NEW YORK — With games airing live on cellphones and computers, the World Cup is getting more online coverage than any other major sporting event yet. Watching highlights the next day on TV or YouTube will suddenly seem a downright ancient way to keep up with the action.
Footy fans can follow the action from an array of mobile and Web applications and share in triumph and heartbreak across social media.
Walt Disney Co. networks ESPN and ABC, which are broadcasting the games in the United States, will stream 54 games live on the newly launched , formerly ESPN360. The games are free to those in the U.S. who get their Internet from a service provider affiliated with ESPN, including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and many others.
The 10 games that will air live on ABC won’t be available on , but all 64 matches in the Cup will be available live on mobile devices to customers whose plans include TV on their phones.
Univision Communications has the Spanish-language broadcasting rights in the U.S., and it, too, will have games available on and Univision Movil.
The digital coverage will be an especially important component for the World Cup because U.S. audiences will be watching many of the games — all being played in South Africa — during the day, possibly on their computers at work.
Comparing the digital experiences of the 2010 World Cup to the 2006 World Cup, John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager of ESPN Digital Media, said, “Things have changed utterly.”
“This is going to be the biggest and most powerful demonstration of this, and it’s just the start,” Kosner said. “It’s the playbook, it’s the blueprint for what’s coming.”
NBC’s online coverage of the last Winter Olympics — also an international, daytime event — was extensive, drawing 45 million video streams. Traffic to more than tripled from the 2006 Winter Games, with 45.7 million total visits compared with 13.3 million in 2006. That happened even though NBC held a lot of the footage for its prime-time broadcasts. ESPN expects worldwide online traffic for the World Cup to double or triple that of 2006.
The World Cup, a mixture of global and niche audiences — where some games mean much more to citizens of Honduras, for example — is particularly suited to the Internet. , for example, will have the option to watch some games in either Portuguese, Arabic, German, Japanese or Korean.
The actual games are only part of the experience. Many media outlets have launched mobile applications, most of which feature live scores, news updates and some integration with Facebook or Twitter.
