anthonyliberatori

Especially on the tourist side, everyone had to fly into Seoul anyways to get to Pyeongchang. Plus, they had all the debacles with the lack of accommodations, all of which sit relatively empty right now, especially outside of ski season. It would've been a lot easier on press and tourists for this kind of approach, and it seemed successful with Vancouver/Whistler 2010 and Sochi/Krasnaya 2014. Hopefully it goes smoothy with Beijing/Yanqing 2022 and Milan/Cortina 2026 so we can see bids such as Tokyo/Nagano, Lyon/Grenoble, Barcelona/Pyrenees, Oslo/Lillehammer, Denver/Vail, Munich/Garmisch, etc. Seems to be the most sustainable way that Winter Games will function moving forward.

What I thought, it was a "mention". That same mention wasn't met well by many players and clubs, and many of them, including the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Julie Foudy, voiced their opinions against this. It really isn't fair to give women half the glory all under the guise of "developing the sport". If they have all of this money to throw at host nations and clubs for qualifying, I would argue it would be more advantageous for them to fund clubs and television networks to showcase the women's game. As we learned with France 2019, if it's on TV, people will watch it. If they are given something to cheer for, they will pay money and go cheer for it. This idea has never been floated for the men's world cup because they recognize how important and special of an event it is, and athletes give up their bodies and countless months away from home to train, knowing they only have 3, maybe 4, chances to go at lifting that trophy. I know it wasn't you in particular who suggested it, but quite frankly, it's not fair to women at all, and I doubt they would be able to fill a 55k+ stadium for a final, much less for four quarterfinals, two semi finals, and a 3rd place game, every 2 years. It actually might be more advantageous for them to coordinate and support more small tournaments, like the Tournament of Nations and Tournoi de France, to help grow the national team culture while the club culture grows. Just a thought.

Has there been any word on Football qualifications and regulations? Will they extend the 23 year old age limit to 24 so the ones that were on the cusp can still play? Or will the 23 year olds have to sit this one out? What about qualification? As an American, this is important to me, because truly our 18-23 year olds are playing better and stronger football (especially against international sides and in international clubs) than our older players. Want to know if there's any hope for an American appearance in football

Can you confirm this? I have not seen any indication of this anywhere - in fact, them expanding the women's tournament to 32 teams like the men's World Cup seems to indicate they're more in this for the traditional 4 year haul. Honestly, I find every 2 years to be somewhat insulting to the women footballers and their clubs. Why should women get half the glory? Further, on the basis of developing club teams and growing football in certain regions, how are they to do that when the icons/stars will be pulled more frequently for national team commitments?

This point makes me think about the money the TV companies would make off of an Olympics if a larger percentage of the population is at home watching on TV. While unethical on many levels, from a business standpoint, more people stuck in their homes = more people watching on TV, and considering an already-lax July/August TV schedule for sports besides the Olympics, I wonder if the TV companies will also lobby in favor of an on-time Olympics, unethically betting on the increase in streaming revenue. It is very shady and almost inhumane that it could come at the health of the athletes, but we are talking about the IOC ... they're no stranger to that. And god forbid they can help bring some peace and happiness during or at the end of this tragedy, I think both Japan and the IOC want to be on their version of the "positive" side of history. That's truly the only justification I can think of for not only not postponing Tokyo 2020, but being so adamant about not doing it. I think that's what's getting me, is how strong they are in their position. While I agree with them that an on-time Games could very well happen, as the virus didn't even exist three months ago, so it's hard to justify canceling something in four months, the qualification period which ensures that the best athletes from the best NOCs compete, which is going on now, which will create, as a previous poster said, a "watered-down" Olympics. Tough times.

Yay! The IOC wants to be the beacon of hope for the world, or as they say, "the light at the end of a dark tunnel"! That has worked out SO well for them in the past!

Exactly what I was thinking, just had to throw the idea out there. I think it's a little ignorant to do such a thing as well.

For anyone who can remember back to it - didn't Vancouver 2010 happen right in the middle of the Swine Flu outbreak? And if I remember correctly, like Japan is now in 2020, Canada had the situation under better control than other countries, but still had to welcome in visitors and athletes from countries where that wasn't the case ... What was the difference? I know the vaccine came right around November/December 2009, but again ... only a few months before the Games. Do you think the IOC is (likely wrongfully) equating the two diseases, and thinking "if we made it through Vancouver 2010, which ended up being touted as one of the best Winter Games of all time, we can make it through Tokyo 2020?" Because I, like many of you, would love to see an on-time Olympics, as I not only have tickets, flights and hotels purchased, but am aware of the enormous scheduling conflict this poses, but Bach's strong position on the fact that the "Games will go on as scheduled" has kept me thinking (mostly because I'm stuck in the house).

My bad! I saw your location says "Leiden, The Netherlands" and just assumed

Being Dutch, get some tickets for women's football! You have one of the best players in the world right now, Miedema, and the best part is, she's very young. She also deserved top 3 in the Balloon d'Or over Alex Morgan (and I'm American). If you haven't already, they'll be a great team to watch! Hell, I want to see them very badly I'm hoping Team GB gets a higher FIFA ranking than the Netherlands so there's a chance the USA and the Dutch will be drawn together in the group stages!

Did you mean "east" coastline? Because Perth is in the bid book, but that's definitely on the West side. I'm surprised they even included Perth honestly, as it seems like they have enough stadiums in enough cities split over the two countries. Hopefully the plans for Perth to host fall through, unless Perth plans to have Group A (ie Team Australia) games only.

Doing more investigation, and FIFA apparently wanted the tournament in that window, that wasn't Australia/NZ's decision (I assumed they would try to move it back towards the North American fall like Sydney 2000 so it would be warmer, but guess not. Japan's bid book says they would plan on hosting during the traditional time, early June to early July. Anyone have an idea why this timeframe is considered bad now? It's what the men do, but usually end in mid-July, because it's a longer tournament, and it's how most WWCs have been formatted.

It should be noted with the Australia/New Zealand 2023 bid, they plan on staging the tournament July 10-August 20, 2023, which would disrupt the start of the English, German, and Spanish women's leagues, and border up against the starts of the French league. Might draw some anger from UEFA, who will likely get the most increase in spots for qualifying (Denmark didn't go to France 2019, and they played in the final ... they were beaten by the Netherlands, who barely qualified, after a last-spot-decision matchup against the Swiss. Moral of the story, there is more talent in European Women's football that didn't even make it to France). Just an initial negative I'm seeing with this Australia/New Zealand bid.

In the Brazil bid book, am I correct in thinking they only plan on opening up half of each stadium for spectators? Most of the stadiums listed in the bid book only show seat allotments in half of the stadium, and considering the stadiums all seat over 40k, I'm hoping they aren't planning on only opening half to reduce quantity to 20k. Not only would that hurt the atmosphere of those in attendance, but it looks bad on TV, and would make it a low point IMO for the Brazilian bid ... why would anyone pay so much money to be looking at an empty stadium on the other side?

The more I'm reading into this, it does sound enticing. Would be a good opportunity for Australia and New Zealand should they get picked. My heart still wants Brazil, but this would be an amazing option nonetheless.

For some reason I thought it was France, thanks for reminding me. But, maybe they will use the 2021 Women's Euro to help build support for a WWC bid. By then, they should have garnered up enough support from the Brits. Also, it's only a matter of time until FIFA institutes its confederation bidding rule, and considering it has the attention of AFC, CONMEBOL, CAF, and OFC countries, it could have likely slipped a word to the British FA that they should just save themselves the time, money and effort (Belgium also expressed interested immediately after France 2019, but was also shut down). If they do the two-editions rule that they have for the men, they can choose between Brazil, Australia/NZL and Japan for 2023 and 2027, basically opening the door wide open for England 2031.

True, and a smooth hosting of Tokyo 2020 could cement this.

To be fair, they lacked the support for the women's game truly up until this tournament. They didn't sell out any of the Team GB Games in London 2012, despite being a decent team, and considering the poor attendance they had in France for the 2019 tournament, I understand why. Hopefully it was this summer that sparked British interested, but I think the British FA wanted to focus its attention on getting the men's tournament back on home soil, as there is a lot of excitement building up towards the Euro final being in Wembley, and after the exciting run of the men's team in 2018, they likely want to use that momentum to bring it home for the men. Wouldn't be surprised if England looks to host a Women's Euro sooner or later, or maybe try for the 2027 Fifa WWC. Again, I really think Team GB in Tokyo will determine how much energy they put into it.

https://the18.com/soccer-news/2019-womens-world-cup-viewership-numbers-global-tv-ratings "South America has a 520% increase in consumption over the 2015 [Women's World Cup]". Granted, this could definitely be attributed to the Globo broadcast of the tournament, but viewership records were set in Brazil. This could've had to do with Rio 2016, which brought a lot of the best teams in the world close to home to play the talented Brazilian side, but South America was the biggest area of growth this past World Cup. Interesting to put into perspective, because while viewership was up all over the globe (finally crossed 1 billion), it should be noted that with powerhouses Brazil and Argentina in the tournament, plus Chile, and by possibly hosting in South America, you get another talented team like Colombia, you can expect good viewership and attendance within the continent. As stated above, I was pretty surprised at that in France, at how teams like England, Italy, Spain and even the Netherlands, whose fans all set viewership records for their respective women's sides watching at home, played games in front of half-full crowds. Maybe it's a good time for FIFA to send the tournament to South America, since it seems to be booming there. Let's not forget the domestic league records that have been set in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil in wake of this past WWC, all of which are a narrow-bodied-jet flight away from potential host cities in Brazil to cheer their countries on ...

I am going, but I have not heard about a Gamesbids meet-up. I would maybe ask this under the Tickets and Travel forum, or maybe create a new thread? I don't think that would've been planned in the thread about the Tokyo Ceremonies, but I could be wrong

I was personally tied between Australia and Brazil for 2023, but now that Australia has combined forces with NZL, I think logistically, I'm leaning towards Brazil. The Women's game is really taking hold there, it has the television market for the Americans (same team, 43% decrease in viewers from American primetime), and the venues were recently built and renovated for the World Cup and Olympics. Also support Japan, but I would rather them put their eggs in the basket for Sapporo 2034, so I'm biased. However, I understand why with the expansion to 32 teams, they would want to split it between Australia and New Zealand. However, as I stated in my above post, the location makes it extremely hard for tourists to get there, and the timezones will mess up primetime. In France, England played against Scotland in front of a mere 15,000 fans ... what makes anyone think the Brits would fly that far for a team that continues to disappoint them (barring they don't win gold at Tokyo 2020), when they couldn't take the one hour flight down to Nice, or the train across the channel to Le Havre? At least for Brazil, the only market that cannot be reached with a direct flight will be Asia, which hurts the AFC teams. However, two of those spots are almost guaranteed to Australia and Japan (unless something disastrous happens during their qualifying). For the Australians, they are a direct flight to Brazil, and for the Japanese, there are a significant amount of Japanese immigrants to Brazil (over 1 million of Japanese dissent in the country), so that could help fill stadiums. All other major markets, like Canada, USA, France, England, Netherlands, Sweden, etc can be reached with a direct flight or a mere plane change to a major airport, which to me, gives Brazil the advantage. And, for the smaller markets from North and South America that will qualify, this helps put them in primetime, which could help grow the games in their countries, and help increase competitiveness in two of the easier confederations in women's football. The only thing really standing in Brazil's way right now is really Bolsonaro. His rhetoric is not going to flow well with FIFA. However, with his approval ratings plummeting and political pluralism getting worse, he will likely be out of office by the time the tournament would go to Brazil.

Simply no reason for this. Australia could do it all by itself, without building venues for it as well. The good thing about the WWC is that you only really need stadiums that can seat around 20-30k people - half of the group games against the smaller nations likely won't sell out anyways. Coupled with how far away Australia is from everything, I expect that to be even more the case. Adding NZL makes it harder for tourists to get between the games, and considering the women's game is not as popular as the men's, I think that might discourage some from attending. NZL and Australia are further than most think, and by trying to co-host, it just adds a mess of confusion for the organizers and planners, as well as TV providers because of the time changes.

Better than simply sitting there. Kinda buys them time to figure out what to do with them since sustainability became a thought after Rio, which was about the time when most of the venues finished getting built. Would love to see them host the Youth Olympics, as Pyeongchang went very smooth, brought in a profit, and was not as problematic as it could've been.

The only bad thing about that is that I have to say off of social media and here all day - can't risk any spoilers! Depending on what my shift is that day, I'll watch whichever one I'm not working for, because I leave for Tokyo the next day, so I may be working double shifts or whatnot. But, I remember during Pyeongchang having to not check my phone all day, and that was hard, because I was so excited

Great change. Three huge television markets all the through the end. Not sure where the USA and France would've been if it had stuck with the Japanese alphabet but this is a change I can get behind. Hopefully it follows through to Beijing as well, with Italy before China at the end.