I have a bad feeling that only the football ferns and USWNT(if they are drawn to the correct group) games will be full and the other games will be half empty. Many of the continental tournaments going on had swaths of empty seats (even some of the women's euros matches).
Yipe any midweek games at night could be a tough sell in July. Also given the WC has been expanded to 32 teams I imagine there will be a few more ‘unfashionable’ teams than before.
Previous WWCs have been in summer? Also near large popn bases like Europe and North America. Next year is neither, so that will provide a challenge
I see the Phillipines have qualified. Would be cool if they played in NZ. Big expat community now in Godzone and generally really decent, good, hard working people. I’m sure they would proudly turn out in force if their dairy farm & hospital bosses gave them some time off. Not many opportunities to cheer on a Filipino sporting team for them
Re Phillipines, their mens basketball played in a Basketball World Cup qualifier 3 weeks ago in Auckland, attendance 3827. I don't think you will get the crowd you are thinking of.
Yeah you are probably right. I of course have now gone down a Wiki rabbit hole.
There were 72,612 people identifying as being part of the Filipino ethnic group at the 2018 New Zealand census, making up 1.5% of New Zealand's population.
In terms of population distribution, 45.2% of Filipino New Zealanders lived in the Auckland region, 28.9% lived in the North Island outside the Auckland region, and 25.9% lived in the South Island. The Kaipātiki local board area of Auckland had the highest concentration of Filipino people at 5.4%, followed by the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki local board area (3.9%) and the Ashburton District (3.8%).
So the expat popn not as big as a I thought. Though it's likely increased again since 2018 census. I've got mates who are dairy farmers in Southland and Canterbury, who tell me much of the workforce is Filipino. But I guess we are talking rural areas with small popns. When I did my 2 weeks MIQ back in 2020, nearly all the nurses at the MIQ Hotel in Christchurch were Filipino.
But Sydney being the multic cultured beast it is of over 5M souls, could have more Filipinos than NZ alone. Surprising that they ain't using Parramatta Stadium for the WWC, given how multi cultural Western Sydney is. Must be below the stadium capacity threshold.
Anyway hopefully the tourney draws good crowds in NZ. But I imagine for some of the less attractive fixtures, they may need to do promotions like free tickets to school kids, get local clubs to adopt a team etc.