There's been a "muted" response from New York's banks and brokerage firms to this year's World Cup, according to Reuters. Despite the fact that games take place during the workday, interest in the
tournament is far from surpassing the NCAA basketball tournament or daytime baseball games. "People here are not watching soccer for soccer's sake but they are just watching to see how the United
States does," said Jon Gibs, a media analytics director at Nielsen/NetRatings Inc., which measures Internet traffic. Gibs said online traffic was more than ten times less for the World Cup than it was
during this year's NCAA Tournament. On Monday, when the U.S. soccer team played and lost 3-0 to the Czech Republic, about 3.2 million people in the United States went to World Cup-related sites
compared to about 1 million on other days. An online audience of up to 37 million went to NCAA-related Web sites during the college basketball tournament. Financial services firms, which attract a
large number of foreign employees told Reuters that interest in this year's World Cup was higher than during the 2002 World Cup "but still limited."
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