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BBC puts World Cup matches live online

Julia Day
Thursday June 1, 2006

The BBC is to screen all of its 2006 World Cup games live online, a move that will delight office workers and dismay their bosses.

All of the BBC's televised games will be available live and free online to broadband users. The decision follows a deal with Infront Sports & Media, the company responsible for the worldwide marketing and sales of the World Cup broadcast rights.

Available to UK residents only, the BBC online users will be able to stream the same coverage that will appear on terrestrial TV, including the commentary.

Internet users will be able to access additional data: BBC Radio 5 Live will have an audio stream from every game and BBC journalists will be writing live minute-by-minute reports on every match.

Roger Mosey, the BBC director of sport, said: "Our audiences now expect to get BBC Sport on television, radio and online - and the World Cup on broadband is our biggest commitment yet to bringing people major events where and when they want them.

"We know a lot of online viewing is done in the office, so we suspect this will allow people to do their job and keep up with the very latest action from Germany."

The director of sports rights, Dominic Coles, added: "The BBC has great traditions in sport but we also want to be the most modern provider of content, and our move into broadband reflects this."

All of the group games and the subsequent games in the knockout stages to which the BBC has the rights will be available on www.bbc.co.uk/worldcup and www.bbc.co.uk/sport.

If England reach the second round and quarter-final stages, the BBC will hold the exclusive internet rights to those matches. The corporation also has the non-exclusive rights to short highlights from every game, with four-minute clips eof each of the 64 matches available on demand online.

In 2005, the BBC showed the final of the Fifa Club World Championship cup between Liverpool and Sao Paulo online. All the interactive streams from Athens 2004 Olympics were also online.

This latest deal follows the announcement that the BBC will provide UK broadband users with access to five courts of live tennis action during the 2006 Wimbledon Championships.

The service will replicate the coverage from the BBC's live terrestrial coverage and the digital interactive feeds.

Posted By: Jim Nasium on June 1st 2006 at 18:37:10

Message Thread

Good news for us, bad news for them... (Other Football) - Jim Nasium, Jun 1, 18:37:10
- Anyone remember Teamtalk radio last world cup (Other Football) - pants, Jun 1, 19:36:14
  - eurosport used to do that, all there commentary came from (Other Football) - otbc2006, Jun 1, 19:54:16
    - Would explain a lot. Watching the African nations i would suggest they still do. (n/m) (Other Football) - Small, Jun 1, 19:59:34
- Yeah I read that this morning on the BBC site - trouble is.. (Other Football) - Duck and Chips, Jun 1, 19:20:40
  - as it is they've got the added worry... (Other Football) - Duck and Chips, Jun 1, 19:48:30
    - Sky deffo do it on spanish games, cos that guy who plays for Swansea would be (Other Football) - pants, Jun 1, 20:02:32
      - I realise this has nothing with putting the kettle on, as its a reply to small (n/m) (Other Football) - pants, Jun 1, 20:12:46
  - Easily (Other Football) - pants, Jun 1, 19:37:43
  - Doubt it will at my work (n/m) (Other Football) - conker, Jun 1, 19:29:36

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