FOX Sports Women's World Cup Promo Features Actual Women...After 30 Seconds
By Ty Duffy
The Women’s World Cup is this summer. Fox Sports released an official promo. If you make it through the first 30 seconds, you may spot some bonafide women playing soccer.
These women “have a score to settle,” though it’s not mentioned what that score is. Either because it’s presuming you didn’t watch the final with Japan in 2011, because getting all jingoistic about “a score to settle” with Japan would get dicey, or because, like claiming “it didn’t end when the final whistle sounded,” (What didn’t end? Define final.) it’s just a vapid cliche.
The premise of using the USMNT to sell the USWNT is more than a bit foolish. American fans have embraced the Women’s World Cup. The 2014 Men’s World Cup Final drew a 9.1 rating and 17.3 million English language viewers. The 2011 Women’s World Cup Final drew a 7.4 rating with 13.5 million viewers on ESPN. That was significantly less than the 18 million that tuned in to watch the U.S. women win in 1999.
The USWNT has the two key ingredients for being embraced by a mainstream American audience: they are American and, unlike the men, they are exceptional. They play at an elite level. Germany narrowly topped them for No. 1 overall in the latest FIFA ranking.
Let the product sell itself American have been doing it for more than a decade. Without treading too far into Sepp Blatter territory, they will probably do a better job attracting that casual male World Cup carry over audience than Jermaine Jones.