EVEN THE NON-SPORTS fan will know there’s a bit of a soccer tournament about to begin in South Africa this weekend. And yesterday was press release day on the TV front.
In Canada, the CBC is leading the coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup with broadcast across multiple platforms, a World Cup CBC mobile app – and the third place and final games are to be available in 3D for the dozens (?) of fans who have new 3DTVs.
After CBC sent out it’s announcement, so did Shaw Cable, Telus, Shaw Direct, Cogeco, Rogers and Rogers Sportsnet – all touting what they are showing of the month-long tournament and hitting the 3D angle especially hard (despite the distinct lack of 3D sets in the market).
Even industry supplier and manufacturer Capital Networks noted in a release that Rogers Communications is launching a multi-zone World Cup Barker Channel with its Audience Software. It’ll broadcast a variety of tournament specific info like team and player profiles, match previews, news updates, scheduling info, video content and promotional messages advertising a variety of Rogers on demand services. Fans will even be able to follow real-time tournament updates on the channel, including stats, scores and standings provided by automated data feeds, and will also be able to interact with the channel by texting comments to a live chat zone.
Finally, long distance reseller Yak Communications said it will offer free calls to all 32 countries competing for the title with its 10-10-925 service. Soccer fanatics simply need to register online at www.yak.ca/soccer2010
There’s virtually no end to the connections possible to and from the 2010 World Cup.
