Optus unconcerned by Nine Network’s Stan Sport offerings
Optus chief executive Clive Dickens has shrugged off Nine’s move into the sports-streaming market.
Optus executive Clive Dickens has shrugged off Nine’s move into the sports-streaming market, forecasting that its own service, Optus Sport, will hit a million subscribers during the European Football Championship in the middle of next year.
Nine’s streaming service Stan will start broadcasting sports for the first time next year, starting with rugby matches, followed by tennis grand slams Wimbledon and the French Open, after unveiling Stan Sport last week.
Mr Dickens, who is vice-president of product development, television and content at the telco, said Stan Sport wasn’t a worry for Optus, noting it had a very different sports offering.
He said Optus Sport was unique in that its core proposition was European football (soccer), namely the hugely popular English Premier League, Champions League and Europa League as well as women’s football.
In July, the group added hundreds of hours of fitness videos such as yoga, dance and cardio to Optus Sport following the closure of gyms during the coronavirus crisis.
“The game (rugby) is not played at the same time of the day — it is not in the same time zone. The overlapping fans between rugby union and tennis and football is very, very minimal,” Mr Dickens said.
Mr Dickens added that Stan Sport faced a formidable competitor in Fox Sport, which had a raft of sporting content on its platform, including all NRL, AFL and cricket matches. Its channels are on pay-TV and streaming group Foxtel as well as its sports streaming service Kayo Sports.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs cautioned investors that Nine’s sports streaming strategy was “not without risk”, noting that Stan would need about 460,000 existing subscribers, or 21 per cent, to add on the sports product, or it would need to attract around 120,000 new subscribers, equivalent to a 5.5 per cent increase, to offset just the Rugby Australia content costs, or some combination of the two.
Its analysts said in a recent research report that Nine would be looking to drive its subscriber numbers above its 3-4 million target from 2.2 million in August.
Mr Dickens said the group had no plans to expand its sports slate, with still more growth to come from its football offering.
“We think there’s a huge amount of growth. We really want to lock in these rights for a generation,” he said.
Optus Sport launched in July 2016 after surprising the media industry with its $189m deal for the local broadcast and digital EPL rights at the end of 2015. It has already renewed those rights and acquired others including Japan’s J1 League.
Optus Sport boasts a record 867,000 active subscription accounts with net growth of 54,000 in September. Its EPL offering is popular, with around 260,000 Optus customers watching Liverpool battle Everton last month.
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