World Cup – Driving Mobile Video Awareness
The newspapers have been full of articles about the World Cup driving commercial launch dates for broadcast mobile video around the world. This article claims more than 100 countries have mobile video offers in place for the Cup.
I checked out the offerings on Verizon. Vcast plus Glu's Fox Sports application together provide in-depth information on the matches. I thought soccer on a small screen would be awful. I was surprised – it was really well done on the Vcast service. Great close-up's of the highlights (e.g., cards, set pieces, goals, etc.). It presents enough information that you can follow the match.
Yeah, it was only in Spanish, but you don't need the commentary to know what's going on. Besides, during the broadcasts I used Tivo in reverse – I fast-forwarded past the English commentary and slowed down to watch the commercials. The commercials put on by Adidas and Nike and Apple are more entertaining than Brent Musberger.
Only complaint … they only had one day's matches available. I would love to be able to flip back through highlights of the entire tournament.
Will be interesting to see to what extent the World Cup drives upgrades of handsets and adoption of video subscriptions. Most fans I know have upgraded their TV to some HD/widescreen/flatscreen combination. Others have upgraded DVR/Tivo hard drives or added Slingboxes so they can watch at work. At a minimum, it's raising awareness which is a good thing right now.