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There was something exhilarating about watching Leicester beat Everton. Perhaps it was the knowledge that as of next season, potentially no one in Australia will be watching at all.
To suggest that Optus has conjured a public relations nightmare is an understatement.
The telco’s decision to hold fans to ransom by forcing us to be Optus customers to watch the English Premier League will backfire when no one bothers to sign up.
Not only has Optus shot itself in the foot by requiring fans to hold a plan worth $85 or more to qualify for free coverage, but by leaving the announcement so late, Optus has ensured there’s practically no time for fans to switch providers barely three months out from the start of the new campaign.
Add to that the fact that Optus has announced viewers “may not always experience High Definition quality” and the network is about to experience the backlash it fully deserves.
Having written three months ago about the potential for Optus to botch its EPL coverage, my question now is not ‘how could they do this?’ but rather ‘why are we surprised?’
In a nation in which consumers are routinely treated with contempt, are we honestly shocked that a telco which last year lacked even the basic infrastructure to broadcast the EPL has resolved to make fans pay for it?
It’s not like any of the company’s EPL plans represent good value for money.
If you already hold an Optus plan worth more than $85 – either through your mobile phone or broadband internet connection – then you’ve got the best of a bad lot.
At least you won’t have to fork out an extra $15 for the privilege of tuning in to a Standard Definition stream that will chew through your internet data quicker than Jamie Vardy goes down in the box.
But to suggest that Optus’ offering is somehow an improvement on the current EPL coverage is to clutch at proverbial straws.
Put simply, the cheapest fans can expect to pay to watch the Premier League on Optus is $55 – as in $40 for a post-paid Optus mobile phone account that invariably no one needs, plus another $15 for EPL access.
That’s compared to $50 for a basic Foxtel subscription which includes all the sports channels!
It would be remiss to mention the current broadcaster without pointing out that the new deal has at least roused Fox Sports into action.
Not only did they land a hammer blow by bringing the previously subscription-based beIN Sports into the Fox Sports suite of channels free of charge, but they followed up by signing a deal to broadcast on delay the games of six of the biggest clubs in the English top flight.
It’s not as if the potential to do so should have come as a surprise to Optus – Eurosport has been showing Aston Villa games all season.
The increased competition is about the only good news for consumers, and one wonders why Foxtel didn’t introduce the three beIN channels at an earlier date.
With beIN soon to be broadcast in High Definition on Foxtel, the network will not only be home to Euro 2016 and the UEFA Champions League, but also the Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and a host of international fixtures.
Meanwhile, more than 1300 fans have already signed a petition to boycott Optus’ EPL coverage.
If they think fans are angry now, just wait until the 2018 World Cup when Optus holds exclusive broadcast rights.
Supposedly we’ll be able to watch all the action on “Australia’s first ever 24/7 football channel” on Fetch TV, while in the meantime Optus has also sub-licenced one EPL game per week to SBS.
The latter at least means fans can still watch on TV, as opposed to hovering around a 5-inch mobile phone screen or waiting for streams to buffer.
How this technology is supposed to be an improvement on simply watching a TV remains a mystery.
But at least Optus solved one conundrum last week. Their EPL broadcast plans sound like a pretty good deal for Foxtel.