OPINION: WHITHER FIELD HOCKEY?

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

After the 1998 field hockey season, there are opinions from all over as to what has happened to the game played in the second-most countries on the planet.

The game of field hockey had what should have been its world-wide coming-out party this year, holding its World Cup the same summer as the World Cup of men's soccer. Whereas the World Cup in France had the attention of the world media for an entire month, very few people knew the day-to-day happenings out of Utrecht, The Netherlands -- only a few hundred miles to the north -- for the men's and women's world championships.

For the past few years, the lords of field hockey have recognized that television has been the key to the game's prosperity. This is signified by the fact that there are rules on the books which deal with the color of shoes and goalie pads, trying to ensure that the ball is not hidden from the camera during televised games.

The next steps have been released in a letter from FIH president Juan Angel Calzado. The dispatch, from October 1998, designated three areas for improvement in the game: development, competition structure, and marketing.

After the 1998 season, it is obvious which one counts the most: the marketing. According to Calzado, the marketing aspect has been placed in the hands of a former International Olympic Committee consultant in the hopes of gaining major television exposure and sponsorship dollars.

In addition, he is calling attention to the celebration, in January of 1999, of the 75th anniversary of the FIH.

As Calzado is looking forward, there are dissenting voices looking back. A treatise written by an old-time hockey player, circulated on the Internet a few days before the FIH president released his remarks, seems to sum up the feelings of many who have believed that the game has lost sight of its roots.

While the writer, Syed Mohammad, uses some unfortunate language accusing the lords of the game of conspiring to make the game completely Eurocentric, he brings up some points which bear repeating.

One is that there has been a distinct advantage for rich nations because they can afford the half-million dollars needed to install artificial turf in their countries. Synthetic is the official surface of international play, meaning that several poorer nations like Ghana are unable to host full Test matches, or hope to develop their teams to the levels of many "First World" teams, especially those in Europe.

Another point Mohammad makes is that the game is no longer really a test of skill. Especially in the United States, the game is one of speed, daring, and how hard one hits the ball.

Whether this has anything to do with field hockey's lack of worldwide marketing is debatable, but it is worth noting that field hockey is not very high in the American sporting conscience. Its national collegiate championship is not televised. It is rated somewhere below American Gladiators and tractor pulls in popularity.

And yet, when field hockey images are used in television, like the GTE and Oldsmobile commercials of 1997, there is a resonance.

The latter quarter of 1998 and the first half of 1999 will be a key window of opportunity, since the biggest sports marketing tool in the world -- the National Basketball Association -- is in the midst of a labor dispute.

It is a chance for the game to show itself to the moneyed interests willing to take a risk in helping to show its products around the world.

Whether or not the game of field hockey chooses to build its popularity outside of the Olympic Games will also be key in this short window.

Perhaps when the game is marketed for television as strongly as the game of basketball, will the game be able to flourish as a world sport.


What do you think? Email us at topofcrcle@aol.com, and we'll try to print a random sampling of your opinions, as long as you are willing to give us your name and where you are from.

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