Tomorrow's Business Today
How to escape the World Cup
Here is how the UK will look between June 11 and July 19:
A bunch of hungover, excited, disappointed, furious, football fans will be unable to think or talk about anything other than the World Cup.
Millions of us will consume nothing but lager and chicken chow mein for five weeks.
It’s not just the England games. Egypt v Iran at 4am on June 27 is a must-watch.
Ivory Coast v Ecuador at midnight on June 15 is also intriguing.
We cannot put the rubbish out/speak to your Mother on June 24, because we are too excited by Jordan v Algeria. In San Francisco. At 4am.
People who don’t care for football might find this pretty annoying, but we shan’t notice.
A World Cup in America, in the midst of global chaos, is more than just a bunch of football matches. Will Iran show up? Will they turn out to be really good?
Will the US put on an amazing show, or just arrest a lot of people?
For the PR trade all this presents a challenge. Do you lean into it or ignore it?
The appetite for World Cup related click-bait will be huge, and if that’s your bag, go for it. No Harry Kane related press release will go unread.
To whet your appetite, try this from Thistle Products which says that some think weddings should be postponed if they clash with a big game.
Smart pitches about what the football means for business, what it tells us about our economies, should also do well.
There’s another plan too: forget about it. Write for the people who hate the whole, sweaty over-hyped nonsense of the thing and can’t wait for it to go away.
At Find Out Now we did a poll asking who was into the football, and who was not.
Some conclusions:
- Just under a third (30%) of the public say they have followed news about the World Cup
- 3 in 10 (31%) say they will watch the World Cup, with a further 24% who say they “might” watch it
- This is lowest in Wales (perhaps unsurprising, given they didn’t qualify)
- Only 1 in 10 (11%) say the US is a good place to host the World Cup
- Of football fans, on average they think England will reach between the quarter and semi finals. But 15% think we’ll reach the final, of which half of those (7%) think we’ll win
- Only 3% say they’ll take time off to watch games, and 5% say they’d “pull a sicky” after staying up late to watch
- Given late games due to time zones (e.g. one Scotland game at 2am) 37% of football fans say they’d stay up late to watch a game
- Football fans think Spain (22%) is most likely to win, followed by France (22%), Brazil (11%), then England / Argentina (both exactly tied on 8%)
You can see the full results here.
Please send candidates for press release of the day to:
Press release of the day
People who live alone are hit hardest by the cost of living crisis, says this from Zable.
Single-person households spend an average of £5,982 more per year on essential living costs compared to couples.
London is the most expensive city to live alone, with singles paying an additional £11,153 annually.
There’s a good table.
Stories that will keep rolling
1) One in six young people will not be in work or training in five years. BBC
2) UK would block Indian billionaire raising BT stake. FT
3) Lidl overtakes Morrisons as one of UK’s big five supermarkets. Independent
4) BP boardroom turmoil deepens. Guardian
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