Soccer fans are examining the World Cup draw with the same kind of zeal as college basketball fans and their March Madness brackets.
In a few days the biggest sporting event on the planet — World Cup 2006 — starts in Germany and you can bet people throughout a Washington’s soccer community will be watching the games and sporting their national colors.
All World Cup games can be seen in both English and Spanish with ABC 7 airing 12 games, ESPN 21 games and ESPN2 31 games in both standard and high definition. The Spanish language broadcasts will be seen on Univision with eight games live on TeleFutura with no commercial interruptions during play.
Can’t see the games on TV because you are at work? No problem. They will be available on ESPN 360 for broadband computer viewers.
Such a fan that you want instant scores? Most of the cell phone companies offer World Cup scoring alerts. For free scores go to http://www.sportsfeed.com/welcome.wml and type that in your phone’s browser. Don’t know how? Go to www.sportsfeed.com and they will explain it for you. Go to the bottom of the page and you will see the Wireless Application Protocol icon.
D.C.-based XM will offerlive broadcasts of the games in both English and Spanish with total radio coverage of the Cup. For English coverage it will be channel 148 and in Spanish it will be 147.
WTOP-FM sports director Dave Johnson, also who is the Comcast SportsNet’s voice of D.C. United, will be part of the XM’s World Cup team.
The best Web site to follow all the action is www.fifaworldcup.com, the official site of World Cup 2006. It is offered in a number of languages.
Check out Gol TV at 7 every night for the day’s highlights and previews of the next games. The channel is offered in both English and Spanish on most of the areas digital cable services.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer.
