Timezones and international live events

Of course it will mess up our own football season, causing disruption to Sky and BT and also the BBC with MOTD and the FA Cup.

Not sure an autumn World Cup is great for ITV, there will almost be too much demand for advertising. What will they show in the ad Breaks, beer and betting, or John Lewis’s latest tearjerker?

Meanwhile the summer months will be bare

21 Nov – 18 Dec are the dates, UEFA suspension of leading leagues from 7 Nov - 26 Dec is the latest idea.

Are we looking at the 22/23 EPL season being extended to June to cover the international break?

Which of course is also a fiasco, you’ll likely have the first match of the season around the start of July 2022 and/or the FA Cup and Champions League finals around the end of June 2023

Early start and late finish, suggestion being there'll be hardly any meaningful summer breaks in 2022 and 2023, and with Euro 2024, top professionals in Europe wont get a real break from the start of season 2021/2 and the end of 2024/5

It still wouldn't be totally impossible for Qatar to be stripped of hosting and the world cup moved to probably Germany or England. Unlikely but just about still believable.

I'm a celeb will possibly be shunted earlier in the year or to January if it still going.
Strictly will work round it if it's still on the air.

At least they know how to stick to a topic Anyway, these TIMEY ZONES



There used to be midnight basketball... maybe Midnight Football is in the offing? Fingers crossed.

Different circumstances, but the Canada 2015 Women's World Cup was scheduled to suit local/U.S. time, where interest in that tournament was the highest. The final even broke the U.S. audience record for any soccer match. A lot of the kickoffs were at midnight UK time, including the final.

It might be more instructive to compare with the men's 1994 World Cup in the U.S. - many group games were after midnight in Europe, but I believe only one of the knockout games was? Is that right?

2026, I really wouldn't like to be scheduling that - especially across three host countries. They'll be desperate not to freeze out the European audience by scheduling big games too late at night. But they'll have to schedule at bad times for the big Asian audience, unless they're kicking off at 10am local time or something. (Time difference between New York and Beijing = 12 hours.)

But as you say Brekkie, there are so many more matches in 2026, it probably can't be done like 1994... For one thing, Fifa seems to be scheduling less with Europe in mind now - like the 2018 final, which is at a decent time for most continents. But is that even possible with a North American tournament?

This is the infographic of the year, study it closely (while you're at work)

- https://www.statista.com/chart/14241/world-cup-games-during-working-hours/




Wonderful stuff, but a bit naive to assume Britain has "productivity"...

I think back in 1994 games would regularly kick off at the same time as well. That will in theory be completely eliminated in 2026 thanks to groups of 3, so they'll still be 48 group games but over 48 slots rather than 40, prob over 12-13 days instead of 15. They then have to squeeze in 16 extra games for the new round of 32.

Used to be midnight football too...once [url]news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/3077090.stm[/url]

Yeah, the Barcelona midnight game was mentioned a few pages ago - it's incredible that they were allowed to do that.

- https://www.dreamteamfc.com/c/news-gossip/198544/ronaldinho-barcelona-debut-midnight/