Today saw the surprising announcement that this weekend’s game between England and Ukraine will be broadcast on the Internet only on a pay per view basis.  Forgetting my personal opinion that national games should be available on terrestrial TV, as an internet marketer and someone that works for a digital TV company this is very exciting.

85% of homes in the UK have broadband now so the reach is vast and allows the game to be more accessible, so doesn’t have to be watched in the home in front of the TV or at the pub.  I will be watching the results of this test with great interest.  Will there be issues with the streaming? Will some viewers who have paid for the game not have a good enough broadband connection to watch it?  Will the number of people watching the game put immense pressure on the infrastructure?  These are all issues that we will get some answers to this weekend and I very much suspect this could set precedence for how sport is broadcast to viewers if successful.

In terms of online advertising this opens up a huge opportunity for brands wanting to reach the audience for 90 minutes.  It also opens up an interesting promotion method; perhaps we will see companies giving away a subscription if they purchase a new betting account for example?  On signing up you do have to test a demo to check your broadband connection can cope, it worked for me on mobile broadband.

I have subscribed to watch the game, purely to see what it is like, not because of the game as I suspect given that we have already qualified it will be a dull match.  I will blog here the results after the game.  The website to subscribe is here.