The World Cup was first televised in America in 1966, when NBC did the final(England 4, West Germany 2). The game was played in the afternoon at Wemmbley Stadium ion London, and was broadcast in this country on same-day tape delay. This was the first time soccer had been shown in the US as a stand-alone broadcast (ABC's 'Wide World of Sports' had previously shown England's Football Association Cup on as long as a two-week delay).By 1970, the NASL was struggling, and had lost its TV contract with CBS. As a result, there was no network TV coverage of the 1970 World Cup. I understand there were delayed closed-circuit broadcasts, shown in movie theaters, in largely Hispanic areas of the U.S. The same was true for 1974. In 1978, the Cup was held in Argentina, and televised in the United States once again, not in English, but on SIN, the forerunner of Univision. Some games were shown live, the first time this had happened. I'm not sure if ABC covered the final for 'Wide World of Sports' that year, but, as you mentioned, they definitely did in 1982. I'm not aware of any other matches of the '82 being shown on US TV.1986(held in Mexico) marked the beginning of extensive live English-language coverage on cable, as ESPN carried most of the weekday matches, while NBC did weekend games, interrupted by commercials. SIN continued to carry all matches live and uninterrupted.In 1990, TNT was the exclusive home of US TV coverage in English, but they continued the practice of interrupting matches for commercials. Univision(the renamed SIN) was the only place to see every minutre of every match.The ABC-ESPN deal, made prior the '94 World Cup, has defined American TV's coverage of soccer ever since, with no commercial interruptions, aside from sponsor 'billboards' onscreen.