Optus Sport

Television Subscription and International
207

I have a feeling its motorsport related and knocking out Fox Sports in the process for the 2021 Supercar season.

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208

Good question. A minute is pretty bad. A social media post with spoilers can spread way faster than that!

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209

For me delivery method enters the equation, which makes it difficult - I wonder how many streams are being delayed further by ‘client-side’ hardware to maintain continuity of broadcast

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210

Yeah, the end user equipment and internet connection is a big factor, but I have noticed the Kayo app deals with this pretty well. If a match freezes due to buffering, once it comes back to normal quality it mutes the audio and speeds up to live automatically. It doesn’t sound like Optus’ app deals with this in the same way.

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211

Possible a spot on the Network Ten mux. LCN 16

Don’t get too excited yet, as always nothing is confirmed until it’s official.

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212

Guessing they would mostly be using it to run a Optus Sport promo loop. Can’t see them making many games (either live or delayed) available for free if such a channel does eventuate

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213

Not sure what the advantage would be for Ten. The content that Optus would bring to the table is very niche, and hard for them to commercialise.

They absolutely should discuss where they can be combined bidders for rights, but doing something now doesn’t make sense, especially not a linear channel on FTA.

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214

Ten shouldn’t be worrying about Optus and going all in for all rights to sports and using All Access to monetize components of it. Eg two live games on free to air and the rest of the round on all access.

Only problem may be they don’t have the infrastructure to run live streams on that subscription service.

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215

Optus has English Premier League which is quite popular here and definitely not niche.

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216

My bad it would be on Ten HD (re: LCN 13).

Network 10 are waiting to confirm they have secured the FTA/Streaming exclusive rights to Saturday night A-League and Sunday twilight time slots, Fox sports are dragging their feet not wanting to let go of streaming rights which they need for Kayo, Network 10 want FTA (no issues there as no other FTA is interested) and also exclusive streaming rights for the games they are going to produce, FFA are working out the deal but again Fox Sports are holding it up which is why nothing has been announced yet.

Where Optus comes into it is once Saturday night game ends on Ten they will provide Ten with 1 EPL game fully branded as Optus Sports (which Optus could not do with SBS but Ten will allow), Optus will use the time slot (EPL game) as a gateway to FTA viewers to get them to subscribe to Optus Sports, all Ten will do is insert commercial spots during game play, half-time will be fully Optus branded.

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217

If that eventuates, that sounds like a decent deal.

10 get to position themselves as the home of soccer.
Optus get a weekly marketing spot.

I wonder if the two ever discussed the weekly highlights show or a highlights package for 10.

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218

If true, the one EPL game that use to be on sbs rated quite well when it was on early at around 10pm. Probably outrated whatever was on ten at the time.

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219

This is a constant refrain. Fuckwits run that network and continually screw over the public and sporting organizations with their ridiculous rights deals.

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220

The Saturday night EPL game on SBS was a ratings winner. 10 showing A-League into EPL could work.

222

And LCN 10? If not it all makes absolutely no sense.

223

It was? Rated ok, doubt it was ever a winner.

224

They would to get it done soon. You only get 9.30pm kick offs before daylight savings starts. 11.30pm after that if there’s an early fixture.

225

Surely the easiest way to resolve the issue would be for 10 to have the exclusive live streaming rights but then allow Kayo to offer the 10 games on demand the next day on a non-exclusive basis (similar to what they did during the Wimbledon finals when Seven had the exclusive live rights)?

If that does happen, it’s the Fox/A-League arrangement all over again. Sure, the EPL will probably rate decently and it’ll plug a gap in 10’s Saturday night schedule. However, there’ll be no incentive for them to promote it considering it’ll be one giant ad for Optus Sport.

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226

16 Spree TV rebranding soon…

227

@FormerInsider any updates about the potential 10 and Optus tie-up. Plus what is happening with the Fox/10 A-League deal.

1 Like