Kevin at FootyCon 2019

Delegates pose in football shirts at the conference dinner

Kevin: I enjoyed attending FootyCon 2019 at Manchester City's Ethiad Campus where I presented our paper comparing the 1966 and 1994 FIFA World Cups. The Ethiad Campus, with its many nursery pitches, was worth visiting in itself as an example of modern practice in the football industry.  The conference was excellently hosted and organized by Dr Gary James of De Montfort University and featured keynotes by practitioners and academics alike.  The academic keynote by Marion Stell, of the University of Queensland was especially interesting for its focus on the comparative merits of documentary versus oral history in researching the development of the women's game in Australia.  Stell found that some player's reminiscences of matches played nearly forty years ago did not line up with the reality as reported in newspapers, some of which came from scrapbooks kept by the players themselves.  The practitioner keynote was provided by former Sunderland, Man City and New York Cosmos star Dennis Tueart who focussed on lessons for business practice from his football career.

This is the abstract of our paper:

We provide a comparison of the 1966 and 1994 FIFA football World Cup finals tournaments, examining how the marketing strategies for these events aimed at the whole people - and the populist elements of such strategies. The two cases provide interesting comparison and contrast: - Firstly, both were relatively rare examples of financially successful World Cup tournaments, although there are geographic and temporal dimensions to consider: In both cases the economic benefits were not experienced equally by all stakeholders or uniformly across the entire duration of the tournaments, as ‘world cup fever’ and the anticipated tourist bonanzas were not realised by all host cities. - Secondly, both tournaments were notable for mass-marketing innovations, i.e. the introduction and popularity of the first mascot and serious licensing/product marketing efforts in 1966, and then the increasingly sophisticated targeted branding and merchandising strategies of 1994. - Thirdly, both tournaments contributed to the popularising of 'soccer' and the FIFA World Cup in their respective countries, for example soccer becoming more accepted by the 'mainstream' mass-media. In turn this further enhanced the sport and the World Cup tournament as spectacle and as a platform for advertising, and ultimately to the commercial and economic growth of FIFA (which today has more members than the UN). - Fourthly, linked to this popularizing of the sport, both tournaments evidence ways in which Heads of State as well as other politicians and municipal leaders identified opportunities to associate themselves with soccer and its world cup, and how these efforts can be considered against the back-drop of 'populism'.

Predicting the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals Part 2: Knockout Stages & Overall Analysis

And so, a week on from the Final, the dust has settled and the sun has set on the FIFA Women's Cup.

What a tournament it was! Exciting, good quality soccer games.  Watched by millions of viewers around the world.

In the end, the USA won it once more.  But for fans of other teams, it was enjoyable to see things progress and up until the very end there was a chance that the World Cup might be won by a European team.

England did well and got to the semi-finals once more, although ending with a slightly sub-par performance in the third/fourth place play-off game.  But overall, it was a valiant effort and they came very close to reaching the final.  If they had, there is every chance that they could have won it. But unfortunately, it was not to be.

Anyway, what we are excited to tell you about is our second report on our predictions.  Did we do better at foretelling the knockout-stages than we did for the group stage? Did we perform better than the random dice? Who correctly guessed the winners, and how did that differ to the predictions that we made before the tournament even began?

Below is a summary as to how accurate we all were for the Knockout Stages:

	AG	KT	JF	Dice
Total Points Scored / Available	37 / 80	23 / 80	38 / 80	27 / 80
% ACCURACY	46.3%	28.8%	47.5%	33.8%

And for the overall tournament (knockout + group stages):

	AG	KT	JF	Dice
Total Points Scored / Available	139/ 260	113 / 260	102 / 260	88 / 260
% ACCURACY	53.5 %	43.5 %	39.2 %	33.8%

As shown, Alex gets our 'gold medal' as a predictor, being correct about half of the time! Kevin's performance took a fairly dramatic dip but he still finished with a credible 43.5%.  Jon upped his game significantly this time around, being 'king' of the knockout stage predictions to drag his overall total up, but just missing out to Alex.  The dice were the most consistent performers, scoring 33.8% across both group and knockout stages, suggesting that dice are only ever a good way to predict outcomes around 1 out of 3 times.

Back at the very start of the tournament both Kevin and Alex thought that England would finish in fourth place and that is exactly what happened.  the dice' predictions for a South Korea v Jamaica final sadly did not come to pass though and with hindsight, the USA victory should have been predicted.  Our excuse? We thought that being on another continent and not the best of form or strongest USA team might work against them. Ultimately, they found form and peaked to win it, and strength in depth was no problem.

Can the USA Women's team ever be de-throned? Let's find out in four years time!


Members of the 'researchgate' web community can read the short report for yourselves, now available:

Download report now (.pdf file)

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23058.20169

Reflections on attending the Cricket World Cup

Juggling with stumps and cricket bats at Chester-le-Street
- the blue van in the background is a CWC2019
mobile toilet support van!

Soccer-mad Boffin Kevin follows up his earlier post on the Cricket World Cup: Commiserations to England's lionesses on their loss to the USA in the FIFA Women's World Cup semi-final!  Today another England team in a different sport have a must-win match to ensure their qualification for the semi-final stage - in the Cricket World Cup, being held in England and Wales at the moment.

Your correspondent, a seasoned cricket watcher, attended two matches - West Indies v New Zealand at Old Trafford in Manchester (normally home of Lancashire), and West Indies v Sri Lanka at the Riverside, Chester-Le-Street (normally home of Durham).  Both seemed extremely well organized with the ground at Manchester being especially easy to get into, with almost no queue.  There was more queuing at Durham, but the tournament volunteers (or 'cricketeers') kept the queue entertained by announcing facts about the two teams playing.  Temporary stands were erected at both grounds to provide cheaper seating, the view from both being excellent, and plenty of catering, bar and toilet capacity was provided, especially at Durham where an army of temporary toilets was deployed alongside the already large existing facilities in the ground. A broad range of catering was provided and the area behind the stands at both matches used to set up a carnival atmosphere with a range of stalls selling merchandise and cricket equipment, as well as entertainers such as Carribean dancers and jugglers.  Beer fans will also be interested in the Indian craft keg beer that was sold, Bira 91 - the IPA was pleasant.  The on-field action was of high quality too, though the resurgent Windies team were unable to win on either occasion despite their valiant second innings performances. This despite the surprise presence of the Barbadian singer Rhianna at Chester-le-Street!

Panoramic view of the action at Old Trafford

Despite the fact that attendances at domestic cricket can be small, both grounds are already experienced at holding international cricket when England play at the venues and so this meant that existing capabilities could be rolled over by the counties and ECB to deliver a flawless spectator experience. By playing matches in one group of ten and rolling the host grounds from the south-west, with early matches held at Taunton, Cardiff and Bristol to the north-east as the tournament progressed, equipment such as portable toilets and catering as well as in-ground entertainers could be moved around the country. The Indian beer reflects the sponsorship direction of world cricket today, which sees brands that are targeting South Asian and especially affluent Indian consumers partnering with the ICC instead of western brands - the main western brands present were Uber and Coca-Cola, both of which are known for attempting to penetrate Asian markets.  The presence of existing capabilities in a single sport makes hosting the event easier than a multi-sport event such as the Olympics or Commonwealth games where events often happen on greenfield sites with no heritage of holding the sports in question.  The flaw may be the limited impact on local economies - your correspondent spotted many shirt wearing Sri Lankans heading south on the A1 after the Durham game, suggesting a repeat of 1966 finding that many visiting fans preferred to stay in one place centrally, rather than staying near host grounds.  One pleasant impact has been that domestic cricket has continued due to the limitations of the playing season, and so during the tournament the counties have moved out to play more at secondary venues, known as 'outgrounds', with Lancashire and Durham playing each other at Sedbergh School this week.

The ECB, who are much more powerful in their sport than their soccer equivalents, are frequently criticised for their management of the English game, while the ICC has often been criticised for their overt focus on the South Asian market while failing to invest in the growth of the game in non-Test playing nations. But on this occasion, the tournament seems to have engaged visiting fans from around the world together with broadening the fan base in England, and so the ECB and ICC have scored a century and taken five wickets each - howzat!