The opening minutes of the soccer game brought a quick goal, and Rubén Bres and the 15 guests who had joined him around his battered TV erupted in cheers. But they were happy not just for their team. They were happy they could even watch.
Until this season, Argentina’s ardent soccer fans needed cable to see premier league games on TV and pay-per-view. Then, in a move analysts call shrewdly populist, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government helped push Argentina’s soccer association to sever its long-term contract with the country’s biggest media group and broadcast free all games on a state-run station.