I have not been so amazed by the internets since first experiencing it about 10 years ago. I just experienced free live streaming TV, and it was awesome. Wired is running an article that describes a few ways to watch World Cup Soccer on your PC for free.
I first tried a proxy setting so that I could watch the live BBC feed. This was kind of a pain because I kept finding dead proxies. When I finally found a live one, I realized that I couldn’t test it because there were no games on right then.
Desiring more procrastination, I decided to try the P2P approach outlined in the article. I logged into the Football Streaming Info site and downloaded TVants. TVants is a free program that enables P2P TV streaming. After some frustration with non stop buffering, I reset my dsl modem to improve the speed (the reset got me back to 1.5Mbps). Then I started an ESPN feed. Within a few seconds, I was watching the A’s/Yankees game, live. AWESOME!!!!
It is not perfect, though. The quality of the ESPN feed was not wonderful. It was good enough to follow the action, but it definitely had some noticeable digital artifacts (blocking). Also, this has questionable legal status. I think the networks would be unhappy with me, but I really couldn’t care less. We cannot continue to hold back technology just to keep a couple of huge corporations cash cows alive. Technological progress is what has enabled the human animal to rise above the other primates. If it were up to the networks, there would be no progress in the entertainment industry, except for revenue progress.
In summary, give internet TV a try. You won’t be disappointed, but the networks will.