FIFA Women's World Cup 2023: Spectators

Half the fun of attending any live sporting event is getting to attend it with thousands of people.

Taking a photo of the big screen

Close-up photo of a Swedish supporter in the stands at a stadium. The supporter is taking a phone of the stadium's big screen with her smartphone.

Half-time is a good time to take a selfie

Photo of two Colombia supporters in the stands at a football stadium. They are taking a selfie with a smartphone. The supporters are dressed in Colombian colours, and the woman has a Colombian flag draped around her. They have their backs to the pitch, and are both holding glasses of beer in their hands.

Half-time photo opportunity

Photo of a group of people taking a photo of people dressed up in costumes at a football match.

Jody Brown supporter

Photo of a man sitting in the stands at a football match. The man is holding up a large, hand-made sign that reads “Jody Brown U R Gold” and has the number ten written on it.

FIFA Women's World Cup 2023: Behind the scenes

This FIFA Women’s World Cup (football) was held in Australia and New Zealand this year, and I attended two of the round-of-sixteen matches held in Melbourne. (I did have tickets to two other matches, but work got in the way and I wasn’t able to attend those.)

One of my favourite things to do at large events like this is to document the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on. I am a producer / events organiser / behind-the-scenes person at heart, and I do enjoy seeing – and, evidently, photographically documenting! – how things are run.

Stadium

Birds on the pitch 90 minutes before kick-off

Wide angle photo of a large football stadium. The stands are mostly empty and there are only four people in bright red puffer jackets standing in the centre of the pitch. Also on the pitch are a couple of dozen seagulls sitting on the grass.

Watering the pitch

Wide-angle photo of a large football stadium. Five large water sprinklers are spraying water onto the grass along two sides of the pitch.

Grounds keepers make their final adjustments to the pitch

Photo of two grounds keepers walking across a football pitch. They each have a small pitchfork in their hands, and they are using those to push in any bits of loose soil or grass.

Grounds keepers flattening the pitch during the half time break

Photo of three grounds keepers in the corner of a football pitch. Two are picking up any small debris they find, while the third is using a small pitchfork to push-in any bits of loose soil or grass.

Doing the phone camera spectator participation thing

Wide angle photo of a large football stadium with most of the big lights turned off. Several thousand spectators around the stadium have turned on the flashlights on their cameras and are holding them up in the darkened space.

Full house at USA v Sweden round-of-sixteen match at

Photo of a large football stadium screen that reads “Attendance 27,706”.

Full house at Colombia v Jamaica round-of-sixteen match

Photo of a large football stadium screen that reads “Attendance 27,706”.

People

Ushering spectators

Photo of an usher wearing a blue, padded jacket standing at the top of a flight of steps leading into the stands at a large football stadium. The stadium is mostly empty at this time.

The only folks not watching the game

Photo of four security guards in bright yellow, high visibility vests sitting in low chairs along the breadth of a football pitch. They have their backs to the football pitch and are, instead, keeping a close eye on the spectators who are watching the match.

Keeping an eye on the crowds

Photo of a security guard in a bright yellow, high visibility vest sitting in a low chair outside the corner of a football pitch. The guard has his back to the pitch and is, instead, keeping a close eye on the spectators watching the match.

Assistant referee

Photo of an assistant referee standing by the side of a football pitch, holding a flag in her hand. The referee is keeping a close eye on what is happening in the match.

Photographers and videographers

Aligning the cameras behind the goal

Photo of a camera operator lying face-down on the grass behind a goal at a football stadium. The operator is looking through, and making slight adjustments to, one of the many cameras placed on the pitch in a line behind this goal. In the top of the frame is an assistant placing small plastic markers along the pitch (in front of a small, portable goal) for the players to run along during their warm-up before the match.

Getting ready to capture the match

Photo of several photographers and videographers in the process of getting ready to photograph and film the upcoming football match. In the top-left corner of the photo are two videographers aligning their cameras behind the goal. Along the left of the photo are several photographers setting up their equipment next to the boundary fence of the pitch. A couple of photographers, carrying cameras or wheeling them in bags, are walking along the breadth of the field as they make their way to their assigned locations.

Gaggle of photographers

Photo of about a dozen professional photographers seated on the outside of the fence surrounding a football pitch. They are all looking through their cameras at the match taking place in front of them.

Operating the primary broadcast camera

Photo of an operator standing in front of a broadcast video camera that's been set up in a bright orange, walled-off area among the seats on one side of a large stadium.

Capturing fan reactions

Photo of a roving videographer and an accompanying security guard. The two are standing next to a stand full of spectators in a football stadium. The videographer is broadcasting live video of a group of spectators.

On-camera talent

Getting ready for her live cross

Photo of a TV presenter wearing a long, light-blue coat and holding a microphone in her hand. She is getting ready for her live broadcast from the side of a football pitch.

1/3 Getting ready for their live cross

Photo of two sports commentators standing at the edge of a football pitch in front of a small, tall, round table. They are in the process of getting dressed for their upcoming appearance on camera. The woman is adjusting her tan trench coat and the man is putting on his suit jacket (which his producer producer is helping him with). Their camera operator is standing a short distance away, ready to go.

2/3 All set for their live cross

Photo of two commentators making final preparations for their live broadcast from the side of a football pitch. They are standing with their backs to the pitch, and are facing a camera, a screen, and two lights that have been set up in front of them.

3/3 Making their live cross

Photo of two commentators making a live broadcast from the side of a football pitch. They have their back to the pitch and are facing a camera, a screen, and two lights that have been set up to face them.

Picking an AFL Team to Support

I've been in Melbourne for almost eight years now and it's about time I picked an AFL team to support.

How Do You Pick a Team?

There's lots of advice on the web about how to pick a team: 

There's also this infographic from Reddit (from December 2012) which is both useful and funny:

Plus this thread for the 2014 season:

Brand Associations

All that is good advice but I think there's a quicker and easier way for someone like me to choose a team: using the power of brands and brand association.

So here's what I did:

  • I went to each team's website and looked at the list of their partner brands - both sponsor brands who support the team financially and support brands who provides the team with goods and services
  • For every brand that I liked (i.e. for which I'd be a 'promoter' on the NPS scale) I gave that team a +1 score
  • For every brand that I didn't like (i.e. for which I'd be a 'detractor' on the NPS scale) I gave that team a -1 score
  • I ignored the brands I didn't have strong feelings for or wasn't familiar with (i.e. for which I'd be a 'passive' on the NPS scale)
  • I then added each team's +1s and -1s and gave them an overall score - a 'net positive brand association score' of sorts

This is the result (sorted by highest-to-lowest score, then alphabetically by team name):

So, if I was to choose a team by brand association alone, then the team I'd be supporting is the Sydney Swans, with the Brisbane Lions coming in second. 

(I've kept my scoring here really simple, by the way. Had I wanted to do a more sophisticated analysis I could have first given 'principle', 'major', and 'premier' partner brands higher positive and negative scores and 'associate' and 'support' partners lower positive and negative scores. Of course this would have given undue importance to brands that simply had more marketing money to spend. So next I would have looked at each brand's annual revenue and marketing spend as a proportion of annual revenue and tried to undo some of those effects. And I might have introduced a 'sponsorship proportion' multiplier for each brand. That is, if a club had twenty partners instead of ten, each of those twenty brands would have had half as much proportional weight. There are many more things I could have done but I'm not feeling particularly nerdy this weekend. I'd rather watch TV or browse Reddit.) 

The brand I like the most from that list, by the way, is iiNet, which is a Hawthorn partner. But the brand like the least is Swisse, which is also a Hawthorn partner. So those two pretty much cancelled each other out. Oh well. 

So, there you have it. After living in Melbourne for almost eight years I now tentatively support the Sydney Swans. Go figure. 

Next Steps

Now that I've reached a tentative result, I need to research the Swans and watch some of their games. If I'm going to support them seriously I need to know much more about them. I need to learn about their players, their coaches, their history, and so on. 

A quick skim through their website has been positive: 

  • They're all over social media and even have their own mobile app - though I suppose this is pretty standard for sports teams in this day and age
  • There's nothing untoward about them in the news - at least nothing I could find when I searched for 'Sydney Swans controversy' on Google News
  • They have two clubs for their female supporters - one in Sydney called L@SS and one in Victoria called LOL (both names I like)
  • They have a Black Swans Supporter Group
  • They have a blog series called 'Swan Songs' in which they talk to past great players called 
  • They have player blogs, one of which was actually updated in 2014

I'll now keep an eye on them and report back if all is going well and if I'm going to continue to support this team.

Till then, go swannies!