FIFA World Cup 2006: Just a football event?

FIFA World Cup 2006: Just a football event?

Focus of the Case Study

To critically examine the rise, importance and transformation of the consumer
experience of events within the context of the Germany 2006 World Cup. The
principal focus of analysis is the „Fan Fest‟ events, run for the first time at the
2006 World Cup.

Introduction and Background

The „Beautiful Game‟ of football (or soccer depending on national status) has
developed, from its roots in 19th century England to a sport with global appeal
and a billion dollar economy.       The World Cup represents the pinnacle of
footballing competition with its success, reputation and recognition rivalled only
by the Olympic movement. This case study examines this global „mega event‟
(Roche, 2000) with a specific focus upon the rise, importance and transformation
of the consumer experiences accumulated by a host of stakeholders.

The development of Western economies is marked by the growth in increasingly
diverse and sophisticated culture industries, which seek to create desire for their
products, services and experiences through the production, consumption and
circulation of symbolic meaning. Sport has long been a cultural vehicle of social,
economic and political significance.       Sporting contests have, for centuries,
provided a collective stage that taps into and accentuates emotive experiences.
These contests can, however, just as easily break as build bridges between
individuals, communities or nations. As the epitome of the sporting contest, the
football World Cup represents one of the greatest cultural events of our time.
Circulated by the mainstream and alternative media to every corner of the globe,
it provides an ideal illustration of a modern cultural arena where the consumption
experience is essential, multi-faceted and central to both personal and collective
identity formation and reinforcement.

In navigating this case study, a brief historical overview of the World Cup will first
be given, followed by an examination of the contemporary volume and value of
the event, leading onto a discussion of the specifics of Germany 2006. From
there, a series of critical positions focusing on the consumption experience of the
World Cup will be introduced. Towards the end of this case, questions are posed

and these will form the basis of discussion in the first conference weekend in
week 4.

The World Cup: a brief historical overview

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association‟s (FIFA) idea for a World
Football Championship originated out of the extremely successful Olympic Football
Tournaments of 1924 and 1928. The then FIFA President, Jules Rimet (the trophy
continues to take its founder‟s name), was the driving force behind the inception
of the World Cup, as it is known today. The first event was held in Uruguay in
1930 (they had been successful in the two previous Olympic tournaments) and
tournaments have since been held every four years, apart from a 12-year break
during wartime (1938-1950). The first tournament in Uruguay attracted a total of
434, 500 spectators (FIFA, 2006a), compared with 3.5 million in US ‟94
(Manzenrieter & Horne, 2002) and 3.3 million in Germany 2006
(www.planetworldcup.com). The number of competing teams has also increased
from 13 in 1930 to 32 in the last three tournaments. Since 1958 the tournament
has been held alternately in Europe and the Americas, although Japan and South
Korea hosted in 2002 and the African continent will host its first World Cup in
South Africa in 2012. The decision to expand the number of continents which
have hosted the tournament coincides with the unabated globalization of the
game and its growing importance in social, political and economic terms to nations
across the world.

The Volume and Value of the World Cup Experience

Since its inception in 1930 the World Cup has grown from relatively meagre
origins to become one of the most valuable sporting events on the planet. It is
now heralded as valuable in social, economic, cultural and political terms.
However, even though a significant body of literature exists which estimates the
economic outcomes of the World Cup securing an accurate measurement of the
economic, as well as social, political and cultural dimensions remains a difficult
and contentious area (Horne, 2007).

Nevertheless, the economic benefits still form the primary focus for most nations
in hosting a global event such as the World Cup. In the wake of the profit making
1984 Los Angeles Olympics global events such as the World Cup have been
touted as economic winners (Andranovich et al., 2001). With the „commercial
trinity of sponsors, advertisers, and television, football has demonstrated itself to
be the ultimate global commodity‟ to the point that for the Japan and South
Korea 2002 World Cup FIFA secured a „minimum of US$800 million‟ (Horne and
Manzenreiter, 2004: 197) for the television rights alone. Although financial
projections and considerations are elementary aspects of any business plan,
economics is not an exact science, which has been painfully highlighted in the
world of events. As a key part of the cultural economy many of the economic
activities associated with events are difficult to formally record. Events are
problematic for economists to forecast since they involve a plethora of
unrecorded or informal economic activities (e.g. black market activity in
merchandising, food or beverage or where friends or relatives substitute for
hotels or restaurants). For economists, who rely upon statistical tracking, the
economic potential of global events, such as the Olympics and World Cup have
tended to follow an economic pattern of over estimation.

Although television companies pay huge sums for the rights to screen key
international competitions, such as the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World

Cup and continental football competitions‟ (Bull et al, 2002: 120) media revenue
alone cannot offset the expenditure in staging an event like the World Cup. For
Germany 2006 economic cost projections took account of a pre-event phase of
facility building and renovation, infrastructure investment, the distribution of
burden between the public and private sectors, a plethora of present operating
costs and a post-event phase of operation and maintenance costs (Kurscheidt and
Rahmann, 1999). However, regardless of such economic modelling the economic
cost-benefit analysis of successive World Cups, in line with other mega events,
indicates „they are not the growth engines they purport to be‟ (Horne and
Manzenreiter, 2004: 187). Even in the USA, the home of event spectaculars, the
1994 World Cup found initial projected profits countered by „cumulative losses of
$5.5 to $9.3 billion‟ (Baade and Matheson 2004: 344). However, with a global
audience of 40 billion and a family of multi-national sponsors the 2002 World Cup
of Japan and South Korea has reversed this negative economic trend, which
bodes well for Germany 2006. Nevertheless, although hard and fast economics is
essential in any event they tend to attract an abundance of attention from
politicians and the media, which tends to overshadow and marginalize other, less
tangible, benefits a winning World Cup bid brings.

The World Cup: Symbolic Prestige and Legacy

With its Olympic roots the fledgling World Cup had a sound promotional platform
upon which to build. Even though small by today‟s standards, the original 13
team format and spectator audience highlighted the globalising potential of the
event. As the event expanded and global audiences increased FIFA quickly
realised that the economic lure of the event was only one area of attraction. The
global participation, understanding and mass appeal of the game enhanced the
importance of competition for nation states. The World Cup provides host nations
with the ultimate PR opportunity to positively showcase their nation and cultural
identity to the watching global audience. Echoing the civic pride associated with
past leisure development and events (Wood, 2002) the World Cup allows nation
states to penetrate and capture the global consciousness for a protracted period
of time. In terms of the experience economy (Pine and Gilmore, 1999) the World
Cup is a global emotional platform that captures the attention of billions.
Therefore, while the economic benefits of hosting global events are often placed
centre stage, quantitatively projected and debated (often due to vast
overestimations), the subjective and qualitative aspect of emotion is often
neglected.

Large-scale events are now an integral part of many national and city tourist
policies and strategies.   Events that move in a competitive cycle, such as the
British Open, UEFA Cup or Grand Prix, allow nations and cities to reinforce or re-
imagine their destination brand, generate inward development and investment,
draw and develop a relationship marketing opportunity with tourists (Grantton
and Dobson, 1999; Dimanche, 2002).                Even „established nations‟ have
recognised the „image enhancement effect‟ of the World Cup whilst others view
the hosting of such global events as a means to „symbolize their acceptance in
the international community‟ (Allison and Monnington, 2002: 107).              This
symbolic element reflects the importance of global events for national, city and
community identity. The superficial and myopic focus on economic gain tends to
deflect from the intangible or „softer‟ benefits that events such as the World Cup
bring.    The level of resources, sophistication of presentation and competition
nations and cities engage in (e.g. 2012 Olympic bids by London and Paris)
demonstrates the symbolic importance of winning global events. Moreover, such
global events have become so important in profile that global city status, and the

maintenance of such, demands competition itself (Shoval, 2001). The World Cup
is important because its size and profile demands bids from cities keen on global
positioning as much as seeking to maximise a surge in „civic boosterism‟.
However, and most importantly, the World Cup is about orchestrating emotive
experiences to engender „collective feeling, identity, emotion and consciousness‟
(Waitt, 2004: 399). Global events tap emotion and capture the attention of
consumers, which is so essential for organizers and event partners wishing to
maximise economic gain. Therefore, out of the many benefits that a global event
like the World Cup brings the symbolic status value found in experiential
consumption is fundamentally important, which is the real prize within the circuit
of global events competition.

The World Cup: a Technological journey

Originally conceived as the pinnacle of world football competition, where the
greatest players displayed their talents to swathes of people across the world‟s
most famous stadia, the World Cup is now associated as much with commodity
and spectacle as it is with footballing prowess and meritocracy.              As an
increasingly spectacular and mediatised event (this will be the focus of discussion
later), the World Cup is inseparable from its relationship with television. The
World Cup epitomises the idea of mediasport as it has developed in tandem with
advances in media technologies (Crawford, 2004). The outcome is an event very
different from the pre-1960s World Cups. Whereas the print media and radio
covered these events, spectators now access the World Cup via a wide array of
media outlets. Taking the established broadcast media as an example, the World
Cup now reaches a colossal television audience. In Japan and South Korea 2002,
213 countries accessed 41,100 hours of television coverage producing a record
49.2 billion viewer hours (FIFA, 2006b). It is evident that, although attendances
at the World Cup itself continue to rise, the real growth potential in extending the
reach of this event is likely to come through second-hand, mediated forms of
experience. These forms include the Internet, fan fests, satellite television and
mobile technologies. Competition for the rights to World Cup content come at a
price, evidenced by the sizable sums of money offered by the KirchSport group to
secure the television rights to the 2002 and 2006 events.            Germany 2006
represented a significant milestone in the means of consuming the World Cup
spectacle. Never before had there been as much consumer choice in the platform
used to experience a major sporting event. Those consuming from a distance
(physically, at least) were able to exercise more consumer power than ever
before, as they decided when, where, with which broadcaster, at what time and
at what price they were going to „participate‟ in the World Cup event. Germany
2006 was watched by 5.9 billion people in total, with an average television
audience of 93 million viewers for each match (Initiative, 2006). The cumulative
television audience was 32.5 billion and (www.infrontsports.com) 284 million
people watched the Italy vs. France final on television. The convenient television
times for European and South American audiences helped improve these figures.

Germany 2006: The Festival of Football and A Time to Make Friends

The Organising Committee (OC) of Germany 2006 decided the motto for the
events would be “a time to make friends”. Within this overarching vision, this
World Cup was the most „fan‟ oriented event in its 76-year history. The OC, in
collaboration with fan organisations and the footballing authorities from across
the world, embedded the World Cup motto in practice through the concept of a
fan and visitor programme

(http://fanguide2006.fifaworldcup.com/en/fan-betreuung).         The  underlying
rationale for this programme was to ensure that Germany provided a welcoming
environment for a variety of fan groups, offering a peaceful and tolerant space
through which to consume the World Cup. The philosophy of peace, friendliness
and tolerance was not merely an act of altruism on behalf of the OC. Rather, this
strategy was informed by literature pertaining to the management of hooligan
behaviour. In addition to the fan concept programme, the other principal means
of managing the consumer‟s experience of the World Cup in Germany itself was
the „Fan Fest‟. These festivals of music, dance, carnival and, of course, live
football beamed to a frenetic audience, attracted in excess of 11 million
spectators (and participants) over the course of the month-long event. The
development of interactive TV and the internet were central to the event and the
facilitation of the event experience.

Interactive TV – the consumer is sovereign, one click of a remote control and
you are listening to a different commentator, switching the angles, accessing
instant replays, perusing the endless statistical analysis of the games, finding out
the „story‟ behind the players, the nations, the wives. The promise of enhanced
fulfilment on the press of the „red‟ button, exploiting the idea of „control‟ and, in
the case of the terrestrial broadcasters, at no additional cost.

The Internet & Blogs – Germany 2006 represents by far the most web-based
sporting event of all time. A multitude of „official‟ (www.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com)
and „unofficial‟ (read fan based) representations of the World Cup experience
were available to a range of audiences. The use of „unofficial‟ blogs provided the
running commentary of fan experience. The use of technology provides a
response, and counter use of technology, to the global dispersal and diffusion of
fans (Giulianotti, 1999). The official FIFA site not only provided the expected
bank of statistics and information about the destination, the team and the results,
it also constructed specific „fan‟ sections to accommodate the desire for
interactive engagement with unofficial culture.         The 12 th Man section was
promoted as being for the fans by the fans and the Germany 2006 organising
committee took this one step further with a designated fan site
(http://fanguide2006.fifaworldcup.com//en) to cater for the consumers of the
World Cup experience. The role of the Internet in Germany 2006 was not simply
as a repository of information. In the UK, the BBC‟s interactive services extended
to live online coverage of games. Again this further enhances the flexibility of
consumption evident at Germany 2006 with the potential for fans to watch games
at home, at work, and on a plethora of mobile technologies literally „on the go‟.

Germany 2006: Spectacular Experiences and Vicarious Lifestyles

The rise and importance of modern events corresponds with shifts towards a post-
industrial society. With the affluence of the 1960s, dependence on manufacturing
began to decline to the point where „less that one-sixth of employees in Britain
today still earn their living in manual jobs in which they manufacture things or
extract materials from the earth‟ (Roberts, 1999: 22).           This shift from
manufacturing has been matched with an exponential rise in the service sector.
New demands in leisure and culture were reflected throughout the entertainment
and events sector, which has undergone rapid transformation and is now
professionally operated with mass commercial appeal (Mintel, 2004). The World
Cup, though with an established history, has not gone untouched by this rise in
the service sector. Rather the global demand and development of entertainment
and events directly responds to the individualised quest for difference and
excitement within a post-industrial age. The emotion, energy and unpredictability
of the game made football an ideal outlet for escapism and excitement. With the

development of increasingly sophisticated technologies the thrill and spectacle of
football has become a globally-mediated commodity:

       Football fans…will experience numerous moments of tension and
       excitement, dramatic scenes of victory and defeat, packaged and
       delivered to them by ever-more sophisticated media technologies
       (Manzenreiter & Horne, 2002: 2)

Since the mid-60s the television revolution has gathered pace with the original
fears over the impact on attendances allayed in favour of the benefits
commercial power and promotion could bring to the game. The televisual impact
took a global leap in the late 1980s when the satellite provider BSkyB broke the
terrestrial monopoly and launched three dedicated sport channels (Whannel,
1992). However, television was not a passive mediatizing vehicle but an actively
transformatory technology. Television changed football, and many other sports,
from a game coveted by zealot fan groups to a mass form of entertainment.
Football was no longer simply about results and the bastion of core fans but a
globalised „spectacle that sells the values, products, celebrities, and institutions
of the media and consumer society‟ (Keller, 2001: 38). The Germany 2006
event represented a new zenith in this process.

In Germany 2006 the decision was taken to provide a series of Fan Fests in host
cities through a series of Fan Parks. Promoted and accentuated through the
tournament logo the Fan Park was „the ultimate meeting point for fans‟ where
they could enjoy a „superb festival of football‟ (FIFA, 2006: 3). The Fan Parks
were designed to be more than spill-over holding zones. Instead these were
positive spaces, „guaranteed to offer the best viewing opportunities and a great
atmosphere‟ (FIFA, 2006: 3) all supplemented with an international array of
food, beverages, merchandising, music and activities for the family. In directing
ticket-less fans away from stadiums, the Fan Fests tapped into the gentrified and
commodified condition of modern football (Giulianotti, 1999). With low presence
security and the promotion of a family and festival atmosphere which brought
opposing fans and the indigenous German population together, Fan Parks
proactively defused the potential for tension and violence that has marred
previous major football tournaments.

With restaurants and stalls selling food and beverage from every footballing
nation, merchandising, games, displays, competitions, music and dance, the Fan
Parks evoked an international and multi-cultural feel alongside commercial
comfort. The sophistication of this mediatized and commodified experience was
facilitated by the formal and informal use of technology. In a time when
technology is so engrained in the modern psyche and consumer practices (Frew
and McGillivray, 2004) fans respond to and have integrated technology in order
to secure distinctive and spectacular experiences. With 60 square metre screens
and cameras trained on crowds, MCs and presenters, games, competitions and
music, organisers were able to extract and orchestrate peaks of frenzied activity
from fans captured and circulated via webcasts to a global audience. However,
this formal capture and mediatization of fan experience was mirrored by the
simultaneous recording of such activity by fans themselves through video and
mobile phone technologies. This cyclic spectacle of watching, recording and
transmitting captured experience reflects the trend whereby the „technologically
dazzling‟ is „playing an increasingly central role in everyday life‟ (Kellner, 2001:
39). The Fan Parks of Germany 2006 accentuated this phenomenon, facilitating
the accumulation of memorable and apparently unique experiences in these Fan
Parks (e.g. food, events and merchandise goods). These Fan Parks are evidence
of an extension beyond service into an experience economy (Pine and Gilmore,
1999). In Fan Parks the „technologically dazzling‟ mediatized world grabs

attention, facilitates and manipulates the emotional release of unique
experience. These experiential moments are not committed to memory but
circulated, networked and relived for the cultural cache or prestige they bring.

Understanding Resistance

The fact that the World Cup, and the global sport industry in general, is an
increasingly branded, mediatized, managed, commodified and corporately
controlled product (Crawford, 2004) does not mean that it is free of challenge or
resistance. Rather, the technologies responsible for revolutionising the World Cup
as an event have also provided a means to circumnavigate corporate control and
containment. In Germany 2006 the World Cup was exposed to such resistance
through the cultural revolution of „blogging‟ whereby the control of content
production transfers from the rights holder to the fan.

The importance of the blog comes in the fact that „official‟ discourse can be
subverted in favour of alternative representations of the event. Whilst the World
Cup‟s corporate sponsors exert significant influence over the mainstream
mediatisation of the event, the blog scene re-positions the „passive‟ consumer
with a much more „active‟, resistant and rebellious consumer. The managed
experiences of Fan Parks are not as pliable as first thought. For example, thrill
and fame seeking fans can move beyond the „accepted‟ fun and playful national
parodies to gregarious behaviour that is beyond the sensibilities of broadcasters
or their sponsors. While mainstream broadcasters can edit such behaviour and
control content, fans are able, through their technology, to self-broadcast and
build profile through blog sites. This extends to officially sanctioned merchandise,
logos and brands, which can be exposed to the subcultural practices of bricolage
and detournement (Kidd, 2002).            Just as the media and technological
revolutionised the modern World Cup into a globally commodified, dizzying
spectacle of emotional release and experience it has come to challenge this
sporting world dominated by corporate interest.            The edited, distilled and
manufactured spectacles of the World Cup experience are no longer sovereign as
fans can broadcast their own World Cup narratives in real time, any place,
anywhere.

Key Images

Supporting Documents

Please see the Blackboard website for links to supporting articles and resources

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