Linda Kennedy
Men care less about their balls – because of Donald Trump. Damsels, we have a chance for realignment of popular culture. Grab hard!
Football TV viewing figures have dropped, you see. Numbers tuning into the UK’s Premier League are way down. The game of two halves now has one fifth less of an audience. The National Football League in the States is also losing viewers.
A defendable immediate assumption is to take this as a judgment on quality. If I were to organize an ironic cheerleading squad to perform at London’s Crystal Palace Football Club (they actually still have a real one, the Crystal Girls) it would be a general admonition to the sport: ‘nil nil ain’t a thrill’. Pom pom flurry, pivot and smile.
The actual reason for the decline is – partly – Donald Trump. Bizarrely, a man who’d be comfortable on a football team bus as, in such company, his views are practically feminist, is responsible for attracting viewers away from the sport.
People were switching on the presidential debates rather than football, it seems. Football fans preferred to watch Hillary Academicals versus Trump of the South, because there were more shots, strikes and own goals.
Clearly that was just a short-term displacement but, in addition to the impact of ‘cord-cutters’ (people cancelling cable subscriptions in favour of Netflix) and Twitter streams (choosing 140 characters over TV commentary to follow the match), it’s raised a new reality: football is vulnerable.
And this, ladies, is where good things start to come our way. Could a Trump presidency, for all its horrors, augur the beginning of the end of the automatic pairing on television of ‘news and sport’?
Let’s think about this. Why does sport go with news? Sport is what men talk about much of the time. Until there’s the ‘Women In the Rain With A Fresh Blowdry To Protect 100m sprint’, then I don’t care. (And I’d probably win it.)
I’ve been trying for years to persuade TV editors there should be the ‘News and Hair Weather – a bulletin without balls.’ Hair is women’s sport. It’s what we talk about. ‘How do your curls stay in?’ ‘A Brazilian blow dry is how much?’ I have conversations with my Mum almost entirely about our hair.
The persuasion was to no avail, of course. But if men are starting to lose interest in football, things might change. Finally, the ‘News and Hair Weather’s got game.
There are other consequences too. If people are following matches on Twitter rather than telly, is this the end of football commentators’ cliches?
RIP:
Quality pass
Top player
The new Messi (the Hair Weather might steal that one)
So, let’s not forget our manners. Mr President-elect, thank you. A niche thank you. The laws of unintended consequences mean you’ve perhaps done more for women than you meant.
I won’t conclude without highlighting a tiny danger, though: Trump must know sports fans like him. To reward them – or solidify his base for a future run – what if he were to start a football team? Trump United. No need to repaint the political bus, and he could indulge in some serious locker room talk.
(‘The British footballers talk of ‘burdz’. Is this where ‘egg on’ comes from?” Melania might one day be required to say, in the event of anything being recorded with her husband mingling with footballers.)
That all might get football fans back to the television, and the combination of ‘news and sport’ will seem unassailable again.
Or perhaps I worry too much. Trump should be keen to tune into the Hair Weather.
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