Women's Football

[Spammer]

There seems to be a lot of negativity about women's football, especially it being on the telly despite viewing figures in the millions. I don't really understand it to be honest.

What are your feelings on it? Did you watch it?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Getting it out there with a high profile is incredibly important. Sport is brilliant, everyone should play more sport, and that includes women and girls.

Comparisons to men's play are completely irrelevant.

[Baz]

https://secure.static.tumblr.com/ea5a76e0f3b0f0f5ce12c1c1d650b9a4/he6odax/Xumnx5ov4/tumblr_static_tumblr_static_e29cnq19x2osk04s8gksgs kgg_640.gif

[Giggles]

Couldn't give a shit about it but everything has to be EQUAL now so it'll be everywhere.

[Offshore Toon]

Nobody watches it.

[Spammer]

Millions of people watched England last night and in the quarters.

[Kikó]

If the game is invested in, they will improve and it might be watchable. But not by me, I don't care enough to watch another form of football.

Good luck to the women's game. At least they're relatively normal people compared to the hell in a hand basket that is the top level of football.

[Mazuuurk]

The problem with Womens football is a catch-22:

There isn't enough money & fame in it to get people to devote enough to become at a reasonable level compared to the men, which makes it all always look a little uninteresting when you watch it - which makes people not invest money in it.

Compared to for instance Athletics and Tennis...
Now, Murray would still trounce Serena Williams, I'm sure, but Serena Williams would trounce most male players below a certain level, let's say only the 1000 best males in the world would win against her.

Whereas if you stuck a lower League 2 male in a top level womens team, he's be a superstar I reckon, whilst being maybe the 50.000th best player in the world.
Well you get the idea anyway.

[Pen]

I have no time for it, but I echo Jimmy's thoughts about people needing to get into playing sports more no matter what their gender is. That said, it doesn't mean I'd watch them do it.

[Amigo]

I've been following the women's Euros a fair bit.

On the whole it's been an enjoyable event, even if there's been some seriously terrible refereeing.

As I've said in some other thread, the tournament has received a lot of press coverage here in Iceland and it resulted in a lot of interest among the public. Viewership numbers for the games of the Icelandic team are comparable to that of Euro 2016 and there were thousands of travelling supporters at every game. If the media shows it interest, then the public will show interest as well.

Build it and they will come.

[John Arne]

The worst part of this tournament was the annoying, massively condescending commentator on the feed I had. She explained everything like I had never seen a game of football before.

[Spammer]

I guess the level of assumed knowledge is lower because of the likely increased number of bints watching it at home.

[Lewis]

People are watching it because it's football and it's on the telly. Manchester City W.F.C., who are generally regarded as the standard bearers for the sport (whilst further whitewashing who and what the owner is), had an average crowd of 2249 last season. The tickets cost six quid each as well. How many women go and watch actual City every week? Women getting into football is obviously good, but they, like everybody else, will just watch the good stuff.

[Mike]

I've watched some and it's alright. Alright in the same way The Championship is alright.... You'd rather be watching the Premier League, but it'll do.

[phonics]

Chnnael 4 reporting that they got the largest audience share (percentage of people watching 4 rather than other people) than it has had of any programming in 2017 for the match last night.

[Jimmy Floyd]

People are watching it because it's football and it's on the telly. Manchester City W.F.C., who are generally regarded as the standard bearers for the sport (whilst further whitewashing who and what the owner is), had an average crowd of 2249 last season. The tickets cost six quid each as well. How many women go and watch actual City every week? Women getting into football is obviously good, but they, like everybody else, will just watch the good stuff.

2,249 is quite a lot really, in the grand scheme of things.

The thing people have to do is think of women's football / women's rugby etc as separate and inevitably less popular sports (but still enjoyable on their own merits), not a jam and Jerusalem poor relation of the men's game.

[mugbull]

I've always wondered whether the people who get all feisty about Roger Federer being called the best player ever (instead of 'best male player ever') would agree that in fact Esther Vergeer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Vergeer) is the best tennis player of all time.

If you keep breaking down a sport into subcategories and viewing them all equally, then you lose any real analytic power you might've had

[Kikó]

That doesn't even work as the best ever is/should be Martina Navratilova. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martina_Navratilova

[mugbull]

She may have won 49 Grand Slam titles to 42, but Vergeer had at one point a 470-match winning streak, which kind of knocks Navratilova out of the water

[Lewis]

2,249 is quite a lot really, in the grand scheme of things.

The thing people have to do is think of women's football / women's rugby etc as separate and inevitably less popular sports (but still enjoyable on their own merits), not a jam and Jerusalem poor relation of the men's game.

It's not really. Aldershot Town average that over a season, and they 1) are in the fifth tier; 2) are surrounded by better sides; 3) don't play on that MASSIVE City central campus; 4) charge nineteen quid a ticket; 5) don't benefit from huge over-promotion by the likes of the BBC and Channel 4 (and City). Whatever; but if it's a separate sport then it should be treated like any other sport that barely anybody watches, which means not devoting inordinate amounts of coverage and resources to it.

[Offshore Toon]

Aye, "millions of people" will watch anything that's on one of the main channels during prime time.

[bruhnaldo]

Manchester City W.F.C. had an average crowd of 2249 last season.

Just for sake of conversation, Orlando Pride are averaging 7600 at the moment :)

In fairness, this is buoyed a bit by the home opener which fit in around 15k, but our last match we had 6,073.

Marta :drool:
Alex Morgan :drool:

[Jimmy Floyd]

It's not really. Aldershot Town average that over a season, and they 1) are in the fifth tier; 2) are surrounded by better sides; 3) don't play on that MASSIVE City central campus; 4) charge nineteen quid a ticket; 5) don't benefit from huge over-promotion by the likes of the BBC and Channel 4 (and City). Whatever; but if it's a separate sport then it should be treated like any other sport that barely anybody watches, which means not devoting inordinate amounts of coverage and resources to it.

What is missing out on coverage and resources because women's football has more?

[Lewis]

Aldershot Town.