- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The World Cup dream for Optus is over after they surrendered exclusive rights to all remaining matches during the group stage of the tournament.
Optus CEO Allan Lew said he regretted the fact Optus couldn’t deliver an exceptional viewer service throughout the tournament.
“We as Optus have struggled to deliver an exceptional viewer experience and deeply regret it’s not been the case for all Australians,” said Mr Lew.
“Since Monday, we have continued to improve our product and have had the last six matches of the World Cup without any issues.
“As confident as we are in our capabilities, we have listened to the feedback from Australian soccer fans and so we decided from tonight, all Australians will have choice. You can either watch the World Cup on Optus or SBS up until the end of the group stage on June 29.”
At this stage, Optus are planning to keep their Round of 16 and quarter-final exclusive matches, however, Mr Lew said an announcement would be made in due course.
“The round of 16 and quarter-finals were not announced in terms of which service provider it would be on. As we complete the group stages, an appropriate announcement will be made,” said Mr Lew.
“We have learnt a very important lesson from last weekend. If we do take those games (the Round of 16 and quarter-final games) we will make sure the epxerience is a good one for all Australians.”
In addition, Mr Lew said anyone who had purchased the $15 subscription to Optus Sport will be refunded over the coming days.
“Those who have paid will be refunded the $15 and we will do that over the next few days,” said Mr Lew.
On top of this, Optus will provide Optus Sport for free to all Australians in the coming weeks and months.
“We want all Australians to experience the Optus Sport app. So, in the next few days we will be providing Optus Sport for free until the 31st of August,” said Mr Lew.
Signing a multi-million dollar contract to cover both this and the 2022 World Cup, Optus have come under fire over the opening days of the tournament for their sloppy service, with streams constantly not working or buffering for customers.
Their first exclusive game – Egypt versus Uruguay last Friday – saw social media erupt in a storm as Optus were taken to task for their coverage, with each and every exclusive match afterwards receiving similar receptions from the sporting public.
As reported in The Age on Sunday, CEO Allan Lew said their servers would be fixed by Sunday night, citing unexpected numbers and late sign-ups for the chaos.
However, as Sunday night rolled around and Serbia took to the pitch against Costa Rica, things went from bad to worse with many still unable to access their streams.
While official Optus numbers showed less than ten per cent of customers received an outage to their service of the World Cup stream, it looked and felt much higher judging by social media vastly negative reaction, both in replies to Optus on their twitter feed and individual tweets.
On Monday afternoon, Mr Lew announced Optus would bring SBS into the coverage for the next 48 hours to try and give them time to sort out their streaming issues and ensure all customers could watch the biggest sporting event on the planet.
Optus were confident their streaming system would be fixed by the end of the 48 hours, with SBS CEO Michael Ebeid saying at the time he didn’t expect his network would be needed after Tuesday evenings matches, other than the remainder of the 25 matches they had signed on for.
“At this stage, Optus is saying they’ve fixed the problem,” he said.
“We’ll see how it goes over the next two nights and then we’ll together — as partners and broadcasters — we’ll reassess, and if we need to continue [simulcasting] we’ll make that decision at the time.”
Asked if he had any regrets about the deal for the tournament, Mr Lew said he didn’t.
“We don’t have any regrets about spending the money. We haven’t been perfect in streaming, but by giving choice, we hope Australians will get to experience Optus Sport,” said Mr Lew.
“You have to take the risk and be bold. We will come back.
“We have a premium mobile network and want premium sports content to go with it. We have some small hurdles along the way, we will overcome them and become better for it.”