The Soccerphile World Cup 2002 Archives Click here to go to the current Soccerphile.com
February 4th 2001 Briton living in Japan looks set to score with his website dedicated to next year's cash-rich tournament.
RICHARD PHILLIPS logs on
While football fans are looking forward to next year's World Cup
in Japan and South Korea, entrepreneurs in cyberland have also been rubbing
their hands at the commercial opportunities on offer. For quick-witted
operators, cashing in on World Cup mania could prove an inspired move.
This is one of the biggest marketing extravaganzas on the planet - only
the Olympic Games can eclipse it for the wealth of corporate involvement
and wall-to-wall marketing opportunities. Dozens of firms are shelling
out hundreds of millions of pounds on assorted sponsorship deals.
Television rights for the tournament have soared into the stratosphere.
As the planet has converted from terrestrial and public service television
to subscription-driven broadcasting, Fifa soccer's ruling body has
picked up a guaranteed minimum of 1.3 billion Swiss francs (539 million
pounds) for the TV rights, with the final amount set to be much higher.
The figures are way above those paid for the TV rights to 1998's
World Cup in France. Andreas Herren, a spokesman for Fifa in Zurich, explained:
“The World Cup 2002 represents a quantum leap for Fifa.”
Less a quantum leap more an out-of-control explosion. In 1998 ITV and
the BBC paid just 4 million pounds each through a deal drawn up in 1989.
The audience figures were so enormous that ITV could charge 280,000 pounds
for each 30-second advertisement during the final.
Yet the UK television rights for 2002 are likely to go for a staggering
166 million pounds. It means sports fans without subscriptions to the likes of Sky or a cable company could miss out. Fifa rules provide that
fans should not have to pay to watch the World Cup.
But it looks as if, unless a British team qualifies, supporters will be
able to see pitifully few matches.
Should a UK team qualify, the situation will improve a little. Around
the globe, however, one consequence is that many fans who rely on public
service broadcasting will have to whistle among themselves. On the other
hand, supporters face further problems if England, for example, do manage
to get to the final rounds. South Korea and Japan, if nothing else, are
the most exotic destinations in the history of the tournament. But few
fans will be equipped for the culture shock of visiting these Asian nations
for the first time.
Football fan Philip Beech, co founder of soccerphile.com, believes that
is where his website could prove invaluable.
Beech, an expatriate based in Japan, says Soccerphile is designed to give
fans a guide to the two countries, their history and culture. And it will
help them to understand what Beech says remain relatively unknown countries
to Westerners.
Beech, who has lived in Japan 11 years and has a Japanese wife, got the
idea for his site after he was unable to discover on the Net any information
targeted at the discerning fan anxious to make the most of a Far East
trip.
“The site will try to explain Japan and Korea, some of their history,
without dumbing down, as well as providing news on the competition,”
says Beech.
He points to the official Fifa site, which sketches a history of Japan
but omits all mention of the Second World War.
At present he is looking for backing but has signed a number of commercial
partners, including a US ticketing company and a specialist British football
book site. The objective is to provide fans with a complete package for the tournament - from information on traveling to the stadia to booking
flights and making hotel reservations. Revenues will come from advertising and possible sponsors, in addition to flight, travel and accommodation
deals.
Content is not a problem - the site is also busy recruiting foreign language
writers with sections to appear in Portuguese and Dutch. The editorial
has tidbits of local information, which should appeal to most fans.
One cheery feature features Leslie Mottram, a Scottish-born referee who
has been voted the best man in the middle in Japan for the past three
years.
So far Soccerphile is one of two sites to have made a pitch for the World Cup. Its main rival is Fifa itself. Spokesman Herren explains that his organization wants to dominate web coverage of the tournament, a move
based in part on satisfying the needs of its sponsors, which include Gillette,
Adidas, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Fuji Film and Macdonald's.
Fifa will provide information on the World Cup through two sites. Fifa.com
the official Fifa platform, where fans can find detailed information on
the tournament. There will also be links to fifaworldcup.com - a site
that will promote the role of the sponsors more extensively. It is managed by ISL, the Swiss marketing and management agency that has won all the
rights to the World Cup.
Herren says the aim of Fifa is to provide a total service to fans so they
return to the two sites for all their needs in the run-up to the competition and when it is staged with the home nations hopefully making headway.
Sunday Express Feb. 4th 2001
Reproduced with the kind permission of Express Newspapers.
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