Aguero, Messi, James, Sanchez, Firmino, Coutinho - who not?
The number of world class players, the number of big names playing in Copa America is quite high!
Still it doesn’t gain same popularity like Euro.
Why?
Lack of live telecast options? Match timings? Poor refereeing? Or boring football?
Lets discuss!
Definitely Copa America games are not boring as we saw Chile, the defending champions’ shocking defeat to underdogs Peru in semi finals, Uruguay and Argentina upset. I think the popularity of any tournament is dictated by it’s unpredictability and the glorious wins / upsets witnessed by fans. And this tournament has had it’s fair share of surprises and nail biting finishes.
The match timings are pretty much in line with Euro timings, so that shouldn’t be a factor. I think Copa America unlike European championship, lacks big sponsors, massive marketing effort and of course lack of television rights in many countries.
Reason 1 - Absence of quantity of big names in the tournament of Copa America.
Reason 2 - Leagues and clubs are not as famous or unrecognised. European football dominates the whole world.
Reason 3 - Club football has the biggest role to play. And america has no big clubs, most are below average.
Reason 4 - Level of competition. Europe is challenging, any country can challenge for the cup, they have no definite winners unlike americans. Copa have very few interesting matches. Brazil, Argentina & Uruguay Dominate.
Reason 5 - Match timings don’t favour India and also not a great coverage.
Reason 6 - People don’t prefer watching rest matches, have a score update and it is enough.
Also, Tyranny of distance. Lack of marketing.
The popularity of European leagues is a big factor here. Most of the stars of the European nations play for big Spanish clubs/English clubs. They bring a fanbase with them when they play for their country.
Also, Copa is not televised in every country. For example - Several people in India don’t even know where to watch Copa America live.
UEFA is the richest confederations of all , which gives them edge in spending buckload of money in advertising. Euro’s advertising campaign have been miles ahead of Copa America’s and the media generally focuses on individual performances of big name players, unlike in Euro the media has so much of battles among the teams, players, style of playing and more importantly the fans.
The timing and the broadcast- It’s hard for someone like me to wake up 6 in the morning and look for some online site or app to follow. Instead i watch the highlights.
But, we can’t call this a boring competition. This year too, there were some great matches, epic results and more importantly Messi’s loop of winning an international trophy still is an untouched dream.
Absolutely correct. There was no telecast in the subcontinent. Also people dint even know that copa America was going on. Only people who regularly follow football could know. No marketing, no advertising. Even the Africa cup of Nations and Women’s World Cup were more popular than this Copa America edition.
