Newsflash: People Who Really Like the World Cup, Really, Really Like the World Cup

File under “yes, we know”: ESPN says people who spend a lot of time paying attention to the World Cup spend a lot of time paying attention to the World Cup.

That is: People who only watch the games on TV spent about 90 minutes on the tournament in its first three days, the Disney (DIS) unit reports.

But people who tune in to the games on TV and on the Web and on their phones and on the radio? They spent a lot more time! Five hours and six minutes, to be exact.

In other news, people who really like chocolate eat a lot of chocolate.

But ESPN thinks it is worthwhile to trot out these stats, much as GE’s (GE) NBC did during the Winter Olympics, because it wants to convince advertisers that they ought to be spending money on more than just TV.

Fair enough. My request, as one of those multiplatform bingers: Please make it easier for me to figure out exactly how I can consume all of this.

For instance: ESPN pushes the fact that it is streaming the matches via its ESPN 3 Web service. But since Time Warner Cable (TWC) customers like me can’t watch it that way, why not do us a solid and give us the link to Univision, which is streaming all the games to everyone? We’ll find it eventually, anyway.

And if you’re going to ask me to spend another $4.99 to listen to the games on an iPhone, even though I can hear them for free on ESPN Radio’s streaming site, please don’t tell me this after I’ve plunked down $2.99 for the ESPN Radio iPhone app.

Obviously, I’m okay spending the money–I’m the guy gorging on hours of World Cup every day. Just tell me upfront, so I can fork over the cash right away and get back to stuffing my face. Thanks!

[Image credit: Jens-Olaf]