Optus, EPL and two smoking barrels

Nothing like a harmless little joke to kick off a Sunday morning.

It was innocent enough. So innocent in fact, that anyone watching would have simply had a laugh, marvelled at the comedic genius, and got on with the rest of their weekend.

Richards Hinds, in making his closing observation on the Offsiders, Sunday, 21 August 2016: “The EPL season started, but I won’t be giving any scores, because for those watching it on an Optus stream, it’s still buffering… so it’s five minutes in, in the first half, no scores.”

Gerrard Whateley even commented, after having a chuckle, for good measure, “it hasn’t been a good start.”

Good one guys. That’s genius. Got ’em. Sport satire at its best: insightful, pointed, relevant, but harmless, and fun.

Because as you would know, the English Premier League coverage under Optus has been horrendous. Awful really.

The network just cannot handle it.

The matches are being interrupted by streaming problems. It’s all pixelated when it does work. Maybe the IT people from the Census were commissioned for the EPL online broadcasting with Optus.

And the price-gouging is horrendous. You mean I have to get an EPL subscription and an Optus mobile plan? I’d rather subscribe to a life time channel of the Real Housewives of Melbourne discussing the political discourse in Kazakhstan, thank you very much.

Yes, Optus it appears, and credit to them for giving sports coverage a crack, have failed, and failed miserably. Just ask anybody that has had to experience their poor attempt at coverage, like scribes at the Daily Telegraph and other media outlets, and they will tell you: Optus simply cannot handle broadcasting the biggest football league in the world.

Or can they?

You see, as is always the case in these types of matters, can it really be a simple case of a news reporting outlet simply reporting the truth about Optus’s struggles with broadcasting?

Why don’t we put it another way. Are the News Corp media outlets truly informing the public about the real struggles of a new broadcaster not being able to handle the rights that were once the domain of a News Corp broadcaster?

Now to that, I am not so sure.

Make no mistake, the broadcasting rights to the EPL are almost priceless.

Now, when I say ‘priceless’, there is of course a price on them. In the United Kingdom alone, the broadcasting rights paid by BSkyB and BT was five billion pounds just for a further three years until the 2018-19 season. That is five billion for three seasons, and is more than double what was paid for the previous three years.

When the Premier League first started back in 1992, the rights were sold to BSkyB for a lazy 304 million pounds, and that was for five seasons.

Broadcast in 212 territories, an estimated television audience exceeding four billion, the EPL has well and truly transcended the mere 380, 90-minute matches held across 20 stadiums around England.

In the US, the NBC broadcast the EPL for a lazy 640 million pounds, and that goes until the 2022 season.

In Asia, the EPL broadcasting rights are basically a licence to print money. In India, the EPL rights are owned by Star Sports. In fact, across the Asia Pacific region, your broadcasting rights are generally owned by entities with the words ‘sky’, ‘star’, or ‘beIN’ in them, and as Fox Sports recently showed, by acquiring three beIN channels, these broadcasters are all happy to operate with each other in sharing their rights.

The owner of BSkyB, Star Sports, and Foxtel, can all trace their ownership back to one man, Rupert Murdoch, through various subsidiaries and bigger organisations, like Fox or 21st Century Fox. With all the various players all connected to one another, it’s almost as complicated as a Guy Ritchie movie.

Murdoch knows a thing or two about broadcasting, as well as its corollary: making money.

In 1991, when there was first talk about the EPL and buying the broadcasting rights, so as to bolster subscribers to his fledgling UK cable network, Murdoch wanted content for a sports channel, Sky Sports. It was Murdoch who referred to sport as the “battering ram” for pay tv.

The work motto being: you get sport, you get viewers.

The fact that 304 million pounds for five years some 25 years ago has now turned into more than five billion for only three years proves that point.

Of course, if sport is truly the battering ram of pay TV, and you need that battering ram to get your subscribers, well, suddenly, losing the EPL for a cable network is a bit of a problem.

Foxtel, or more specifically, Fox Sports, losing the EPL is a bit of a problem. Granted, they have the NRL, the AFL, Super Rugby, and other European football channels, so they have content.

But the EPL was the jewel in the football crown. That’s why you pay five billion of any currency for it.

And when Optus decided to pull the rug out from under Murdoch by way of a pittance (merely $63 million per season), you cannot poke the bear without expecting a reaction.

More so because Optus, who until now were only a telecommunications provider, and not even the biggest one in Australia, have likely put a few noses out of joint by dipping their toe into the broadcasting sector, expanding their media coverage.

So perception is everything.

And if there is a perception that Optus cannot handle the EPL rights, that is going to damage their product.

Which brings me back to News Corp, the Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Given the coverage of News Corp through their own newspaper and internet news outlets, you are in a prime position to let the people know: Optus coverage bad, Fox Sports coverage good. Now whether that is actually the case or not may well be a matter of opinion.

Because even non-News Corp outlets have got onboard with the Optus bashing, which has been curious in itself.

Fairfax, owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and the Financial Review, haven’t missed an opportunity to pop out an article or 70 about the scourge of the horrible Optus EPL coverage.

Maybe there is a feeling out there that Optus should stick to telecommunications, I actually don’t know.

But what I do know is that Optus picking up the EPL has caused a stir, and the final outcome will play out fully over the next three years.

For what it’s worth, I have had few problems with the Optus coverage of the EPL. I have a mobile phone that gives me coverage, and now I have the entire EPL on my bigscreen tv, with all of their associated programming, through my Optus contract, and, well, you see, I didn’t have that before.

I’ve even spoken to numerous people who share my sentiment.

And mine and others’ experience is in stark contrast to the perception fostered by journalist Richard Hinds, he of the harmless little joke made in closing on a sports program on the publicly funded broadcaster.

Harmless little joke, or a small jab in a concerted effort to destabilise Optus’ foray into the bigger world of sports broadcasting?

You decide.