They'd billed it as a landmark view of the World Cup, the most beautiful of looks at the beautiful game.
Fifty-six matches into Germany 2006, Rogers Sportsnet and TSN have largely delivered. Every match live. Every one of them available in the stunning clarity that is high-definition television.
Not to mention a plethora of evening repeats, to satisfy those unable to steal away from their work stations to catch the action as it happens.
"It's soccer when you want it and soccer of the highest production value," Sportsnet president Doug Beeforth said before the month-long feast of "footy" kicked off.
Can't argue with that.
Viewers, apparently, have taken ownership of the World Cup to an even higher level. Rogers Cable has made all the matches available free on video on demand to its digital customers and the results have been -- to put it mildly -- flat-out staggering.
"It's gone far beyond our expectations," David Purdy, Rogers Cable's VP of television services, told the Sun. "When we did the (Turin) Olympics, we were happy with just over 100,000 downloads.
"With (the World Cup), we're on target for five or six times that amount."
The Turin Games were Rogers' first big leap into sports VOD, and Purdy admits now "our original expectations were relatively low. We just thought people would want to watch the games live."
"We didn't consider how busy people's schedules are."
Using Turin as a new benchmark, Rogers raised the expectation bar for the World Cup. But Purdy said the outrageous success of Germany 2006 "has forced us to reconfigure all our original beliefs" about sports VOD.
"We didn't think the Olympics or the World Cup would do this well," he said.
Now Rogers is heavy into conversation with Beeforth and Co. at Sportsnet about future VOD opportunities.
"We've had the same discussions with TSN and CBC as well," said Purdy. "Now we're looking to put as much sports content on demand as possible."
And for the moment, at least, you can't beat the price.
Or the convenience level.
More than ever, the game is in your hands.
THE WORLD'S GAME: Count OMNI Television among those reaping a serious windfall from the World Cup. By the time the tournament is done, the OMNI networks will have offered a total of 40 matches in five different languages. Ratings aren't available for each demographic, but there are still clear signs they've been a hit. "We have a number of retail clients who are very pleased with the results," said Malcolm Dunlop, OMNI's VP of sales, marketing and programming. OMNI has made World Cup content available on its website since February, and page views have soared from top 25 back then to top seven this month. "People embrace (the World Cup)," said Dunlop. "It's unbelievable how they get into it." ... Sportsnet pulled in 922,000 viewers for its England-Ecuador second-round match last Sunday -- the second-highest audience in network history, behind Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS between the Red Sox and Yankees (1.144 million), and the best number of this World Cup so far. England-Portugal tomorrow should challenge that ... TSN and Sportsnet are each averaging 431,000 for 28 games so far at Germany 2006. That's a 46% increase over the live game average for France '98, and a 138% jump over Korea-Japan 2002.
READY FOR PRIME TIME: If the television ratings mean anything -- and yes, they always do -- expect to see the NHL entry draft find a permanent home in the evening. TSN attracted a whopping 540,000 viewers for its coverage of the event last Saturday night in Vancouver -- more than double the audience a normal afternoon broadcast would produce. Those kind of numbers are almost impossible for any TV executive to ignore.
AROUND THE DIAL: TSN announced it will begin presenting Molson That's Hockey in high-definition format next fall. SportsCentre moves to HD on Sept. 5 ... The CFL now offers webcasts of all its games on a pay-per-view basis. The cost is $9.95 for a live broadcast and $6.95 archived views. Prices for the playoffs and Grey Cup have yet to be set.
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