Optus has announced they have gained an extension for the broadcasting rights of the Premier League for another 3 years, announcing at the same time that they will be opening up their Optus Sports app to non Optus customers.
The new deal will see Optus exclusively able to stream every Premier League match, including full on-demand, replay and short form rights for all 380 matches from 2019 to 2022.
Optus courted controversy with Premier League fans after blocking access to games to only Optus customers when they won the rights from Foxtel back in 2015. Fans will now be able to access the Premier League games, as well as all 64 matches at the 2018 FIFA World Cup for a monthly fee of $14.99.
Optus CEO Allen Lew said
As a leading content provider in Australian sport, we’ve made the decision to give everyone the opportunity to subscribe to Optus Sport and experience the state-of-the art sport coverage and insights we have available to our Optus customers.
This shows our long-term commitment to provide exclusive premium content and our transition to be a multi-media entertainment provider. Fans have shown that they love what we are doing in bringing the best club competition in the world to Australia and we look forward to taking it to the next level over the next four years,” Lew stated at the announcements of the extension.
Lew has stated that the new, updated Optus Sports app will now be compatible with all Android and iOS smartphones, web browsers, Apple TV and Chromecast (finally!!). Optus Sports are yet to confirm or announce full programming schedule with no timeframe given at this stage.
Can you guys ask Optus if they are going to update the quality of there stream past 720p ever? Motion blur is attrocious.
“announcing at the same time that they will be opening up their Optus Sports app to non Optus customers”
This is the only good news in here. Optus have done a great job of making the EPL essentially invisible in Australia for two years, beyond using it as a sales pitch for their mobile or broadband networks.