MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2015
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY
Sanctity of Truth
27
WORLD TRENDS
For European Banks, Topsy-Turvy Times
PAUL CROCK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES; BELOW, MARTIN BUREAU/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Sports Shave Seconds to Keep Fans need to see more of, and what I Continued from Page 23 think a lot of properties are do12-minute quarters and a ing, is looking at the different 48-minute game. Golf continplatforms, the second-screen experience, and looking at conues its fight against slow play: officials and technology track tent in smaller bites that are ulplayers’ progress, and a Japtimately going to drive people back to their core product.” anese player was even penalIn 1998, volleyball altered its ized a stroke at the 2013 British fans enjoy watching players emscoring system to allow teams Open. to score points after every ex“The longer the ball is in play, bracing each other, that doesn’t the more entertainment value help the game.” change instead of only when for the fans,” said Jeff Agoos, Mr. Lima said the goal was to serving. The change was an the vice president for competicut the average time between attempt to make match lengths serves to 15 seconds and thus shorter — and more predictable tion for Major League Soccer reduce the average length of a for television. in the United States. “So we’ve match from about two hours to But Fernando Lima, the first done some analysis on not only about one hour and 45 minutes: secretary general of the Interhow often the ball is in play but an ideal window, in his view, for how we can improve and innational Volleyball Federation, television broadcasts. crease the amount of time “Right now, two hours the ball is in play.” of playing time does not The league’s next oballow for a broadcastjectives? Strict enforcement of the six-second er to do a proper intro limit on a goalkeeper’s and proper ending to handling the ball, and the match in a two-hour cutting down on the dead window,” Mr. Lima said. time before goal kicks and “Today, lots of things are corner kicks. around two hours. Most “I think all sports confilms and movies are two hours. More than that, I stantly have to be looking think, and we are chalat format, particularly pace,” said John Kristick, lenging people’s patience the global chief executive today, because with all of the sports consultanthe new media and all the content that exists right cy GroupM ESP. “I think now, it’s very difficult to the reality is that there’s keep people’s attention.” a lot of sports with tradiTwo hours certainly tion and history that limit works well for the world’s what in fact they can do. I Volleyball is cutting the time between most popular game: socdon’t see soccer ever goserves. Rafael Nadal, top, serving ing to a situation where cer. “I think that’s a huge during a Fast4, where four games win. suddenly the matches are advantage for us,” Mr. no longer 90 minutes, but Agoos said. clearly pace is something It also works for Formueasier to address.” said more change was vital. A la One, the globe’s most popular Cricket has set an example greater focus on long rallies is racing series. with its successful adoption of one strategy, he said. But the paradox from a North the Twenty20 format in 2003. “The long rallies are really American perspective is that The format allows matches to be the great moments in volleyball, the undisputed king of televised completed in about three hours and we have been using them sports remains America footinstead of multiple days. and promoting them on social ball, where games routinely “They put their heads tomedia,” he said. exceed three hours and feature Mr. Lima said that volleyball very little actual play during gether and found a way,” Mr. was also focused on its pace of that window. Kristick said. “For me, that’s a play, particularly the time beWhat American football does step change, and that certainly offer along with cultural heft is is going to speak to a wider and tween serves, which he said plenty of those bite-size bursts newer audience and, by default, used to average about 10 secof action, along with ample time a younger audience.” onds in men’s matches but had for replays, social media comBut reaching youth is not just grown to 25 seconds because of about streamlining the product. the players’ increasing tendency mentary and trips to the kitchen It is about breaking up the meal to commune for celebration and for more snacks. into bite-size portions that can commiseration between points. “When there is a play, it’s a be easily shared on social me“We estimated that just with quick pace,” said George Pyne the embracing by the players, of the investment firm Bruin dia. we are adding around half Sports Capital. “But I think “Really, the issue with youth an hour to the duration of the with the younger demographic is they consume sports differmatch,” he said. “Half an hour in social media, the pace of play ently and consume content difwithout anything happening. is probably weighted more than ferently,” Mr. Kristick said. “To Our problem is that unless the the length of game.” address their needs, what we
New markets are bringing about changes in play.
Continued from Page 23 hundreds of billions of euros of government bonds. Just the anticipation of the program prompted bond prices to soar and the euro to drop in value. Other countries that do not use the euro were then forced to protect the value of their currencies, encourage lending and bolster growth. Switzerland, for instance, ended its currency’s peg to the euro, shocking markets, and cut interest rates further below zero. Denmark’s central bank has reduced rates four times in a month, to minus 0.75 percent. Sweden followed suit in February. The most profound changes are taking place in Europe’s bond market, which has been turned into something of a charity, at least for certain borrowers. The latest example came recently, when Germany issued a five-year bond worth nearly $4 billion, with a negative interest rate. Investors were essentially agreeing to be paid back slightly less money than they lent. Bonds issued by Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Finland and even Italy also have negative yields. Right now, roughly $1.75 trillion in bonds issued by countries in the eurozone are trading with negative yields, which is equivalent to more than a quarter of the total government bonds, according to an analysis by ABN Amro. Investors are tolerating such yields because of the relative safety of the bonds, in a weak economy. Traders are betting that the prices of the bonds will keep going up. Even some corporate bonds, which are generally deemed less creditworthy than government bonds, are falling into the negative territory, including some issued by Nestlé and Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company. While they did not initially have negative yields, investors bid up their prices after they were issued. Ms. Christiansen, a sex therapist, took out a loan to finance a website called LoveShack that is part matchmaking site, part soSigne Lene Christiansen and Jakob Binderup contributed reporting.
cial network. For her, the novelty of her loan didn’t sink in until a spokeswoman for the bank called her back. “She said, ‘Hi, Eva, they have contacted us from TV 2’ — it’s a big station in Denmark, one of the biggest — ‘and they would like to talk to you because of this loan,’ ” Ms. Christiansen said. “Then I was really like, ‘O.K., this is big.’ ” In January, Ida Mottelson, a 27-year-old student in Denmark, received an email from her bank telling her it would start charging her one-half of 1 percent to hold her money. “At first I thought I had misunderstood this, but I hadn’t,” she said. Ms. Mottelson is studying for a master’s degree in health sciences, and lives in Odense. She said she had been following the news about the central bank, but called her own bank just to make sure she was correct. “I asked him super-naïvely, ‘Can you explain this to me?’ And he tried, but I got
Banks are charging customers to hold their money deposits. the feeling he was like, come on, just move the money and you’ll be fine.” She does plan to move her money to another bank. Economists are now pondering some of the odd things that might occur if interest rates stay negative for a long time. Companies and individuals may start to hoard cash outside of ordinary banks if the banks start to effectively charge substantial sums to hold deposits. Large savers, for instance, may choose to put their money in special institutions that do little more than warehouse their cash. “There is some negative interest rate at which it would become profitable to stockpile cash,” said James McAndrews, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. For most people, it can all seem a bit strange. “I’m not an expert,” Ms. Mottelson said, “but to me it sounds so weird that you have to pay to have your account at a bank.”
SOFIE AMALIE KLOUGART FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ida Mottelson, a student, received a notice from her bank saying it would start charging her to hold her money.