South Africa, June 18 -- I stayed with it for more than nine of those hours across my Smart TV and my phone. By the time the day was done, one thing had become impossible to ignore: the line between 'streaming' and 'television' had quietly disappeared.

Let me start with the honest verdict, because that matters more than the theory.

The stream itself was flawless. No buffering, no drop-outs, no quality wobble between the big screen and the handset.

There were definitely audio issues, especially the ambient sounds from the start and finish and with several on-the-road and finish line interviews, but these came from the event site itself, which is a production-on-the-ground challenge that sits well outside the platform's control.

On a 13...