World Cup launches in North Americaew:
Ratings soar even in preliminary games
As one who has railed about the boondoggle known as the California high-speed rail, it’s sad to note that the horrible inefficiency and mismanagement that characterizes that agency is not limited to it. It seems to be a disease that runs through transit systems.
Take, for instance, the Valley Transportation Authority in Santa Clara County or look no further than BART’s employee union contracts. The agency has been working for more than a decade to complete BART tracks around the Bay by connecting the BART station on the eastside at Berryessa to CalTrain in Santa Clara. That would allow rail around the Bay. It’s a six-mile extension with four stations that includes a tunnel under downtown San Jose.
It’s one of those projects that once appeared not only nice but necessary. But that’s before BART ridership went into the dumpster. The Santa Clara County civil grand jury released a damning report that the San Jose Mercury reported on Wednesday.
In 2014, the cost was estimated at $4.7 billion and operations were to start this year. Now it’s $12.75 billion with a 2037 opening. The report was appropriately critical of both the management and the board. There’s still a shortfall in the funding because the feds are putting up less than the agency hoped.
I hope the feds close the purse. The agency has demonstrated nothing but mismanagement and is dysfunctional with a board (like other multi-county agencies) made up of elected officials who never face voters about their actions (the regional air board and transportation/planning boards are built the same way).
The grand jury also points out that the first five years of operation of the Berryessa stations lost $69 million annually as ridership fell way short of projections. That also was the case with the BART extension to the San Francisco Airport which is the reason the direct line from Dublin no longer runs. In our brave new post-lockdown world, downtowns may no longer be a worker destination.
The agency also jammed ahead to purchase a custom-built tunneling machine for a single-bore instead of the originally planned twin bores.
Between board members and managements blinders seem firmly in place despite what the facts say.
World Cup fans are flocking to cities with games although this excitement got eclipsed a bit by the Knicks winning the NBA title for the first time in 53 years. I think of our long-suffering Warrior fans and realize that we didn’t wait anywhere near as along (1975 to 2014).
Watching as much World Cup as I can (although it just got much more competitive with the U.S. Open golf running almost all day light hours and beyond).
Soccer teams certainly are benefitting from hydration breaks midway through each half of the soccer games. They’re taking place in all games, even in the rainy mid-60s temps in Toronto, air-conditioned Texas stadium or Seattle. But the big beneficiary is Fox—that’s two extra commercials per half.
Regular season or pool play soccer is wonderful for programmers—games are over in two hours or less. Once the knockout rounds start, all bets are off. But commercial breaks typically are limited to halftime or flashing a logo around the score/time display during the play. That’s why, I suspect, each game has a one-hour pre-game show although it was three hours for the official opener. I’m guessing to get a commercial spot during the game you’ve got to buy the pre-game show.
Got to get those commercials in and pay the bills. It is worth noting that this should be a money gusher for Fox. It had rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and then played along with FIFA when it awarded the rights to Qatar and moved the competition into the fall to escape the summer heat. Fox ended up paying about $485 million, half to a third of what experts estimated the rights could have sold for in an open competition.
Presumably the network is cashing in as are the soccer broadcasters with many imported from the continent to work World Cup telecasts here.
