Optus has announced the remainder of the World Cup group stage will be broadcast live on SBS and that it will make its streaming platform available for free, despite saying it is confident of being able to broadcast matches.
Australia’s second biggest telco has come under fire for its coverage of the World Cup, which has been marred by technical problems to its streaming service and left fans angry.
It had secured rights to all 64 matches in Russia but buffering feed disruptions have led to widespread criticism.
The chief executive of Optus, Alan Lew, said the Optus Sport streaming platform had not experienced issues during the past two days while games were simulcast on SBS and that this “had provided us with the confidence needed to reassure the Australian public that we’ve got this”.
“Confident as we are in our capability, we have listened to the feedback from Australian soccer fans.”
SBS will show all matches until the end of the group stage. Football fans will also be able to sign up to Optus Sport for free until 31 August. Anyone who has already paid will have the $15 subscription fee refunded.
Lew said streaming problems had been caused by a “failure in a critical part of our content delivery network”.
He conceded the Optus brand had been damaged and said he expected more people to sign up to the Optus Sport platform now it had been made free for the duration of the World Cup and the first two rounds of the next English Premier League season.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, stepped into the debate on Monday and shortly afterwards Lew, announced that SBS would broadcast all games live and free for a 48-hour period while it worked on the technical issues.
Optus is sharing this year’s World Cup rights with free-to-air network SBS, the long-standing Australian football broadcaster which began this tournament with the right to show one live match a night, in addition to all Socceroos games and every match from the quarter-finals onwards.
Optus mobile subscribers are able to access World Cup content free of charge, but for others the coverage had been provided as part of a $15 package.
Tonight’s first match is between Portugal and Morocco, kicking off at 10pm AEST, and will be followed by Uruguay v Saudi Arabia at 1am and Iran v Spain at 4am on Thursday.
