Why is football a bigger and more televised sport than hockey?

This may seem like a pointless argument, but it really bugs me. Football, stripped back and thought of just as a sport, would be fine. The problem is it also comes with a grim and degrading culture which seems to be associated with swearing, drinking, fighting and cheating. The few times I have had the displeasure of watching a match, all I've seen is full grown men throwing themselves on the ground in desperate attempts to gain possession. My highlight of watching football has to be goalkeeper Joe Hart repeatedly screaming over the barrier “give me a f**king ball” when one was not immediately thrown into his waiting arms.  What a charmer. Really, I mean, such a good role model for the children of Britain and across the world. 

As I said, this isn't an attack on football as a game. It’s of course brilliant for kids especially to be involved with football, because it’s healthy for them to want to be part of a sport, and it is always great to see passionate and driven athletes. But, in terms of culture, hockey is undoubtedly one hundred times better. For one, the players respect each other and so do the spectators; you rarely see fights breaking out in hockey and the swearing is at a minimal. We all just fundamentally share the same love for the game itself. Sure, things do get a bit heated, but that’s all part of the competitive fun; the bottom line is things just don’t get as ugly as they do in football. The players conduct themselves much better during matches and in their free time; I am yet to see one of them spit on the pitch or dive on the floor. This may be because they are not paid, and they are celebrities on a much smaller scale, but that should not be an excuse for football players. In fact, as they are more in the public eye they should make even more of an effort to conduct themselves appropriately. Most of them are absolutely disgraceful role models, and sadly the culture of football allows this to continue, almost seemingly proudly.

So that’s one good reason why hockey should be bigger than football. The other is that hockey is actually a faster and arguably more exciting game, with more end to end action and more scope for tremendous skill.  It could have been argued that it was too fast to make a good televised sport, but technology has improved massively and the camera work now is exceptional; no part of the game is missed out. In Holland at the World Cup last year we were shown how airing hockey is done, with the spider cam and the goal cam allowing us to watch the game from some pretty exciting angles. We also incorporate the use of video umpiring, which keeps arguments on pitch to a minimum and makes sure the game is fair and the right decisions are made. Football is yet to make the transition to using video as a way of making their on pitch decisions.

Hockey has all the traditional aspects as football, so we don’t miss out on that; the teams sing their country’s national anthem and shake hands before the game commences. We just miss out the bit where people shine lasers in the player’s eyes when penalties are being taken, and the bit where people make racist comments on pitch and in the stadium. I’m not saying hockey is perfect, because it is a sport like any other and there are plenty of problems with it; I’m sure in some places there are plenty of fights and people do spit and use racist language. But on the whole that is not what you think of when you think of hockey; it does not have the same bad reputation that football has.

 I almost understand why it’s not globally as popular: you need more equipment and an astro in order to play hockey, whereas football can be played anywhere with almost anything. But this doesn't explain why it is not as televised; the Investec Hockey 5’s indoor finals this year had to be streamed online as opposed to being on the T.V. because a darts competition was being shown on Sky. I would argue darts isn't even a sport, but that’s an entirely different debate. During the commonwealth games last summer, hockey games were often pushed to the red button to make room for other more minor sports, which makes very little sense to me. People need to give hockey a chance and give it a watch when it is on, because then they’ll see how good it is and the viewing figures will do all the talking. If you can manage to sit through an entire football match, I guarantee hockey will be light relief in comparison. It is becoming a bigger sport, which is brilliant, but there is still a lot of ground work to do before we get premier division games shown live on sky sports one!