Help! A nest of hornets stole my FIFA experience!!
I love soccer. I think it’s an absolutely fascinating game. I enjoy the energy, the speed, the incredible talent, and the agility it takes to get past another player in an attempt to score.
One of the things I don’t particularly care for are those horribly annoying vuvuzela that are being used at the South African FIFA world cup. For those of you that don’t know what a vuvuzela is it’s a horn, usually 2-3 feet (about 1 meter) in length, with a rather unpleasant timbre that some have compared to the sound of a goat being slaughtered. Hundreds, if not thousands of these vuvuzela are all played at the same time non-stop during soccer matches, and it’s like the cameramen are under constant assault by a group of angry hornets.
My Dad and I watched the US vs. England match this weekend. It was the first time he’d watched a soccer match. While he enjoyed the game play, he admitted that he could never watch soccer on a regular basis because of “those horns”. I of course explained to him that those aren’t being used at every soccer game, but that since the 1990′s it’s being used more and more.
We kept having to turn up the volume to hear the commentators, but even then the vuvuzela noise increased so it was useless.
The US vs. England match was the first time the US and Great Britain have matched skill in soccer since the 1950′s and the first time in a while I can think of the US playing England in any sport, sans the Olympics. I would imagine given the time of day that the match was played on, it became the first soccer experience for quite a number of Americans.
I would venture to say however, that if there were a Neilsen metric that tracked the number of viewers that quit watching an event because of a superfluous crowd noise, this one would top the charts. We actually muted the TV after so long, but that took this event from a monumental once in a lifetime event, to a “should we just wait and see the highlights on Sports Center?” scenario.
It’s a shame that a totally unnecessary accouterment like a vuvuzela, which serves absolutely no purpose what so ever, should tarnish the FIFA experience.
Imagine the number of first time viewers that think that is what goes on at every soccer match. First impressions are in fact everything, and I think a lot of first time viewers became instantly jaded about world cup soccer.
Not a good way to grow your sport FIFA…
