Forum: Dismal live coverage, poor turnout at women’s floorball championship

I refer to the report “Perfection thwarted” (ST, Dec 6). The match on Dec 5 in the ongoing Women’s World Floorball Championship was a very exciting tussle between Singapore, host of the prestigious event, and Germany.

No live telecasts were available on cable TV or YouTube, but a notice on mewatch said it would be screening live telecasts only of matches that involved the Singapore team.

As Singapore had shown its mettle by winning its two earlier matches against France on Dec 2 and Australia on Dec 3, my family gathered at home to cheer the home team.

The match started at 8pm. But at 9.18pm, after the second of the three 20-minute periods was played and both teams were level at 1-1, the live telecast stopped and the notice on the screen read, “Live transmission is over”.

Imagine our shock, disappointment and frustration at this rude disruption. There was no prior notice that mewatch would do a live telecast of only two-thirds of a match.

It was not that mewatch had other programmes to telecast. The screen simply froze for the rest of the night with the “Live transmission is over” notice.

I also wondered about the poor attendance at the event, a world championship no less, for at least the first three days.

The ActiveSG website’s page on the history of floorball has this information: “There are currently about 10,000 floorball players in Singapore, with approximately 200 schools and 100 local clubs actively involved.” So where are these people? 

International Floorball Federation secretary-general John Liljelund was quoted as saying that the sight of empty seats at the OCBC Arena was “unfortunate” (Olympic push in play, but floorball needs to level up, Dec 6) 

Perhaps the organisers could have lowered admission ticket prices for students and active club players to encourage more people to attend. That, in turn, could increase awareness among Singaporeans and make floorball a spectator sport, and attract the sponsors the sport needs.

The Singapore women’s floorball team has made us proud by winning the SEA Games gold medal three times in a row.

Let’s encourage our young people to enjoy and be inspired by the current world championship by subsidising ticket fees or sponsoring school teams. 

K.W. Leong