While it’s not a surprise, it is jarring to see how much the Miami-Fort Lauderdale TV market is dominating in 2018 FIFA World Cup consumption.
There has been some reporting on how much Miami is watching, but the full picture wasn’t clear until yesterday. Michael Mulvihill, FOX Sports Executive Vice President for Research, League Operations & Strategy, tweeted out ratings numbers combining English- and Spanish-language ratings.
Now that we know that the United States will be hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico, the next drama to unfold will relate to the cities that are chosen to host group and knockout stage games. 23 cities were included in the Bid Book, but only 16 will make the final cut.
We know that three cities in Canada and Mexico will host matches. That means out of the 16 American cities included in the book, 10 will make the final cut. What clues exist to the 10 that could be chosen? Some valuable information can be found in the Bid Evaluation Report submitted by the 2026 Bid Evaluation Task Force to the FIFA Council earlier this month.
The 68th FIFA Congress 2018 took place in Moscow on Thursday, and after presentations from Morocco and the United 2026 bid featruing the United States of America, Canada and Mexico, the United bid was selected to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
In this episode of the Magic City Soccer podcast, Matt and Omar finish their FIFA World Cup group stage preview just in the nick of time, taking a look at groups E-H of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Join us, won’t you?
Thanks to our sponsor, Groundhopper, for helping to make this Magic City Soccer episode happen!
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As the announcement of the 2026 FIFA World Cup bid draws close, both local and national governments are showing support for the United 2026 bid, and specifically support for Miami participating in the process.
In this episode of the Magic City Soccer podcast, Matt and Omar venture beyond the borders of Miami-Dade County to preview groups A-D of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Join us, won’t you?
Thanks to our sponsor, Groundhopper, for helping to make this Magic City Soccer episode happen!
To subscribe to Magic City Soccer on iTunes, click here. To subscribe to Magic City Soccer on SoundCloud, click here.
To subscribe on Google Play,
While many of the great soccer players who have written the history of the game hail from the Americas, most of the sport’s history is preserved from a European perspective. Whether it’s club greatness or international competition, the Continent dominates the long-term view. A Miami Beach auction house, FUTBOLASTA Auctions, is seeking to change that and make available to fans important pieces of history related to the global game and its significance in North and South America.
Sebastian Abbot combines his passion for soccer and his background as a Associated Press bureau chief based in the middle east together in his latest project: “The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer’s Next Superstars.” Abbot will be appearing at Books & Books in Coral Gables to promote the book this weekend.
To listen to the full interview with Sebastian Abbot, play the video below!
Abbot’s book provides an inside look at the State of Qatar’s search for talent for its national team in advance of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which Qatar is hosting. The country has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a talent search which has focused on Africa.
“[Qatar] has held tryouts for more than five million boys, mostly in Africa, looking for soccer’s next superstars,” Abbot said in an interview Thursday night. “Every year, they’ve chosen a handful of kids and trained them to become professionals at a billion-dollar sports academy in Qatar … It was over 1,000 times more selective than getting into Harvard.”
It was Abbot’s background in the Middle East and Africa that enabled him to pursue the project.
“I was living and working in Cairo as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and sort of stumbled across the story,” Abbot said. “I wrote an article about it at the time and eight years later wondered if anyone had ever written a book about it. Nobody had, so I kind-of launched on a four-year odyssey.”
The book takes a wide-view perspective of the search and what Qatar is doing in advance of the World Cup, but also spends time with a few of the boys who made the cut and were selected to train with the Qatari program.
“I largely focus on three African boys who were found 10 years ago — Two fro Senegal, one from Ghana — and tell the story through their experience,” Abbot said. “I talk about where they grew up, where they learned how to play soccer, where they were first spotted by Qatar’s scouts and the experience of being transported from their home to Doha, a world that was so radically different than where they came from that it was hard for them to believe.
“For me, it was fascinating to get to know these kids and spend time with them. When you spend time in West Africa … you sort of realize these kids are very indicative of the millions of kids in Africa that grow up dreaming about becoming stars in Europe. They spend their lives, their childhoods, playing on dirt fields idolizing players like Messi and Ronaldo. For some of them to actually achieve that and get to Europe was just an amazing experience.”
Abbot will be appearing at Books & Books in Coral Gables at 1:30 on Sunday, May 6, for a talk about his book, but the experience will offer even more for soccer fans, and fans of Barcelona and Real Madrid in particular. Abbot will be featuring in a traditional book talk and question and answer session, but afterwards Books & Books will be showing El Clásico. Abbot will provide halftime commentary as well.
“I think it’s going to be a really fun event,” Abbot said. “Folks who come will get to learn about this epic worldwide search for the next Messi and then they’ll get to watch the real one in action as he takes on Real Madrid”
In late March, the joint bid from the Canadian Soccer Association, the Mexican Football Association and the United States Soccer Federation presented its “United” bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. As was discussed then, Miami plays a prominent role. However, diving further into the proposal, you get a better idea about how the city may change for the World Cup.
As the 2018 FIFA World Cup nears, more and more soccer-related events will be popping up around the world and throughout Miami-Dade County. One such event starts tonight, as Pérez Art Museum Miami is hosting the opening ceremony for its latest exhibition: “The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art.”
PAMM members will get a sneak preview today, as only they will be able to view the exhibition from 10 a.m. through 9 p.m. At 9 through 11 p.m., the exhibit will be open to the public for the first time.
