SBS to broadcast World Cup for two days in a miracle save for fans after Optus streaming fails

AUSSIE sports fan have been saved from the World Cup broadcasting crisis — with the Prime Minister stepping in to ensure all games will be shown on free-to-air TV until Optus sorts out its streaming debacle.

OPTUS’ great World Cup gamble has turned into a “massive own goal” — with the Prime Minister calling its boss demanding an explanation for the debacle and SBS stepping in to bail out the tormented telco.

Football lovers across the nation have been left tearing their hair out after paying for the Optus Sport package only to be frustrated by a series of error messages, interruptions and interminable buffering, leading the telco to being labelled as “Floptus”.

Punters paid Optus $14.99 for what was supposed to be uninterrupted coverage of each of the 64 games in Russia but so far they’ve seen more frozen screens than fabulous goals.

Optus chief Allen Lew addresses the media at The Commonwealth Games.

And SBS last night said it would be broadcasting every game live until tomorrow morning while Optus scrambles to fix its streaming problems.

The telco’s boss Allen Lew called it “a fail safe back-up” and said “a dedicated team has been working around the clock to fix the technical issues”.

“We will use the fact that we have two nights where the games will simulcast on free to air to test the solutions robustly,” Mr Lew said.

The embarrassing move to put the games on free-to-air TV came after Malcolm Turnbull called Mr Lew yesterday “to seek his assurances that the failure in the streaming service has been rectified”.

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Punters have so far seen more frozen screens than fabulous goals like Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo pictured here celebrating his side’s opening goal against Spain on Friday. Picture: AP

Optus had been forced to tell customers to log on to the FIFA World Cup app with their Optus Sport details in order to work around the problem.

It also offered free Fetch set-top boxes — but in another spectacular backfire stores soon ran out, frustrating irate customers even further.

SBS had the rights to all the World Cup matches but struck a deal with Optus, reportedly worth $8 million, to allow it to stream every game.

Australia’s midfielder Mile Jedinak after scoring the equaliser from the penalty spot against France. Picture: AFP

In return SBS retained the pick of one game a day and 38 English Premier League games through the year.

Former Socceroo Robbie Slater led the attacks on Optus’s “shameful” coverage and called for Mr Turnbull to “fix this unacceptable non coverage”.

University of Sydney marketing expert Dr Rohan Miller, said the interrupted coverage was “badly affecting” the telco’s image.

“Optus has scored a massive own goal with this,” he said.