Optus is believed to have finalised a deal for local broadcasting rights to all European national team football for the next four years, including the UEFA European Championship and the Nations League.
The telecommunications provider is pushing forward with its football-focused content strategy, seeking to learn its lessons from its disastrous World Cup campaign and leave it behind.
The Euros deal, first flagged by The Australian Financial Review in March, and Nations League will bolster Optus’ football coverage as the telco seeks to differentiate itself by securing a suite of rights across the sport.
Sources said Optus had acquired the rights to all European national team football for the next four years, excluding any Socceroos matches played outside Europe. This includes the 2020 Euros and qualifiers, the new Nations League starting in September.
The Nations League is a new international competition involving 55 Union of European Football Association (UEFA) member nations. The Nations League is broken up into two parts, the league and the finals, both of which Optus is understood to have locked in the rights.
Advertisement
Optus declined to comment on commercial details but said: “Football continues to be a key pillar of our content strategy and we remain focused on being the home of elite international football in Australia.”
The acquisition means over the next 12 months Optus will air at a minimum the English Premier League, 24 Group A Nations League matches, which includes France, Croatia, Germany, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, the Nations League finals, and the 2019 women’s World Cup.
Content critical
Content is becoming an increasingly important differentiator for telcos who are facing poor margins on the National Broadband Network and declining average revenue per user in a hyper-competitive mobile market. Telcos are betting on quality content making customers stickier, or less likely to leave for another provider.
Earlier in the year, Optus secured another three seasons of the EPL, it also has rights to the current and next World Cup and qualifiers, is in negotiations to pinch the Champions League, and is believed to be canvassing bids for other European domestic competitions as current contracts, largely held by beIN Sports Australia, wind down.
The World Cup in Russia was meant to be the crowning achievement of Optus’ football strategy. However, after being plagued with technical difficulties, Optus gave up exclusivity of the matches and simulcast the rest of the tournament with free-to-air rights holder SBS.
Optus chief executive Allen Lew made it clear the problems with the World Cup will not deter his content strategy and is confident the technical issues have been addressed so it can perform better next time.
The second season of Optus’ EPL coverage has just come to an end, and combined with a deal it struck with National Geographic in July 2017, has helped the telco grow its customers base.
Over the 12 months to March 31, Optus had its strongest year of post-paid mobile subscriber growth since its 2010-11 financial year, adding 357,000 new customers in the segment.
Be the first to comment