[A research essay for uni]
Sport is one of the few things in the world that can generate a similar interest across countries, generations, or social backgrounds. And it is not surprising that “classical football”, or soccer as we will call it in this essay, created such an enthusiasm. After all, it’s quite easy to play and to understand: two teams have to score more goals than their opposition, by moving a ball on a pitch.
Soccer’s most prominent event is the FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) World Cup. The Men’s Soccer World Cup is indeed one of 7 recognised mega events, defined (Byers, T, et al, 2012) as a sporting event of an international scale organised by a special authority (FIFA) and yielding extremely high levels of media coverage. According to Statista, the 2018 Russian World Cup attracted 517 million viewers worldwide.
Despite its worldwide popularity, it is possible to determine stronghold regions of soccer. Namely Europe and South America for the production of professional players and teams. Large parts of Africa are also full of avid supporters of the sport but are left out of the organisation of such a mega event.
Today, the World Cup is already a massive event, and it might seem that it could very well decide not to innovate to keep going. But it would be beneficial for the event to broaden its horizons. And with the competition of other sports and form and divertissement, the event has every interest in keeping its edge and reaching new markets. And doing so means more viewers and, in turn, more revenue for stakeholders.
That is why this essay will discuss the ways to make the FIFA World Cup more appealing for different groups across countries, gender, and include people that might not be sportive but can be convinced to join the soccer fever. To this end, it remains important to reflect on the some of the most recent World Cup, namely the 2010 edition in South Africa, 2018 Russia, 2022 Qatar and 2026 North America. This way I’ll paint a picture of the current state of the Soccer World Cup, then discuss what the FIFA could do to broaden the appeal of the event while consider the challenges it may face.
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Today, the Men’s Soccer World Cup stands out as the world’s largest sporting event, with over half a billion people watching its final game every four years. Multiple countries regularly compete to host the event and reap the economic benefits. It is also a mean of soft power, as the country stands visible on the world stage. As theorised by Maurice Roche (2006), mega-events like the World Cup are a unique way to unite the world in one direction.
They create a sense of global community, at least for the time of the tournament. This community is visible and host nations try to reap the benefits of it. Interestingly enough, the organisation of this massive event can also be a way for a country to assert himself as a great power to be reckon with as Richard Arnold and Andrew Foxall (2018) analysed ahead of the 2018 Russia World Cup. Their point was that developing their soft power was not the main goal of the country while organising the event. “Russia hosting the World Cup — like the Olympics — is consistent with the goal of Russia reemerging as a great power” according to the authors. They used the event as a testament to the world that they had the mean to organise such a large event. It was a way to assert power. They used the global aspect of this event to put themselves on display. In that sense, the FIFA World Cup, by its dimension, is one of the few events that can help assert a country on the world stage.
However, this event does not appear to be a big deal for everyone, as evidenced by the discrepancy in viewership between men and women. For instance, in the US during the 2018 World Cup, the male viewership among 18-64 years old was almost twice as big as the women’s one (see graphs). And reaching new audiences would be an axis of improvement for FIFA.
More than being a big event, the FIFA World Cup is also a profitable one. The host country and FIFA make a profit through tourism, the sale of tickets and by-products and, mostly, through advertisement. It then comes as no surprise that the mediated reach is one of the four constitutive dimensions of mega-events (Müller, 2014) with visitor attractiveness, costs, and the transformative impact of the event. All these dimensions have an impact on the profitability of such events. For instance, Russia attracted 5 million visitors in 2018.
However, it can be stated the for the Soccer World Cup, the mediated reach remains more important than visitor attractiveness when it comes to profitability for the FIFA organisation. They are not the host country and are therefore more interested by this metric. Hence, it is relevant for FIFA to attract new publics, in order to justify the costs linked with their mediated reach (i.e. media right revenue). Although it is difficult to estimate the exact monetary benefits brought by the organisation of the tournament, it is thought that the media right revenues of the FIFA World Cup were between 2.4 billion (2010 edition) and 3 billion US dollars (2018 edition). They have kept growing since 2002 (1.2 billion).
With this perspective on the event, what could FIFA actually do in order to broaden the appeal of its event?
FIFA has to promote the World Cup through well communicated new ideas. To improve the positive visibility of the event, and foster the sense of community mentioned earlier in the essay, FIFA should develop events that bring fans together, even outside the host country. Fan zones where soccer enthusiasts can get together to watch the games in parks already exist and could be extended in less affluent countries, with the help of FIFA. Therefore improving its image in the eye of the public and reaching new communities.
Other innovations can be developed for the World Cup. Even with such a well-established event, there are always ways to better promote it. Competition from other sports or mega-event is always possible. And as Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter reminds us, there are different types of innovations that can modify a market (Schumpeter, 1942). FIFA should consider innovating. But out of the 5 major types of innovation imagined by Schumpeter, I believe that going in the direction of “a new way to organise the industry” would not be relevant because keeping a game that is easy to play and understand is what make its viewing popular. Rather, Schumpeter theory of innovation through new markets seems relevant here. For instance, The Men’s Soccer World Cup should turn its eyes to new countries to organise the event. It started with South Africa in 2010, or Canada-USA-Mexico in 2026. As of April 2022, the United-States still has to decide which 11 cities will host fixtures. It would be positive to put forward cities in “flyover” states, outside of the more multicultural and famous cities of the coasts. This would be a way to promote new regions on a world stage, and to reach new audiences that will feel valued by hosting games.
As the Soccer World Cup is a once every four years event, reaching new audiences does not have to mean creating hard-core fans but rather emulating new regular followers. One huge part of the population that is underrepresented in the viewership of the event is women. It would be positive for the event to involve more women in its viewership, but it would make sense that they do not feel represented in the males’ teams. And as a Women’s Soccer World Cup also exists, it would be unsuitable for the Men’s event to try to replace the women’s one, as if it were better. Instead, we could think about ways to promote the Women’s World Cup during the Men’s one. By having, for instance, a professional feminine game in the middle of the tournament. In a way, it will give a publicity boost to the women’s event, while engaging more with the women’s viewership.
Another way to reach new audiences is by creating indirect brand ambassadors for FIFA during the event. As underlined in academic literature, mega events are capitalistic events (Grix, Lee, 2013). They involve multiple stakeholders around them and are not just about sport. And FIFA should play on this. For example by building bridges with the e-sport world. Like updating virtual players characteristics as the event unfold and their stats change. This way, e-sport players will have a renew interest to see how the team they play with will evolve. New regular followers of the quadrennial event can be found in this community.
But to reach new audiences, the FIFA will face challenges. One of them is the competition from other sports. Indeed, some countries already have well-established national sports like Rugby in New-Zealand or American football in the USA. That is why FIFA should go step by step and not try to create a new passion for soccer in the minds of new viewers, but at least create an enthusiasm during the World Cup.
Another challenge revolves around the costs and the organisation of such a massive event. The FIFA World Cup is experiencing rising costs throughout the editions. Russia 2018 was the most expensive at $US 14.2 billion. And developing nations are by definition less able to organise this type of event because they are less affluent (Dowse, Fletcher, 2018). Therefore, the recent trend of organising the World Cup in new places might be limited by rising costs. One solution would be to organise it across countries to share the costs, notably on the infrastructures. For instance, organising the event across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Those nations have a strong football base that can be developed. And it would be a new step on the African continent.
The organisation of Soccer’s biggest event also raises ethical and social questions that have to be reckon with when it comes to promoting it. In general, the organisation should stay out of politics as it has done in the past editions. Indeed, with so many different countries to consider, promoting the event has to stay consensual and sport oriented.
But ethical questions around the event have risen. Especially in the past years with the corruption allegations against Qatar in its bid for the hosting of the 2022 edition. Besides, the country has faced backlashes for its approach to workers’ rights and the environment (the stadiums are equipped with massive air-conditioning machines). Those backlashes have notably been voiced on social media. A place that makes it easier for fans to voice their minds (Hopwood, 2010). However, it is not enough to have had a significant impact on the event. Qatar just dismissed critics. In the future however, FIFA should avoid linking the organisation of its major event to dubious practices. If repeated, it might become less and less morally and socially acceptable for viewers to contribute to the success of such event. All those challenges, notably ethical, are here to stay, but they can and should be address by FIFA.
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On this note, it can finally be said that the new ways of promoting the Men’s Soccer World Cup will take time and require a long-term plan. It is therefore a positive thing that the World Cup is already a major and quadrennial event, giving FIFA time to adapt to challenges and reach new audiences. FIFA should do so by making these new audiences a part of the event, showing them they matter and have something to take from the World Cup.
I believe that one of FIFA biggest challenge in the 21st century will be to consider emerging population that have a desire to be more connected to this popular sport that is soccer.
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