Talkinghockey.net

Zing coverage is excellent. Have everything sky plussed already.

Thanks for that, Mani. I see you have bestowed several titles on me that I haven't ever claimed to be. I do have an opinion on how Hockey is run in this country, but apparently I shouldn't express this opinion even if I find aspects alarming.

Let's put that wage bill into perspective though. It amounts to about US$3.3m which is significantly more than half of the total income of the FIH which stands at $5m per annum, who have managed to sell the rights to 18 TV stations to cover the World Cup (they forgot to add Doordarshan in their list above but have put out a press release today boasting how that channel had an 8.9 market share for the India Pakistan game)

£2.3m is 20 times the total cash reserves of Hockey New Zealand who have marketed the Black Sticks sufficiently for Sky Sports in New Zealand to buy the rights to broadcast the WC

South Africa are so short of cash that hockey loving individuals contributed significantly to get their team to the World Cup, yet the major sports channel, Supersports is carrying all their matches with repeats.

Hockey India claims to be so short of cash that they couldn't pay their players the £700 promised to them for good performances last year. The team sponsor stumped up the £14 000 required to solve the player's strike. The World Cup is being carried on two channels Doordarshan and Ten Sports.

Now this £2 300 000 WAGE bill (not total income) having been put into a bit of global hockey perspective, has specific marketing, PR and sponsorship people within that wage bill. Remembering that we are talking about the European Champions, have those marketing and PR persons done a good job in selling that status to the BBC, Sky, Eurosport, ITV or Channel 4 (who seem to buy anything) so that those channels are prepared to spend money to buy the rights to the World Cup? No, we have to rely on a channel specialising in the South Asian market who realised that because the event was being held in India that there would be a specific interest in the World Cup from their target audience. I seriously doubt that the consideration that England was playing in the tournament as European Champions even entered into their decision to buy the rights. They were buying the rights to an Indian based event for the entertainment of their South Asian UK based market.

Now having balanced the view of the £2.3m WAGE bill against the total income of other national and International hockey organisations do you honestly believe we are getting good media coverage of the brand - European Champions? If you do then you need to pop your head out of the sand for a short time to compare media coverage in other nations compared to England, before ducking down again and accepting that a £2.3m wage bill is truly sustainable for what the FIH term as a largely amateur sport.

That's big of them!

Its still on Zing yes, they just change their schedules on a 3 day rota.

& Old fool, you are really showing just how foolish u are with that comment.

Old Fool wrote:

That's big of them!

That one.

No george - you focus on one small aspect which is negative!

How about being positive for once. Cos right now hockey is on a high, and i'll give you this bit of advice - people left this forum in its droves because of the idiots like you and DLR and UHL.

Ever wondered why iot went quiet, because there was a collective discussion away from the like sof you to dessert this place. Sensible chat and balanced view was not evident, and when the forum owner was one of those being negative, it left a negative feeling for most users - AND THEY LEFT!

George,

I thought your summing up above was spot on, for me its game set and match.  Certainly England Hockey have failed to market this wonderful opportunity, which, after all, is the WORLD CUP.  However, more importantly you mention:

£2.3m is 20 times the total cash reserves of Hockey New Zealand who have marketed the Black Sticks sufficiently for Sky Sports in New Zealand to buy the rights to broadcast the WC

South Africa are so short of cash that hockey loving individuals contributed significantly to get their team to the World Cup,

This again comes back to some form of accountability for the huge sums of money we have spent in the name of hockey in this Country.

And how did they perform ??????

I must be missing some point Playon, did they win a medal?  This funding has been going on for 15 years, have we won a medal in the World Cup or Olympics in that time.  What I did see was a fantastic and very talented young German side winning Silver, I wonder how much has been spent developing their squad?

dlr wrote:

And how did they perform ??????

I must be missing some point Playon, did they win a medal?  This funding has been going on for 15 years, have we won a medal in the World Cup or Olympics in that time.  What I did see was a fantastic and very talented young German side winning Silver, I wonder how much has been spent developing their squad?

I meant how did the NZ & SA sides perform.  I was trying to show that had they invested in the team more than getting it on TV they may have performed better.

It is always better to compare the relative size of a country against how well they do, a case in point is Australia, a population that is incredibly small especially with the size of the place and yet they win a high number of medals at the Olympics and do well in most sports played internationally. New Zealand too are highly rated in many sports with a population around 1/10 of England/Wales.

It's not always about how much money you throw, but where it is thrown and how it is thrown at - Britain won a high number of cycling medals over the last few years because of the investment and coaching staff hired, they are a good model to work from.