France might have won the 2018 World Cup title, but who were the real winners in the broadcast battle?
Not everyone could make it to Russia to watch the games live, and that left people all over the world relying on the distribution and associated media rights within their region.
In Australia, there was a lot of debate and discussion around the media rights for the World Cup and associated technical issues. The rights were held by Optus, a major telecommunications company, not a traditional television broadcaster.
Due to Australia’s anti-siphoning scheme, the public broadcaster SBS was able to broadcast Australia’s games, and the finals.
But Optus’ streaming service created major headaches for those attempting to view the other games. Many people only received errors and were unable to watch the games at all.
Initially, Optus passed on all of its rights to SBS for a 48-hour period, allowing Australians free access on a free-to-air broadcaster. This was to allow Optus time to resolve the technical issues.
Prior to the end of the 48-hour period Optus relinquished all rights, allowing SBS to broadcast all remaining matches for the tournament.
The Optus issue is just one example of factors that impacted the media component of the World Cup. This was a global event that was expected to have almost half the world’s population watching, and there are several examples from abroad that will impact the future of sportscasting, particularly for global events.
Would you like some World Cup with that?
We consistently see examples of sporting matches being broadcast on screens in pubs, but the World Cup showed another example.
In Sweden, fast-food outlet McDonald’s used the World Cup as an incentive to have customers visit its stores. The company negotiated to have all the matches shown in its 207 restaurants across Sweden.
Red Bee Media provided the service for McDonald’s, whose digital lead for Sweden, Rickard Berthold, noted:
“We needed someone who could deliver the World Cup to our restaurants on a tight deadline and without any glitches.”
But McDonald’s didn’t stop there. In Hong Kong, they partnered with Google and media agency OMD Hong Kong to create “Hungry Moments”.
The partnership saw real-time promotional messages pushed to fans when they were at their hungriest. This was deemed to be at the beginning, half-time, the end of a game, and at each goal.
(Photo by Michael Regan – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Piracy impacts sport too
While we commonly discuss piracy of pre-recorded television programs and movies, improved technology and access is now making piracy an issue for live events.
Before the opening of the World Cup, letters were sent by Sony to any would-be pirates detailing what rights it had to any World Cup material.
“We will be monitoring your activities for any act of infringement of the statutory and contractual rights of our client.”
This fear had come from reports that there had been a number of illegal streams for the UEFA Champions League season.
FIFA issued a statement accusing one “pirate channel named BeoutQ” of illegally distributing the opening matches of the World Cup. It was allegedly stealing another World Cup Satellite feed.
Still, piracy prevention firm Irdeto reportedly detected 5,088 unique pirate streams, 582 of which were for Brazil’s games. There were also 523 illegal streams detected for England’s group games, despite being available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer and the ITV websites.
Records were still broken
Despite broadcast and streaming troubles, and the fear of piracy and illegal viewing of the World Cup matches, the tournament still broke records for legal viewing.
For example, England’s penalty shootout against Colombia saw 23.6 million viewers watching on ITV and 3.3 million via the ITV Hub. This meant 81 per cent of people watching TV in the UK at that time were watching the match.
Iceland’s first ever World Cup game saw 99.6 per cent of people in that country watching TV, to see their home team take on Argentina.
Within days the 2018 World Cup surpassed the streaming records set during the 2014 Brazil World Cup. Akamia, the company that assists with streaming and was part of the Rio Olympics streaming, said that three-quarters of first round matches in 2018 exceeded the peak bandwidth for the whole of the 2014 tournament.
The future streaming of sport
Optus has a lot of work to do in regaining its current and future costumers after the World Cup ‘Floptus’ crisis. It is particularly important as it continues to try to grow its Optus Sport brand.
The company has just extended its exclusive rights to the English Premier League for another three seasons, but highly public technical issues during the World Cup will make many consumers reluctant to pay for the product.
The Optus failure has also raised concerns in New Zealand associated with the Rugby World Cup next year. The rights were won with a joint TVNZ (TV) and Spark (Teleommunciatons) deal, and many people are wondering whether Spark will suffer similar issues.
The challenge for media rights holders of large live events is to make sure they are ready and able to deliver the service as promised.
Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Pseudonym
Guest
Thanks; must've changed. Seems a few items have been tweaked or removed since I last read the list.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
While the Optus coverage failed miserably, for this sort of tournament I would certainly much rather that sort of service than have it on something like Foxtel. Foxtel may be great for those who already have it, but you don't want to have to sign up to a min 12 month contract at $50+ per month to get the sports channels so you can watch a 6-week tournament. A streaming service where you pay $15 to watch the whole tournament is actually quite reasonable. The fact the timezone made it so hard to watch many games meant there was no way I was going to pay it, but for a WC in a timezone I'm able to watch without taking 6-weeks off work, $15 would seem quite reasonable to be able to stream the whole WC. Of course, that's as long as it works...
Bondy
Guest
MQ I can tell how you write as to who you are , do you remember me ? . I won't change my username ... .
Lionheart
Guest
They've got France 2019 (womens WC) and all Euro internationals to 2022 plus friendlies. OPTUS are only going to improve.
Lionheart
Guest
All mine was over the NBN landline (fibre to the node then copper down the street courtesy Telstra) no problems. Mind you, I have massive problems with the NBN otherwise, but it worked very well for football. I haven't heard too many compliments from those who tuned in via a device and thus mobile coverage. I just checked Optus and they are advertising that they have France 2019 (womens WC) plus all the Euro internationals including friendlies and qualifiers foir Euros through to 2022, plus EPL for another 4 years. Add that to all the football on Foxtel through BeIn Sport and ESPN and the EPL club channels, and we've got it covered all over.
Griffo
Roar Guru
From what I was reading it was the iOS app that was causing the most issues in terms of streaming. A lot of work went on in that 48 hour window that SBS had coverage reinstated at that time but the improvements appeared to my individually as marginal. Personally I had other games and occasionally panel discussions pushing through the live feed, when the live feed worked at all. My connection is okay but the initial moments were either not working or heavily compressed as the buffering concentrated on time, then quality. Later stages it seem to improve, but what combination of lower audience, available bandwidth, improvements in the backend, and the app itself I haven't found as yet. The only exception were the extended match highligh packages: great concept but still difficult to access at times that should not have had anything to do with bandwidth. Still where possible I watched the SBS broadcast of the game. Either platform is fine if the initial game feed experience improves. The Optus app content itself looked good. It will be interesting how the Telstra app will fair although during the World Cup (the SBS app used this platform) the streaming video appeared even worse for clarity.
Midfielder
Guest
Waz The NRL & AFL get heaps og good articles as well. But hand on heart not the other thing are you saying there is no good news in the A-League, FFA, NPL, W-league, U 23 matches etc.
Nemesis
Guest
According to the List I have, the only Football matches on the Anti-Siphon List are a) FIFA WC Finals Tournament matches involving Australia b) FIFA WC Finale c) Australia's World Cup Qualifiers when played at home https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017C00987
Nemesis
Guest
I just browsed that article. Isn't the whole premise of the article centred on the writer saying this has never happened in the past, but it's happening now?
Brian
Guest
Optus failed big time. Firstly the streaming issue. Secondly though was wanting to watch group games in the morning inly for Optus to advertise the length of the replay. Obviously if I've watched Portugal v Uruguay at 2 hours 10 mintutes don't then advertise England v Colombia at 3 hours 20 minutes. Total lack of understamding of football right there.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Mid, AFL and NRL fans are always complaining about the negative slant their media coverage has (check out the story over on the AFL tab) so we’re not unique. But changing the media is near impossible, but we can give them more positive stuff to work on
Lionheart
Guest
Totally agree Rolly. I got a Fetch Mini just before the WC and loved the Optus coverage ands shows. They don't have anyone on their panels with an axe to grind, unlike SBS and Fox, which made viewing pre and post game shows enjoyable. I hope they get into the A League and even NPL.
Pseudonym
Guest
As far as I am aware every game of the WC tournament is on the anti-siphoning list. However, the anti-siphoning legislation doesn't mandate that, once acquired, a FTA network can't sell its rights to something that is listed nor does the legislation mandate that FTA networks must bid for events/matches on the list at all in the first instance. This is why SBS were able to sell their World Cup broadcasting rights to Optus and also why Nine were able to sell coverage for most of the London Olympics to Fox.
Waz
Roar Rookie
It’s pretty clear Optus are building their sporting platform around football. First EPL then the WC. Now the Champions League, Nations League and other European domestic leagues. AMD the impact on commercial aspects has been marked with the EPL credited with enhancing Optus’s financial performance The question is, in 4 years time will they want to add the A League, W League and FFA Cup to the stable?
Stevo
Roar Rookie
"It’s football .. but not as you know it." Sounds uncannily like some past refrain from the FFA.
Midfielder
Guest
Waz No you totally miss the point. 100% agree we must point out whats wrong and where change is needed. But we don't do this to the almost total exclusion of everything else. Go on 442 and say anything slightly positive and see the reaction. Our chief media journalist have a key role to play in highlighting all sides, yes negativity should be shown towards many aspects. Our media has been essentially as I see it in open warfare with FFA, and that poor decision by others and in all honestly does not reflect a game where 15 multi million dollars bids applied to join.
MQ
Guest
Optus and YouTube had a chance to bid for the A-League rights 18 months ago, neither did (even though Optus had already wrapped up the Premier League rights by that point). They'll get another chance in 4 to 5 years time.
Nemesis
Guest
"For whatever reason, Optus did not show any interest in the HAL." Optus did show interest in ALeague. However, Optus has made it very clear they do not want to be a production company. They do not have the expertise for this. All the football & cricket content that Optus LiveStreams is produced by a specialist company that has the capability in this field. Optus merely takes the video from the cameras, converts into "0 & 1" and transmits it via the internet to your device. At this stage, the ALeague is not equipped to produce its own Live football broadcast. Once the ALeague moves to an independent structure, this will all change. In fact, there are very strong rumours right now that the existing deal with FoxSports will be torn up when the ALeague moves independent - most likely for the start of the expanded 2019/20 season and the way we watch ALeague will be quite unique. 31 July the Report from to FIFA will be delivered regarding the New FFA Congress. After that, Watch this space. It's football .. but not as you know it.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Mid, You again miss the fundamental point - it’s not the constant negativity in the press that’s the problem, it’s the CAUSE of the contestant negativity that is the problem. We can not simply paper over the cracks and try and “muddle through” as if nothing is wrong, instead we must face up to and deal with the major issues in our game. For too long people have been attacking the messenger and not addressing the message.
Waz
Roar Rookie
You sound just like Mr. Football. rinse n repeat ?