Watching the Rugby World Cup

BBC News reports on the massive numbers who watched yesterday's Rugby World Cup Final clash between England and South Africa:

World Cup attracts 15.8m viewers

England's defeat to South Africa in the Rugby World Cup dominated Saturday's TV viewing, with audience figures peaking at 15.8m towards the final whistle.

According to overnight figures an average of 12.8m people tuned in to ITV1 to watch the match at the Stade de France in Paris.

Figures do not include the millions of people who packed into pubs to watch the game from there.

Nor do the figures include the British expats in America who had three options, (1) Pay Time Warner Cable $30 for the privilege of viewing the match; (2) Find a pub that is showing it; (3) Watch it on P2P. Since I am not a big rugby fan, and wouldn't even think of spending that much on one cricket match, $30 was unthinkable, so (1) was out. (2) was a possibility, and would have been ideal for a bachelor, but would not work for the family, especially as the kids have no interest in rugby (they are football fans). So it had to be (3). And the P2P streaming I found was pretty rough, but just about good enough to be able to work out what was going on, and to share in the misery of our failure to win. Still, a darn sight better than the England football team did on Wednesday.