DISH Brings the 4K World Cup, too

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According to recent information, DISH will show World Cup games in 4K HDR on channel 540. There’s not a lot more out there, but if you have a Hopper and 4K Joey you should be able to get quite a lot of coverage.

It’s good to see other providers besides just DIRECTV finally jumping in on 4K. Comcast is also said to be providing 4K coverage of the World Cup but there is very little information available online about it.

Why is this all being kept quiet?

I guess the interesting story for me, being a non-soccer-watcher, is why there isn’t more coverage of 4K service here. The World Cup is the most-watched and most popular athletic series on the planet, and yet we’re seeing very little information out there about people watching it in 4K. You would think that people would be very excited to see these events in the best possible quality.

Traditional wisdom in the past has said that (1) In the US, soccer is primarily appealing to non-English speakers and (2) those groups aren’t as hungry for HD and 4K programming as English speakers. I have to feel like that’s not necessarily true anymore. A lot of kids grow up playing soccer now instead of football and there are a lot of children of immigrants who speak perfect English and have assimilated into society while still maintaining an ethnic identity.

Personally I find this interesting. Not the soccer games, but the demographics behind them. In the US at least, soccer still lags behind football. That’s changing fast as people become aware of football’s controversies. Still, it’s true today. There is major league soccer today, which didn’t exist a generation ago. However, it’s not as popular as football, not by a long shot.

I think part of this issue has to do with bars and restaurants. Despite DIRECTV’s rollout of a 4K solution for bars last year, there hasn’t been a real push for 4K in bars. That may be due to NFL Sunday Ticket still being in HD (not 4K). I do predict that once that changes, we’ll see a lot more bars embracing 4K and that should really kick live 4K TV into high gear in a way we’ve never seen before. \

In the meantime…

check out all the 4K World Cup action, and let us know in the comment section what you think! Is the quality up to your expectations? Does it make a difference to your viewing experience?

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.