The last minute cancelation of the Australia/Canada game must have resulted in a windfall for the game referees. As officials are required to be at the field several hours before they would get paid if they showed up and I am assuming they did. Not bad for a days work.
No windfall. WWC referees work gratis. They are paid travel expenses and a per diem (not sure how much).
So far as I can tell, ESPN isn't airing the Australia-Canada game at all, which stinks because that's the most interesting matchup left.
It's curious that the ESPN guides don't list that match. They listed all of the games as being broadcast this morning when they showed the new schedule on television. I'm not sure if all of the program guides have been updated, but they should be showing the matches. There is nothing on at that time period other than SportsCenter and To Be Determined programming.
After sitting through the ESPNews ticker, they do list the Australia-Canada match as being on ESPN at 4:55.
So far, though, the ESPN website doesn't show the AUS-CAN game. If they had to cancel one, why not NOR-GHA? Ghana is the one team, of the eight, that has already been officially eliminated.
I know the ESPN website doesn't list the game yet, but I'm going to trust the ESPNews ticker and the information that was shown and talked about this morning. If you watch any of the ESPN channels and wait around for WCUP, they say something along the lines of Wednesday's matches were postponed for Thursday and then it shows the times and channels the matches will be on. I realize the ticker isn't always right(I actually have called and e-mailed ESPN a few times when I noticed incorrect items), but I see no reason not to believe it this time. And now, as I type this ESPNews showed a graphic after doing UEFA Champions League highlights where all of the World Cup matches for tomorrow were listed with times and channels and the Australia-Canada match didn't have a channel listed next to it. Seconds later, the ticker still said ESPN. In conclusion, I don't know what to think.
Thank you! I actually tried calling ESPN today, but - after interminable waiting, of course - got nowhere.
It took 6-8 hours for ESPN to realize they had a Virginia Tech football score wrong on their ticker a couple seasons ago. The score was reversed so it looked like Tech got crushed by an unranked team. I called and e-mailed several times since I didn't have anything better to do on a Saturday night after a victory in football. My friends were really worried about my obsession that night as I stared at the ticker for hours waiting for it to change.... I was able to return to normal life as soon as I finally saw the change. I was disappointed that the people I spoke to didn't say thank you and the return e-mails were just automatic responses.