2014 World Cup

Rusty, FIFA will change the times of games to draw the biggest possible audiences in Europe, which is why the games were mostly daytime starts in Brazil. I'd expect that games will start at night or early evening in local time to maximize European prime time viewing. Since most of Russia's big cities are 8-9 hours ahead of Eastern time, this means games will be shown in North and South America in the late morning to early afternoon time period, not too different than it was for Brazil.

 

They do 3 time slots for the first 2 group stages matches. My guess is that at best, it will be 8 a.m., 11 a.m and 2 p.m. Eastern, possibly an hour earlier. The last group stage matches and beginning of the knockout rounds have 2 time slots, so it will probably be the later 2 of the times above to maximize TV viewing. I just can't see them starting games after 10 p.m. local time.

U.S. TV ratings going to suffer, especially during the week and the more west that you go.

 

What momentum?

 

I'd bet U.S. game ratings (assuming they qualify) would be strong no matter what, but that early morning games of the Croatia-South Korea (two random choices there) variety will suffer.

 

I think that they will be good for the U.S. games, but if we get an 8 a.m. Eastern slot on a Tuesday, there is just no way that they will even be 1/2 of the Ghana game numbers.

 

It is a shame, because i feel like the sport gained a lot of fans here in the US, myself included (though i doubt i'll watch much until the 2018 WC admittedly). Still, hate for bad time slots to drag it down.

 

American sports fans need to suck it up. Fans in other countries routinely watch games at odd hours as part of normal life. All of South America will be in the same boat in 2018, after all.

 

American sports fans have better things to do.

 

No they don't. Ratings for international sports events go down when they're not scheduled for maximum U.S. convenience because we are a very spoiled society in general.

 

Like what? Watching Skip Bayless and SAS argue on the morning edition of SportsCenter?

 

I'm not sure how much less of a fuck I can possibly give in regards to whether or not the know-nothings of America will glom onto the World Cup and claim to be some sort of expert. Soccer is popular here. It's more popular than people want to admit because it doesn't suit their arguments. It'll continue to grow and grow slowly. I'm perfectly fine with that.

Passengers that want to show up every four years are fine. Those same people telling me how the game can improve can go pound sand. They are utterly useless.

 

This is a fallacy. The sport did not gain a lot of fans so much as it merely pulled casual sports fans out of soccer hibernation for month. Every four years we hear this same song about how the Cup supposedly attracted all these new fans and momentum for the sport going forward, and it always turns out to be bunk.

The way it actually works is this: For one month every four years this country becomes interested in soccer. Once that month is over, nearly all go back to regarding soccer the same way they did before the cup. No matter how enjoyable the Cup was, it does not change the sport's sustained popularity level here. There is no genuine momentum.