Australian and Italian soccer fans in Sydney wait in front of a large outdoor television screen, for the start of their teams' World Cup match in the early morning on June 27. - REUTERS
For those who have made it over to Germany for the current World Cup finals, the costs are obvious. There are air travel, accommodation, food and, naturally, entry into the games.
But the overwhelming majority of persons will visit the stadiums of Berlin, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and other German cities through a television screen, following the action sometimes live and direct through the lens of the various cameras, complete with replays and slow motion.
Still, there are costs for the television travellers over the course of the month-long competition, which is currently in its knockout phase and ends on July 9 in Berlin. The most obvious one is electricity, as the televisions keep going and going through the season. There are many bills which will be significantly higher in July than they normally are.
Another cost which goes up almost unnoticeably, but very significantly during the World Cup season is food, as snacks and juices are an integral part of the process, the half-time break being almost standard.
Then there is the matter of time, because if time is money then a lot of cash goes into matches that last 90 minutes, without counting time added on, half-time and even, for these final stages, extra time.
HOW TO SAVE
Velma, a practical sales representative who realises the futility of fighting her husband Rohan's football fever, has come up with a few World Cup cost-saving approaches that she thinks will trim the bill a bit.
"First thing is one television," she said. This means that their 16-year-old son cannot watch the same matches at the same time on the other small screen in their Portmore, St. Catherine, home. The second thing is food preparation. "Beer and juice cost a lot of money and on a weekend with four matches, they just keep going and going and going at it," Velma said. So she has gone the good old lemonade route, as well as preparing sandwiches for the 'boys'.
"I am not going to join them, but I know I can't beat them," she said.
There is one area that she has not been able to get any cooperation, though, and that is in watching the same match over again. "I just don't see why, because it is the same game," she said.
And hopefully for the weekend matches and especially the finals, she is hoping to get her husband and a few of his friends together in one place, as the telephone calls, land and cellphones, seem to be adding up and are, for her, quite unnecessary.
"We might as well get them together, because they are going to talk to each other anyway," she said.
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