Winter sports will have a powerful opponent in 2022: the football World Cup will attract broadcasting slots and viewers. How are the disciplines arranged?
Soccer is the number one sport. This applies not only to Germany, but to a large part of the countries around the world. So it’s no wonder that the football World Cup is traditionally one of the major TV events and that it goes without saying that football can be seen on television almost around the clock during the World Cup.
But the World Cup usually takes place in June and July. So when many sports are on the summer break. However, the award of the tournament to the desert state of Qatar and the resulting postponement to winter has resulted in an unusual competitive situation.
ARD sports coordinator Balkausky: “Overlaps as small as possible“
“Due to the winter scheduling of the football World Cup, there are of course parallel schedules with the winter sports events taking place at the same time“, says ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky: “However, ARD and ZDF have already coordinated with the various associations over the long term in order to keep overlaps to a minimum. Nevertheless, these could not be completely avoided in the four weeks of the World Cup.“
The spectators have to decide between Marte Olsbu Røiseland and Lionel Messi, between Marco Odermatt and Kylian Mbappé, between Markus Eisenbichler and Thomas Müller. And the TV stations often have the choice of whether they prefer to show king football or the winter sports stars live on television.
This leads to massive problems for winter sports. Because often the decision – by viewers and television stations alike – is likely to be in favor of football.
“We try to take into account the different wishes of the viewers in our planning“, says Balkausky: “For this reason, many winter sports events that the ARD cannot show on TV during the broadcast of the World Cup are offered live in the stream on sportschau.de and in the ARD media library. In addition, we have on the weekend 3./4. December and from December 15th to 18th extensive winter sports broadcasts live on the first.“
World Cup start with competition
The biathlon world association IBU tried early on to prevent the World Cup from being held in winter. Alpine Ski World Cup boss Markus Waldner recently spoke of a “dilemma” and everywhere in winter sports there is little enthusiasm about the powerful competition.
But now winter is just around the corner and from tobogganing to ski jumping, all sports have to come to terms with the Fifa World Cup and try to keep financial losses as low as possible and reach many fans despite the competition. The individual disciplines pursue different strategies.
ski jumping
While the soccer players flee the summer heat in Qatar for the winter, the ski jumpers postpone the World Cup. It all started for the women and men in Wisla, Poland, on November 5th. The athletes landed on mats at the start of the World Cup – a first in history.
This means that collisions with the World Cup calendar cannot be completely avoided. For men, three World Cup weekends will take place during the World Championships in Qatar: Kuusamo (Finland: November 26th and 27th), Titisee-Neustadt (Germany: December 10th and 11th) and Engelberg (Switzerland: December 17th and 18th). December). The women only have to compete with football for ratings in two competitions: Lillehammer (Norway: December 3rd and 4th) and Titisee-Neustadt (Germany: December 9th and 10th).
Tobogganing
The start of the World Cup for lugers has already fallen victim to the World Cup. In August, the world association FIL canceled the opening race in Innsbruck-Igls, which was planned for November 26th. “The event will hardly be able to be televised live due to the start of the soccer World Cup in Qatar on November 20th“, the FIL justified this decision.
As a substitute, a race weekend from February 24th to 26th, 2023 in Winterberg will be added to the calendar. This will also be the end of the season.
Alpine skiing
The alpine skiing season has already begun. At least for the men. Because while the Swiss overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt started the season at the traditional World Cup opener in Sölden with a victory in the giant slalom, the women’s race had to be canceled due to bad weather conditions. The following races on the Matterhorn had to be canceled due to a lack of snow, as did the parallel events in Lech/Zürs.
It is uncertain whether racing will also fall victim to football. There are problems with the North American tour, which coincides with the World Cup period and where the start of the race collides with the kick-off times due to the time difference. On November 25, the men’s event will start as scheduled with the downhill in Lake Louise, followed by two Super-Gs on the following days.
The race starts at 8.30 p.m. CET and is therefore in direct competition with the big soccer nations. On November 25th, England will play the USA at 8 p.m., the next day, also at the same time, Argentina will play Mexico and on November 27th Spain will play Germany. Moving the race starts to the rear (10:30 p.m. CET) is not an option, since the local visibility and slope conditions would hardly make a fair competition possible.
Race starts between football games
But the start of the races also depends on whether they are broadcast live on television. one stands before “a dilemma“, said World Cup boss Markus Waldner in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Kronen-Zeitung in August. Because if the European TV stations – especially ORF, SFR and Eurosport – do not broadcast the races, the usefulness of the implementation is in question.
However, there is a solution for the following weekend in Beaver Creek. The race starts were scheduled for 6:15 p.m. and 6 p.m. CET, respectively, in order to avoid the kick-off times for the round of 16 matches (4 p.m. and 8 p.m.). However, the organizers must hope that the races will run smoothly.
biathlon
The World Biathlon Union (IBU) has also adapted its World Cup calendar to the World Cup. The IBU is taking an unusual step and has scheduled the season opener for November 29, which is a Tuesday.
The reason: The third games of the World Cup group stage begin on this day, with all teams in a group starting at the same time. The earliest game times at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. are no longer available – the kick-off times at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. remain. The biathletes start on November 29 in Kontiolahti, Finland, with the men’s 20-kilometer individual event at 1:15 p.m. The women’s 15-kilometer individual follows at the same time the next day, before two races are scheduled on Thursday (relay), Saturday (sprint) and Sunday (pursuit) – with the latest starting signal at 2:15 p.m.
Also in the following competitions during the World Cup period in Hochfilzen (December 8th – 11th) and Annecy (December 15th – 18th) the latest start is currently planned at 2:15 p.m.
bob
The start of the World Cup for bobsledders coincides with the soccer World Cup. In order to get as much attention as possible, the start times of the first two stations have been adjusted. In Whistler (CAN) on November 25 and 26, the races start at 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. CET, respectively, in Park City (USA) on December 2 and 3 at 5:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
However, the next station is likely to have bad cards in the battle for ratings. Because in Lake Placid (USA) the two-man bobsleigh races start at 4 p.m. on December 17th and 18th. At the same time, the game for third place begins in Qatar on Saturday, December 17th. One day later, the women’s two-man bobsleigh starts at the same time as the final of the soccer World Cup.
cross country skiing
The cross-country skiing season starts on November 25th in Ruka (Finland). At the World Cup opener, the competitions overlap with some games. However, no top nation competes during the races. On the later race weekends, the starts take place well before the soccer games kick off.
The Nordic Combined will also start on November 25th in Ruka – but no start times have been set yet.
snowboarding
The snowboarders have already partially started the season. There are few overlaps with the World Cup in all disciplines, since the competitions will be suspended in November after they started in October – also because the Big Air competition in Falun, Sweden (November 26) was canceled due to a lack of sponsors.
“Due to the current world situation, we don’t have the funds together. The concern is prompting companies to review their operations, which in turn is impacting events like this. It is very sad that we are forced to cancel. But we tried everything to hold the event“said Stefan Karlsson, sports manager for freeski and snowboard at the Swedish Ski Association.