Optus admits defeat, SBS World Cup coverage continues

WORLD Cup football streaming failure Optus has admitted defeat and asked free to air TV station SBS to broadcast the rest of the games in the group stage.

WORLD Cup streaming failure Optus has admitted defeat and asked free-to-air TV station SBS to broadcast the rest of the games in the group stage.

Fury from football fans over playback errors and constant buffering delays forced Optus — dubbed Floptus over the failure — to ask SBS on Monday to simulcast all matches for 48 hours while technicians tried to fix the glitches.

But as the deadline for Optus to take over exclusive streaming for tomorrow morning’s game between Uruguay and Saudi Arabia drew close the troubled telco pulled the pin.

LISTEN TO MATTHEW BENNS BREAK DOWN THE DECISION:

SBS is set to broadcast the rest of the games in the group stage. Picture: AAP

Optus chief executive Allen Lew broke the news to journalists this afternoon and said the remaining 31 games in the group stage would be simulcast by SBS and Optus.

He insisted technicians had fixed the problems with the streaming service that had failed to deliver the English Premier League games all year and also had a back-up system in place.

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He said an announcement would be made on who would stream the remaining games from the round of 16.

SBS already will be screening the semi-finals and final.

“The FIFA World Cup is the absolute pinnacle of football, a sport that Australians are deeply passionate about,” SBS managing director Michael Ebeid said.

“SBS looks forward to continuing to simulcast the games, together with Optus over the next 10 days.”

Optus CEO Allen Lew today announced Optus and SBS will both broadcast the remaining 31 games in the group stage. Picture: Christian Gilles

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph this afternoon, Mr Lew said: “We apologise for the problem that we caused on Sunday. We have looked at our systems and we think we have got the problem licked. We are so confident that we want all Optus customers to try it for free.”

He said the Optus Sport app would be free until the end of August “which means people will also be able to see the first couple of games of the English Premier League”.

Mr Lew was confident his team could deliver uninterrupted coverage.

Australian fans have paid $14.99 each for Optus coverage of the World Cup.

Punters have paid $14.99 for the World Cup matches only to see blank screens that have prompted a storm on social media led by former Socceroo Robbie Slater who branded it “shameful”.

On Monday Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull personally sought assurances from Mr Lew that the problems could be fixed.

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The Optus system was brought to a standstill by games attracting less than 400,000 late night fans. The telco said it was taken by surprise by the demand to watch the biggest sporting event on the earth, which attracted an average of 2.1 million viewers to SBS to watch the first Australia game.

Technical experts have warned it is not possible to build in the extra capacity at short notice.

Optus paid SBS $8 million for the right to stream all 64 of the World Cup matches in Russia with SBS picking one match a day plus two of the quarter-finals, the semis and the final.

Everyone from fans to the Prime Minister has been frustrated with Optus’s problematic coverage. Picture: AAP

“This is a disaster unfolding in slow motion,” said astonished University of Sydney marketing expert Dr Rohan Miller.

“Everyone can see what needs to happen except the bloke at Optus.”

He believed the Optus decision to still try and stream some of the later games exclusively was based on promises the telco had made to its advertisers.

“But really they should have done better at the start. It seems they are just creating bad will out of good intentions for their customers,” Dr Miller said.