Optus to stream English Premier League matches
Rebecca Hawkes
| 10 February 2016
Australian telco Optus is developing a subscription streaming service for next season’s English Premier League (EPL) coverage, according to local reports.
A direct-to-consumer online service will deliver live and on-demand football matches to PCs, mobile devices and smart TVs, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Optus has acquired the EPL rights for A$63 million (US$44.4 million) per season for the next three years, starting August 2016.
The over-the-top (OTT) video service will be made available to all, but Optus customers will be offered a discount if they take out a subscription, the newspaper reports.
Current rights holder Fox Sports operates a Premier League on-demand streaming service, offering live games and a catch-up function to subscribers.
Optus’ OTT service will compete with that of beIN Sports, which last year secured the rights for the UEFA Champions League. The Qatari company offers online subscriptions for a monthly or annual fee, and also holds rights to other football properties: Spain’s La Liga, Germany's Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A.
Optus currently has an existing partnership with Fetch TV for its pay-TV service but it is unclear whether this partnership will be utilized to offer the EPL service via Fetch TV set-top boxes. In Singapore, Optus’ parent company Singtel offers EPL over cable television and its Singtel TV Go app for mobile devices.
In Australia, Optus has also recently signed a deal with subscription video on-demand (VOD) service Stan, offering its customers a three-month bonus subscription and making all of the content on the streaming platform un-metered.
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