Game on

In world rankings, the contest kicking off on July 20 is billed as our biggest

- PAUL THOMAS

It's not quite the greatest show on Earth but the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) Women's World Cup that gets under way in Auckland and Sydney on July 20 is certainly one of the most significant events on the international sporting calendar.

And given New Zealand's disadvantages when it comes to staging such events market size, geographical isolation, time zone - it may be some time before we next host a comparable extravaganza.

The Summer Olympic Games and the Fifa Men's World Cup are, by some distance, the biggest deals in sport.

There are plenty of aspirants for the bronze medal, all with an array of rubbery numbers and woolly assertions to bolster their claims. For instance, the Tour de France, which lasts more than three weeks, boasts an international viewing audience of 3.5 billion, but are these viewers who spend hours glued to the action? Or are they merely members of a household into which the nightly news, perhaps featuring a blink-and-you'll-miss-it clip of a 50-bike pile-up in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is beamed?

This tournament will supposedly surpass the 2011 (men's) Rugby World Cup, of which New Zealand was the sole host, to be the biggest sporting event ever held on these shores. To put that in perspective, the 2015 Global Sports Impact Project ranked 700 events over the preceding 12 years on the usual criteria- tickets sold, global audience - and less tangible considerations such as social benefits: the 2011 Rugby World Cup came in fourth behind the 2012 London Olympics, 2012 Paralympics and the 2014 Fifa (men's) World Cup in Brazil.