Hey World Cup fans, kick back and watch the world’s biggest single-sport competition from the comfort of your laptop. Held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first of 64 matches will kick off on June 12.
This year’s championship is more digitally interactive than ever before. With apps and beefed-up streaming services, here’s how to keep up with the game’s hectic schedule.
To watch the games live on TV, here are the channels you should tune into:
USA: ESPN, ABC and Univision
UK: BBC and ITV
Australia: SBS
Brazil: Globo
For a full list of countries and their corresponding networks that have licensing rights to broadcast the games, check out this resource provided by FIFA. For a full schedule of all of the games, check out this detailed list on ESPN. Sports Interaction also has a beautiful interactive schedule.
After you’ve familiarized yourself with players’ backstories and learned how to pronounce their difficult names, follow this guide for the worldwide web of the World Cup. It’s important to note that mega TV networks mainly hold all the rights to streaming the games online. (Though there are plenty of other sites that might stream the matches, they’re not always legal.)
Online
USA: ESPN, the all-sports-all-the-time network, is all over the event. The channel will not only present all of the games live on TV via ESPN (43 matches), ESPN2 (11 matches) and ABC (10 matches), it will livestream all 64 games online. Every game will be available via the WatchESPN site and app, which is available for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Chromecast and more.
The 10 games that air on ABC will be available via WatchABC. However, these online services are only available for those who already have cable and pay for access to the network.
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Another site making the games available is Univision. The Spanish language network will air 56 games on Univision Deportes, its sports channel, as well as via its UD app. Like ESPN, the service is only available to subscribed viewers.
The UK: Across the pond, the BBC iPlayer and ITV will also be streaming the games for viewers in the United Kingdom, starting with the first match England plays against Italy on June 14. Both services have apps and sites that will stream the matches live.
Canada: Canadian viewers can check out CBC, which will stream all of the games live on its site, in addition to replays which will be available on demand. Unlike ESPN, it’s a free service.
Australia: The network SBS has secured the rights to stream all 64 games online for Australian viewers, in addition to providing accompanying apps and radio broadcast.