Ed C. Tolentino
Thanks in large part to the success of the Azkals; Filipinos can now fully relate to the ongoing frenzy that is the World Cup of football. Make no mistake, the quadrennial meet which started in 1930 is the most watched event in the world, easily trouncing the Olympic Games. The 1970 World Cup final, which took place just sixteen years after the tournament was first shown on television, attracted an estimated boob-tube audience of eight hundred million people. With the advent of cable television and pay-per-view, the cumulative audience for the 2006 World Cup tournament was estimated at nearly 27 billion. The television revenue for this year’s World Cup in Brazil is expected to be in the vicinity of $11 billion.