Games, betting & entertainment

People over at UK should be happy since BBC will be showing World Cup games online which is the first time it shall happen.

The downside and argument on this is — shown only over at UK and not the rest of the world.

Fair enough, the question right now focus on Expats. How will they be able to watch these shows while outside of UK after all they are paying their broadband bills?

There are only 7 days to go before the World Cup and I would suggest that they act fast and think about their expats by creating a logon screen (Correct me if I am wrong. Does login exists in BBC?) where they can view what is being viewed in UK. Easier said than done. Being an IT Professional, I know how risky this is going to be, next to impossible. I would not roll-out something that has not gone through extensive testing and enough security test attacks. Making a small percentage of expats happy may result in great amounts of damage.

I reckon that these guys should have thought about this way sooner. Come to think of it, expats should not care if they cannot watch the show on internet since they can afford with their large and fat paychecks on pay- per-view schedule from their television. Another angle I see is that internet connection in third world countries, where there are also tons of expats, may have slow internet access and watching on television is better than staring at a slow motion video.

Anyways, in an excerpt of the article:

This means a summer of unprecedented top-quality sport online from the BBC for users in the UK. At Wimbledon there’ll be up to five live interactive video streams of action from around the courts, supplemented by a daily round-up of highlights that’s available for our global audiences too.

From Germany 2006 there’ll be all the BBC games streamed live in video; every single match streamed in audio; and then video highlights on-demand, again for every game.

This reflects us taking seriously what you’ve been saying to us.

You want BBC Sport on the platform and at the time of your choice, and these days a broadcaster can’t rely on simply putting on an event at a fixed time on a conventional tv channel.

Some people will want to watch the afternoon World Cup games on the pc in their office; others will drive home listening to coverage on Five Live or Five Live Sports Extra; and if you’ve been out for the evening you’ll be able to catch up with all the goals at the time you want rather than where we’ve chosen to schedule them.

More World Cup information (player focused) over at Soccerati.

[tags]FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup 2006, World Cup Germany, Soccer, Football, United Kingdom, BBC World Cup[/tags]