to every European viewer. In 2006 this figure was cut to 1.6 but still, this is a huge difference. However, this only takes into account numbers for Asia and Europe. 'East' and 'West' is much broader.

By grouping together figures for Europe with North America, South America and Central America (EurAm) we get a better idea of what Western audiences actually add up to. We can then compare this with an Eastern group comprised of the Asia and Oceana (APAC). When we look at East vs. West in this hollistic way we get a slightly more even result. In the 2002 World Cup, held in Asia, there were only 1.3 Eastern (APAC) viewers to Western (EurAm) viewers but in the 2006 World Cup there were 1.2 Western viewers to Eastern viewers - despite the fact that the Germany World Cup was broadcast in 11 fewer EurAm territories than the 2002 World Cup.

So there wasn't that big a difference after all.

The audiences are pretty much similar from East to West. The drop off in audience attributable to changes in time-zones is nearly identical with both regions losing roughly 7% of their audience when the games were shown at more unsociable hours. Let's not forget, though, that with China's population alone being double that of the whole of Europe, Asia's 7% certainly represents more people. This brings us on to our next point - although the audiences are roughly the same, and the drop off is the same, advertisers will look for efficiency over reach and this may present the West with another argument against the Lowry.

2.  Rights fees are based on efficiency, not just reach 

Lowry also spoke about the revenue that an Australasian World Cup would bring in. He didn't go into specifics in the article I read but someone told me he'd quoted a difference of +$1bn. That's a lot of money and I'm not sure where he gets it from. Despite offering huge reach, there's going to be an awful lot of wastage in a market where the audiences are almost inconceivably large. In EurAm, penetration is much higher with a greater proportion of the total populations watching or experiencing the tournament. I don't want to waste any money speaking to people who aren't in the mood to listen, especially if there's millions of them.

Also, because there aren't many national broadcasters in the regions, the scope for competition among those looking to secure broadcast rights is smaller. Coupled with the lack of efficiency, this makes for risky - and tricky - business for those formulating broadcast revenue prediction models. Although, broadcast revenue isn't the only source of income from the tournament.

3.  A successful event needs the stadia to be full

Although we hate to admit it, everyone secretly loves the English. English football fans, like many of our counterparts, bring with them a fantastic enthusiasm for the game that heralds from decades of disappointment and ecstasy from following the nation's team. World Cup tournaments need these fans. They need them to fill up the stadiums and prevent what happened at some of Beijing's Olympic events where organisers had to give tickets away to locals for free (retail price was very high - around £90 per ticket) in order to fill the seats. In Sydney's Olympic games, kids were actually transported to the venues by buses to fill the venues with the right kind of audience.

What's the lesson here? Big TV audiences don't necessarily equate to a success on a national level.

We have a little time to go before the decisions for 2018 and 2022 will be made (December 2010) but at the moment, it seems as though the argument isn't as black and white as we may have originally thought. Let's see what FIFA say.

You can read more about Lowry's argument here
Picture found here

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