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Football is about joy, madness, and passion for the game. It’s about the feeling of belonging that we feel towards our favourite team. This is possible because of the large hordes of fans who gather together to watch football at one place… and that’s an environment missing in India. To provide this ‘ideal’ environment, Cinépolis, one of India's leading cinema chains, has undertaken the initiative to screen World Cup matches live in its theatres across India.
This game-changing initiative will make fans feel the pulsating energy in the theatres – as if one were in the stadium itself. The knockout matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia will be showcased in 15 Cinépolis theatres across Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Guwahati on 101 large screens. The screenings would provide football fans with an ideal platform to cheer, jeer and voice their love, expert analysis and opinions during the World Cup.
Most of the screenings in India currently happen in bars and restaurants, and this has been met with great positivity by fans, highlighting the ever-increasing popularity of the sport in the country. This uptrend has brought together hordes of enthusiastic fans to experience this spectacle that is football. The ever-increasing popularity of various foreign football leagues such as the English Premier League and La Liga has further encouraged rivalries and the diversity between fans, resulting in a competition of loud cheering for their respective teams. Yet, never has such an initiative been taken to make sure fans can gather in such huge numbers at the same place.
Instead of having to squint to identify who has the ball or who won the tackle, players who are normally specks the size of a large housefly on your TV screen will now look larger than life on the state-of-the-art large screens offered by Cinépolis. No longer will you have to depend on the TV commentator to identify the player for you – the sheer size of the screen will make sure the player is impossible to miss!
Football fans world over unanimously agree that massive crowds bring more energy to an already high-voltage game, further heightening the wide range of emotions that we as football fans already feel – be it joy, anger, sorrow or despair. That’s why fans flock to sports bars - despite the limited space at such places. We took to both the streets and multiple sports bars to quiz the football audiences on their perspective of Cinépolis’ initiative and an avid fan said, “It is really exciting to have a screening with over 200 people present. Despite following football for 23 years now, we rarely get to see a stadium-like environment with Football as we so often get to see with Cricket.”
The World Cup has already thrown up plenty of surprises and shocks - traditional powerhouses have fallen by the wayside and new emerging powers have grabbed the limelight. Every World Cup breeds a new generation of football fans; every World Cup makes us fall in love with the game all over again. And, you don’t want to miss the climax of the greatest sporting event on the planet! Where better to fall in love with a new team than at a movie theatre? Where better to experience the inimitable magic of the World Cup than Cinépolis?
