Here in the USA some big sports events are the Super Bowl (football), The World Series (baseball), the NBA finals (basketball), and the NCAA basketball finals (college basketball). For some fans it might also be the championships for soccer or hockey.
By far the most popular is the Super Bowl. Even for non football fans just for the commercials.
Many people host viewing parties in their homes to watch these events.
So in your country what is the big sports events people would throw together a big party to get all their friends together to watch?
If you limit it to “must be at the national level and yearly”, then it varies by region and it’s “whichever Liga or Copa ‘derbies’ your team is a part of”.
If you open it to international stuff: any Champions’ match which happens to match a derby may draw even bigger crowds to bars and peñas than its very final. And of course the World Cup is a great time for any bar or peña, but that one’s every four years. “Peña” is the name for certains groups of friends, including sports-fans groups.
Many people in Spain have some location where they can get together with friends or family for big, loud together time without needing to shove the drunks off before going to bed, as none of the people who have access actually live there. The events mentioned will see those places used, but also stuff such as high schools, colleges and workplaces getting the biggest room and the biggest screen they can find: I’ve been in companies where the local derby would involve warnings that “the Auditorium will be taken up by the match, those who normally take the company shuttles and who want to use them after the match please respond to this email. Anybody who uses reply all will be banned from the Auditorium.” Curiously enough, nobody used reply all!
I have a suspicion that the English contingent are scratching heir heads and waiting for someone to blink. OK, I’ll blink.
The thing is, forty years ago it would have been, without question, the FA Cup Final. In it’s own way, that had the same sort of status in the UK that the Superbowl has in the US today. There were themed TV shows around it (see It’s a Cup Final Knockout, for example) and there was a general air of festivity about it. And something of the same sense of build-up that the Superbowl has.
Now - it’s hard to say. The Premier League has eclipsed the FA Cup, but of course that’s a league spread over 11 months (just joking - it only feels like it) and so doesn’t have the one-off pzazz of a final. In fact, it feels like the Premier League has eclipsed just about everything.
I suppose you still have:
Horse racing - the Derby and the Grand National
Cricket - test matches and T-20 finals day
Rugby Union - the Six Nations Championship
The London Marathon?
Other?
But none has the status of the FA Cup final of old.
As for getting people round for a sporting event, my impression is that’s something that happens to spread the cost of pay-per-view spectacles. Sorry.
I have attended one of the biggest events for New Zealand, the New Zealand Trotting Cup at Addington in Christchurch. The place was packed, folks dressed in their finest, fancy hats that would challenge those at Churchill Downs during the Kentucky Derby. Also got to see history, a horse won his 4th straight and came from way off the pace after breaking his trot.
It might be useful to define “derby” in this context, since the word isn’t used in this fashion in the U.S. (here, it’s largely used in refernence to horse racing).
As I understand it, in a sport like soccer, a “derby” is a game (match) against your team’s biggest rival (particularly when that rival is based in the same city, or close by) – is my understanding accurate? In U.S. terms, we’d call that a “rivalry game;” particularly in college football, some of those rivalry games have their own nicknames (like the “Iron Bowl” matchup between Alabama and Auburn).
I certainly was scratching my head and I still am. Your analysis of the FA cup is spot on, it isn’t the draw it was. I can’t think of anything domestic on a yearly basis that fits but definitely any world tournament with a UK representation at the sharp-end will spark off viewing parties.
Ridiculously, The closest thing is probably “The Eurovision Song Contest” which is not sporting and has no real UK chance of victory and is viewed on an ironic level.
When they air the event on TV were the tv commercials any different than ordinary ones or did they have special commercials?
I’m asking because for the Super Bowl big name companies like Coke, Pepsi, and Budweiser spend millions just on ads that premier during the Super Bowl.
I watched this event in the US on streaming service where the commercials were aimed at that specific audience. I have no idea what the commercials were in India and Pakistan. I am vaguely aware that that this match would have been carried by more than one provider in each country.
Based on previous events, there would have been a few ads that used the specific match, but there were several that were made specifically for the World Cup.
Well about 4%, give or take, of the population of the geographically largest country in the world partied together in the streets over a basketball game.
Yes, but compare the 1.35 billion population of India with the 350 million of the US. That means that while 9% of the population of India watched the Cricket World Cup, 26% of the US population watched the Superbowl. OTOH, only about 1/3 of India households have a TV while 98% of US household do. That means in both cases that roughly the same percentage of TV’s were tuned to the respective event.
It still shows that cricket is immensely popular in India, but absolute numbers can be misleading.
In The US: When pro wrestling was big in the late 90s–WCW with the NWO and WWE(then WWF) with Steve Austin—we used to have parties around the PPVs with Wrestlemania being the most popular. Popularity has dropped off considerably since then (WCW went out of business in 2001) and the WWE have moved their PPV events to the WWE Network. I am the only remaining adult pro wrestling fan in my family; the others stopped watching years ago. So I am mostly watching events by myself these days.
By definition, the commercials for a match between teams from different countries will be different for the different countries.
In the UK there are some events that must be on “free to air” (i.e. not subscription) channels. If they’re on the BBC there are no commercials. If they’re on one of the commercial channels, the ads may well be specially themed for the event in some way, but on the whole there’s no great song and dance about them. We don’t usuay regard commercials as events in their own right, unless they’re particularly clever or funny. There’s a bit more fuss about commercials for the Christmas season (all over-hype in my curmudgeonly view).
Sorry to lightly drizzle on your parade, but 40 years ago the FA Cup Final wasn’t even shown throughout the whole of the UK. It was always on at the same time as the Scottish Cup Final, and the Scottish Cup Final was shown live on both BBC1 and ITV. We saw a few minutes’ highlights of the English Cup Final at half and full time, that’s as much as anyone really wanted. We had all the same build up, Scottish Cup themed quiz programmes and all that crap that you did.
Bear in mind that until the early 70s, the attendance at the Scottish cup final would often be around 130,000. And when you were watching Spurs win the cup in 1991, we were thrilling to the best cup final ever when 'Well beat Utd 4-3 aet.
I think nowadays, some people might have gatherings to watch 6 nations rugby or selected games in the rugby world cup. But for most British people, the football World Cup Final is bigger than anything else by far.
may draw even bigger crowds to bars and peñas than its very final. And of course the World Cup is a great time for any bar or peña, but that one’s every four years. “Peña” is the name for certains groups of friends, including sports-fans groups.
