Football Feature: The Cup Runneth Over

A modest 38% of England fans will throw World Cup 'sickies' this month, costing the UK c.£1bn in lost work - but not in vain, as it can be scientifically proven that England are going to win. Yes, predictably, we are inundated with stats, and our Features Editor Teresa Lynch will bottle only the finest for you.

No walk of life escapes the globe's biggest sporting occasion, and MR companies (and many amateurs) produce facts and figures, polls and predictions. There's also some pretty trivial trivia out there. We'll bring you anything that grabs us, but if you see something particularly exciting that you think we have missed please mail us at teresa@mrweb.com and we'll try to include it.

If you're determined to carry on working during the games, and even to try interviewing others, you might find some advice from Jan Shury of IFF invaluable: read our exclusive feature Avoid Own Goals (The World Cup and Market Research). It includes planning ahead for data collection during the finals, and some discussion on trying to fill those nasty interlocking quotas of males aged 18 - 35 during an England match. [In fact, we humbly suggest that just for the duration of matches involving the respondent's own nation, you should avoid giving MR a bad name and leave the phones altogether - Ed].

Absenteeism during the finals
Figures published yesterday by the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) indicate that UK managers think there is the potential to lose £1bn-worth of working hours during the month-long tournament. 54% believe their staff will be distracted by online coverage and 53% believe that there will be too much distracting chat. Worse than this, 40% suspect that employees will throw 'sickies' in order to watch key matches. Strangely, of the employees interviewed by the CMI, only 1% said they themselves would consider calling in sick. Room for some interpolation there we feel, perhaps using some neuromarketing techniques, or just a CIA lie detection device.

Perhaps more realistically, a poll conducted by YouGov has found that 38% of British football fans plan to call in sick at some point during the cup and that this gets worse in countries such as Spain who think themselves more likely to progress. In South Africa itself the situation is even worse according to research agency Freshly Ground Insights who asked respondents what they would do if they were denied time off work to attend games. 45% said they would call in sick with some going so far as to attempt to buy a sick note from their doctor. Bottom of the heap were those who would plead a death in the family (5%) and those who would quit their jobs (2%). So why aren't all the tickets sold? Indeed.

Good advice on dealing with absenteeism comes from Professor David Sims of City University London's Cass Business School 'People who are fully engaged are likely to be even more alert during the World Cup. Employers who bring screens in to let their staff watch key games are likely to be rewarded by people working harder and more effectively for the other six hours of the day'.

Mobile access
Employers may be justified in worrying about staff accessing the matches surreptitiously. Last week Nielsen released figures on the likelihood of fans following the finals on their mobile phones. Globally 21% of fans said they 'would get at least some of their information' on their mobile phones by accessing the Internet.

However within this there were some huge national variations. The Middle East and Africa region was highest overall with between 22% and 30% of respondents saying they would use their mobiles for information. There was wide variation in South America with Venezuela coming out top with 27%: in Brazil the figure is 21% and in Argentina only 10% - after all, with a tiny screen, you can't see which part of the body has been used to put the ball in the net, which would never do, would it? North America was also split with 23% of US respondents but only 11% of Canadians planning to use their mobiles in this way. Europe was way below the average with Ireland the highest at 18% and Germany and Spain the lowest at 3%. Mobile usage was moderately negatively correlated (-0.46) with live TV broadcast but time delayed viewing was randomly correlated (-0.03) indicating that those who wanted to know the score would use their mobiles but still watch the televised highlights.

Further input for the 'mobile versus sofa' trend watchers arrived yesterday in the form of a newly published report by Pyramid Research ). The general thrust of this report is that this is the World Cup that really goes mobile.

Stela Bokun, author of the report says 'Events of this magnitude always present a sizable revenue opportunity for traditional pay-TV providers. The last World Cup, however, demonstrated that mobile operators that provide mobile video and mobile TV service also stand to benefit from such events.'

Pyramid's figures suggest that uptake of mobile TV services globally will be completely dependent on the penetration of sufficiently smart phones in individual markets. This would mean that if people can watch football on their phones they will and that those who can are mostly located in Western Europe and the US. These findings are somewhat at variance with Nielsen's, which suggest that national differences are more important than ownership of smart phones.

Here at MrWeb we believe that in Europe the majority of fans are going to sit down and watch the matches at home or in the pub with the mobile coming a very poor second. A quick browse shows that there are a lot of companies out there offering live matches over mobile for those whose phones have the necessary smarts. However it does seem that most of us prefer our football live and on the big screen.

World Cup Advertising
Women are a growing percentage of the audience for the World Cup - a fact which the major advertisers are reluctant to acknowledge. In the UK, when England is playing, a record-breaking 46% of those watching will be women. However as Raymond Snoddy points out at mediatel (www.mediatel.co.uk ) 'The beer makers and the car boys are definitely in this time' and some companies have actually either delayed campaigns aimed at women (Hovis) till after the cup or aimed alternative advertising at non football watching 'World Cup Widows' (Lastminute.com). This is perhaps unsurprising since a 30 second slot during England v USA or England v Algeria (which ITV will have exclusively) will cost £300,000 and the advertiser will get more female audience share during Corrie.

Prediction Time
Sit back and enjoy the World Cup safe in the knowledge that England is going to win. According to the predictions made by the Professional Football Players' Observatory (PFPO) in Switzerland England will beat Spain in the final having eliminated Brazil in the semis. Every match is carefully detailed on the web site. The PFPO arrive at their conclusions based on six key indicators: number of players between 27 and 32; percentage of players who have already taken part in a World Cup; number of players employed by top 10 European clubs; number of players playing in the top division in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France (the 'big five leagues'); percentage of players who played at least 25 games in 2009-10; and percentage of players who played at least 25 matches in the big five leagues.

Any suggestions that Swiss forecasting is like their cheese will surely not come from passionate England fans. However Tony Cascarino (late of among others Millwall, Celtic and Chelsea) is not letting his heart rule his head in the Times: in his scenario the Brazil v England semi goes the other way and Brazil beat Spain in the final.

I think an each way bet on Spain might be in order and to quote Dr Raffaele Poli of the PFPO 'We wish everyone an exciting World Cup and may the best team win'. Unless of course it's Germany.

Teresa Lynch



The World Cup begins this afternoon at 4pm local time in the Soccer City stadium, Johannesburg, with hosts South Africa taking on Mexico and concludes with the final on 11th July (kick-off 8.30pm local time) in the same stadium. There are 64 matches in all, of which the highlight may be England-USA tomorrow but is more likely to be North Korea vs Brazil on Tuesday 15th (Johannesburg Ellis Park, 8.30pm local time).

A wonderful guide to what's happening with whom when and where is at www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html - hover around with that cursor and you'll see everything linked.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.