[Newshound47]

I do believe that if the Dutch team do well, people will watch.

Yes, these polls are pointless because I don’t think have really been thinking about this World Cup until the last week or so. And it’s a totally different kettle of fish if your nation starts to do well and momentum builds.

Well that’s what would normally happen but who knows. The opening couple of days are not that well scheduled in terms of grabbing European audiences with the not very exciting opening match and the main evening match of Wales v USA not having that much European appeal outside of the UK. Europe seems to be the main continent where ratings will be lower - the hype seems more normal in South America for example.  But in places like Germany it seems like the majority of core football fans are claiming they will boycott watching.

---

The main take out is that they are doing stadium based presentation, whereas for summer tournaments we have got used to having a single studio except for the biggest games

This will presumably mean it’ll be more basic, as one of the benefits of a single studio in recent years is all the fancy virtual stuff they do, both as part of the set, and also virtual graphics, tables, player line ups etc

Well it’s only possible because it’s being held in a tiny country where all stadiums are within 120 minutes of each other.