STWNSHH (was Size)

[ibchawz]

No: HPFGUIDX 139789


Ffred wrote:

123 fans supporting 15 employees of the club (I assume that the 
Department of Magical Games and Sports pays the referees) means that 
there are just 8 fans' gate money for each employee! Plus (given that 
there's no evidence of things like corporate sponsorship or even 
corporations to do the sponsoring) those fans' gate money has to 
cover equipment and upkeep of the ground.

ibchawz responds:

I enjoyed reading your theory on this subject.  It reminded me of the 
email that gets forwarded around every Christmas that technically 
describes why Santa Claus can't exist.

I don't have my GOF book with me, so I am quoting the following stuff 
from memory.  Before the match began, the scoreboard was flashing 
advertisements for various products (I think Magical Mess Remover was 
one of them), so there is some sort of corporate sponsorship.  

Another thing I recall (let me know if my memory is faulty) is that 
the stadium for the Quidditch World Cup was built to seat 100,000 
people.  Considering that overseas countries were represented by 
rather small groups of fans due to the logistics of travel, I think 
it is safe to assume that the majority of the attendees were from 
Europe (for the sake of discussion, I assume 70%).  If the UK has 
only a WW population of 3000, that leaves 67,000 to come from other 
European countries.  If this is the case, the UK actually has a 
relatively small population of wizards/witches in comparison to other 
European countries.  

Since JKR has stated that math and numbers (including school and WW 
populations) are not her strong point, I don't think she really gave 
this aspect of the WW a lot of forethought.  On the other had, she 
stated that she had background details for each of the students in 
Harry's year at Hogwarts.  I guess she just put more energy into 
character development than she did into other details. 

ibchawz