I found the answer, not by searching the forum but by browsing the forum randomly. You just have to forget about ESPN's live streaming. Even though it's a flash-driven shite, N900 can't stream it, probably because its flash is at version 9.x and they're expecting 10.x flash client. As I said in my original post, my friends with Android phones are enjoying watching World Cup matches on their phone. I just wanted to find out from the informed people here if you can watch it live streamed from Internet.

TITCR:

start kmplayer, choose worldtv99, choose sport, choose from dozens of channels.

Enjoy!