I'm not sure about others, not having visited the  442 and TWG web sites much in the last few weeks, but in the mainstream media there has been barely any coverage of the World Cup.

I've travelled in at least six of the other countries participating in Russia. I'd surmise most would have WC media saturation at this stage before the tournament. Most of the sports media involves covering AFL. I've seen or heard almost nothing about the WC on ABC TV and radio, and the commercial TV stations. SBS has more coverage. 


13 years ago I thought we would be much further advanced in the media.


Thoughts?

I sat in a cafe the other day and looked through the Herald Sun (Physical paper edition). there was NOT ONE story about football. i actually thought to myself at the time how ridiculous

I'm assuming  you are in Melbourne, or regional Victoria, as the Herald Sun is a Victorian paper.

I would have expected more coverage in the HS.

Really why? Only time they'd report something about football is if their was a match on or sokkah violence.

Thats what happens when this coach who doesn't give two fucks about the sport in this country decides to have the team on the other side of the world with only one (optus sport) Australian news organisation in Turkey there bringing back reports to the fans here in Australia. Despite the favourable timezone of Australian matches this will be the most low key WC I think. 

Socceroos Facebook account has been pretty active showing videos if that counts as media. I’ve stopped listening to mmm and sen. I noticed a lot of pubs advertising they are showing games around melbourne.

Probably a reflection of the low expectation of the general public about this socceroo team, similar to 2014.

If you read the sport pages in Sydney then you would at least know that it is on, but there’s been nowhere near the hype of the previous WCs. I think qualifying for a WC no longer has the thrill that it once did for the general public. The only thing we will hear is articles rubbishing the Roos when we get thrashed by France or fail to get out of the group.

Who cares, think i could do without the idiots on sunrise interviewing Cahill. Nothing worse than seeing the wilfully ignorant media latch onto our team every 4 years because it's trendy again.

Football fans and the National Team get treated like a bunch of annoying wogs for 3.5 years but all of a sudden it's "Let's get behind OUR boys in green and gold."   Spare me.

Qualifying after 32 years was a big deal back in 2005-06, but it's now taken for granted.  On top of that, our big star back in 2006 is still our big star today.

In short, basically nothing has progressed in 12 years.

Agree there hasn't been a lot of coverage so far, but yesterday I was unfortunate enough to find myself watching 7 News and they were showing footage from the camp in Turkey. Hopefully the hype will build over the next few weeks. 

Better than the coverage in Italy I guess.

I wonder if the Aussie born Italians will actually support their country of birth this time around ?
( karma for that penalty dive in 2006 ?)

I'm a proud dual citizen and follow the Azzurri and Roos equally so thought I would reply to this. People can support who they want to support, what is it to you if someone feels a connection to another country and supports them? How does that affect you? There are people that follow the Socceroos and have never been here, should they stick to the country they were born in?

Also, never a dive. Neil fucked up big time but I do thank him for the 4th trophy on the shelf.

Geez calm down.  They don't cover hockey or water polo or pole vaulting or archery for 3 years and 11 months between Olympics but when they're on they're still fun to watch.

Good luck to anyone that wants to cheer the boys on.

Actually the sad thing for us here is that the coverage over there is already swamped with WC news even tho their own country isn't even in it. 

Mainstream Australia takes every opportunity to shit on football (with the implicit subtext because it's not "our game"), but when it's WC everyone suddenly has an interest in supporting Mike and the boys. 

Yeah I know but if random dude wants to cheer the socceroos on once every 4 years I don't begrudge him the opportunity.

The only NRL I watch is Origin.

The only Union I watch is the Bledisloe.

I'm probably the definition of a band-wagoner.  Doesn't mean I'm not cheering NSW & Australia on and wanting them to win though.

It was both a dive and Neill fucked up. If he didn't go to ground, there wouldn't have been a decision to make. But come on, Grosso obviously dives before Neill touches him. 

What's mainstream media these days anyway? My main news source is google news with the occasional check of the local paper, I don't watch a great deal of FTA, and I don't listen to commercial radio stations. Surely I'm not alone. I reckon most people get their news from google news and FB these days.

I should probably do the 'right' thing and make it a big deal at work and see who band-wagons. The matches are on at pretty damn good times for the most part.

Havent seen too much in the limited amount of traditional media (newspapers, tv bulletins, etc.) but I think the coverage will intensify in the days leading up to the game against France, especially considering it is the best kickoff time we have ever had for a world cup fixture, and France are a massive name to play against. If we get a result there will be an explosion of bandwagoning, and lots of media chest beating at how good straya is at sport. If we lose as expected the coverage will be way less, and once we have been eliminated there will be barely a hoot about the rest of the tournament from the traditional media.

Also, our game against France will be kicking off at the same time as the NRL, AFL, and Wallabies, so the media outlets with vested interest in those particular sports (all of them) will drown out the coverage of the France game IMO, and push their promotions for their beloved sports ahead of the world cup. Thankfully traditional media is a dying dinosaur and with each passing year this becomes less of a problem.

Yeah don't get that mentality. I don't watch Athletics, Water Polo or Swimming for 3 and a half years because I don't like them and don't feel this huge urge to watch them because all of a sudden it's the fkn Olympics.

The Football fans who have copped utter shit are what built the Socceroos cult from total obscurity to what they are now and are the reason it has a distinct supporter culture separate to the other national teams, why should we allow these deliberately ignorant fuckwits to hijack OUR team?

Could sbs or Optus do more to promote us?

I'm not sure FB counts as media? Not in a traditional definition of what media is.

There are a few stories on FB and they are quite interesting.

It annoys me so much that the biggest sporting event on earth is occurring in a few weeks and in the Southern states we have all the media focus  on  a sport, AFL, no other country plays. AFL is barely a participant sport in NSW.

Compare the WC to the Olympics. The latter is a smaller event, but at this stage we'd have plethora of stories about the Oz swimming team and what they eat for breakfast.

All media outlets could.

They could also elucidate the other countries playing in Russia.

We could get a result, but it hasn't happened.

Interesting scenario in Italy.

It highlights my point.

Mate there has been so much talk about violence at afl games but it's quickly lumped in with soccer violence and no one will have a serious in depth conversation.

Sen this morning repeatedly talked about how mile jedinak isn't going to the world cup because aston villa didn't qualify, losing to Fulham.

As in he didn't deserve to go to the world cup for not getting Villa promotion? Maybe it is for the best that they never report on football.

A few points here are:

1. Having players playing in the EPL was the  biggest news in football. A lot of football media coverage in Oz is about English football.

2. Most casual sports followers think most of our Asian opposition are similar quality to Oceania - the notable exception being Japan.  This also applies to Eurosnobs. Hence, for them the Soceroos should qualify easily for the WC.

3. Not having many EPL regulars also diminishes mainstream Oz media's interest in the Socceroos.