Google's homepage is now showing a link to add "World Cup live scores and schedules" to your Google personalized homepage. Although Yahoo looks to be the real World Cup winner with its long standing partnership with FIFA and its joint effort with FIFAworldcup.com, Google has tried to stay relevant to the World Cup by attaching its name to the social networking soccer site, Joga.com, with Nike. Soccer/Football remains the most popular sport in the world, so it is a natural move strategically for companies to try and appeal to the fans during this monumental tournament. Yahoo is offering live mobile SMS updates for the avid soccer fan, and it appears Google is too late to the game in offering such features. Attaching ones brand to such a highly popular sport and tournament could provide long standing brand recognition and only aid in building out a stronger presence internationally. Since Yahoo is likely responsible for serving and brokering the advertisements on FIFAworldcup.com it is conceivable the popularity of this event could garner greater than anticipated site traffic and lead to unexpected upside to revenue.
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