Optus Sport

Television Subscription and International
452

Optus Sport marks two years to the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023

Following the conclusion of UEFA EURO 2020 and the Copa America 2021, Optus Sport’s big tournament focus shifts to premium women’s football.

There is just one year to go until the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 kicks off in England, and in two years the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 will be hosted in Australia and New Zealand for the very first time, with both tournaments to be broadcast live and in full on Optus Sport.

In addition, Optus Sport continues to show its commitment to change the future they see with the Barclays FA Women’s Super League returning in September, while the English Premier League kicks off in less than one month’s time.

The Australian audience appetite for the world’s best football has never been stronger, with Optus Sport records being broken during the past five weeks’ broadcast of the UEFA EURO 2020 and Copa America 2021, won by Italy and Argentina respectively.

Optus and UEFA made a decision to offer a number of key matches for free to enable all Australians to sample Optus Sport and also the opportunity to watch the historic final, which was especially important as many areas of the country were experiencing COVID restrictions.

The EURO final was a dream match with England reaching its first final in 55 years and Italy winning its first European Championship in 53 years. This match saw a live reach of over 900,000, the most streamed game in Optus Sport history.

Corin Dimopoulos, Optus Head of TV and Content, said, “We are proud to be the official broadcast partner of the world’s biggest men’s and women’s football tournaments, and the last few weeks have been an extremely special time for all football fans in Australia.

“With that in mind, just imagine what the audiences will be for the UEFA Women’s Euro and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023.

“The feedback and sentiment around our coverage has been fantastic, and this sets us up for our exclusive coverage of the Women’s Euros next year and then the following year, we will be the only place to watch all Women’s World Cup games hosted here in Australia and New Zealand.”

With the long-term focus set on the UEFA Women’s Euros and FIFA Women’s World Cup, up next for Optus Sport is the new season of the Premier League, which kicks off on Saturday August 14 followed by the Women’s Super League in September.

1 Like
453
2 Likes
454

Thought it meant Athletics for a moment!

455

Optus Sport’s coverage of the 2021/22 Premier League season starts this Saturday morning (August 14) when newly promoted Brentford hosts Arsenal in the season opener.

2 Likes
456

Richard Bayliss has left Optus Sport

1 Like
457

Sad to see him leave, but it guarantees we will see amazing content from the APL. I hope he gets some presenting roles there as well.

1 Like
458
2 Likes
459
2 Likes
460

Another long-time Optus Sport member leaving the network:

Perhaps a sign that some there aren’t confident of Optus will hang on to the EPL?

2 Likes
461

Joining the production team for ALM and ALW

462

Heading to Aleagues? Just that mean he will be part of the Paramount+ games produced by APL?

463

It says in his tweet he’ll be head of digital content, so I would say unlikely to be seen on-air.

1 Like
464

Optus Sport has been awarded Gold for the Best Social Strategy category in the 2021 SportsPro OTT Summit Awards. The category recognises brands developing the most innovative and creative strategy for implementing social media as part of a broader OTT strategy.

Optus Sport was also awarded Silver for the Best Platform of the Year Award category. DAZN won Gold in the category.

The awards were presented on the opening day of SportsPro OTT Summit at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on November 15.

1 Like
465

Optus Sport extends Premier League and Women’s Super League exclusive streaming rights whilst surpassing 1m subscribers

Optus Sport is the home of the world’s best football and has extended its exclusive streaming rights to the Premier League for six more years and Barclays FA Women’s Super League (WSL) until 2024.

The announcement means Optus remains the Premier League’s exclusive Australian partner to almost the end of the decade and sees the award-winning service extend its coverage of the WSL to 2024, well beyond the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 hosted in Australia.

The historic deal is a win for fans of the beautiful game, with the renewal meaning every Premier League match will be available to watch live and exclusive, on demand replay, and via the highly popular Mini Match edits through Optus Sport.

“We are thrilled to be able to significantly extend our exclusive partnership with Premier League and the FA Women’s Super League and continue to bring the best football coverage to more than a million of our passionate and loyal Optus Sport customers,” said Optus CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.

“This is another proof point that we are continuing to deliver unique customer experiences and exceptional value for our Mobile and Home customers, in addition to our industry-leading Living Network, Australia’s fastest 5G, and our newly launched SubHub, a revolutionary subscription aggregation platform,” Ms Bayer Rosmarin continued.

“In the six years since securing the exclusive Premier League rights, Optus Sport has become the undisputed home of premium European football and has introduced new Australian audiences to the game whilst setting the benchmark on live sports streaming,” said Optus’ VP of TV, Content and Product Development, Clive Dickens.

“Optus Sport has more than doubled its subscribers since 2018, engagement is up over 49% year-on-year and we’ve seen nine of our top 10 most watched matches occurring during 2021. This includes the historic EURO 2020 England vs Italy Final, which broke the Australian record for a live sports streaming event, with almost one million households watching the match live, no single streamed Tokyo Olympic event reached this many households.”

Paul Molnar, Chief Media Officer at the Premier League said: “The Premier League is delighted to extend our partnership with Optus for a further six seasons up to 2027/28. Optus has proven to be an outstanding home for the Premier League in Australia and has helped to grow the fan base of the Premier League and its clubs through market-leading content and impressive innovation. We are looking forward to continuing to work with Optus in the years ahead.”

The announcement culminates a week of wins for Optus Sport, which was named the Gold Winner for Best Social Media Strategy at the global SportsPro OTT Awards - beating international brands like the NBA and Real Madrid - also picking up Silver in the Platform of the Year category.

https://twitter.com/OptusSport/status/1461449817423450112

5 Likes
466

Awesome news. Thought it would be on P+ given they have the ALM

467

Yeah, thought either Parmaount+ or Stan would have won the rights auction.

Having said that, guessing Optus put in an aggressive bid to retain the Premier League rights knowing that Optus Sport would all but be ‘unviable’ had they lost the PL on top of losing the CL/EL to Stan. The length of the deal (6 years whereas the PL usually deals in 3-year rights cycle) also points towards that as well.

1 Like
468

Maybe ‘awesome news’ for Optus. Not so good for football fans with rights spread across three platforms. Football fans would have been crossing their fingers they went to P+ or Stan to consolidate their subscriptions.

8 Likes
469

Not good for Stan Sports or P+ either considering they’re missing probably the most lucrative football league out there.

470

It would’ve been an instant 1milliom subscribers to their service. They underestimated Optus.

471

This article also says that F1 has renegotiated its deal. I haven’t seen any press release from Fox declaring ongoing rights. I thought next year was the last in the current deal.

1 Like