The 2014 World Cup is now on. I am watching it on my computer; my wife is watching it in another room on our television. It is so easy.

Ever since living in West Germany in 1974, I’ve followed the World Cup. Back in the States in the 1970s and 80s, it was always a tremendous struggle to actually catch a glimpse of a match on television. Hunting for channels, snowy reception and no-English commentary. Univision, the Spanish-language station, was the only choice; “goallllllllllllllllll” was just about all I understood.

In 1990 I was in Berkeley and grabbed a few games on TNT and Univision. In 1994 I was in Cape Town and rented a very heavy old television for a month (somehow you could do that back then) and stayed up late at night watching matches back home. In New York in 1998 without a television in my apartment, I caught games at bars and at my first outdoor screen, set up in Bryant Park near the New York Public Library. In 2002 in upstate New York and still without a TV, I caught games at a cafe at my local train station, sometimes getting the nightwatchman to let me in to watch the 4:30am games. I also got up at 2:30 in the morning at my in-laws house in Boston and caught the famous U.S. v. Mexico game on a tiny TV in their kitchen; while everyone else slept, I silently fist-pumped and hopped about after that first goal.

Then the Internet changed everything. I could catch games right on my computer. Unbelievable. You forget how hard it was.

I think about squash, how we’ve so rarely had the chance to watch tournaments, live or even replay. Today I was writing about the 2004 U.S. Open, just a decade ago and back then we had just the semis and finals filmed and even then it was shown weeks later in a ninety-minute package and only on the Tennis Channel. Nowadays, SquashTV has all but obliterated our memory of these earlier days when you didn’t have live squash from around the world at your fingertips.

And every four years, on this first great day when the tournament begins anew, I think about how good things are now.