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Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

kiap

Steve Williams (59)
(A btw: remember that SANZAAR got a … boost to all its members income … including RA … when in 2015 Sky TV UK bid an amazing amt for the exclusive transmissions rights to Super and RC Rugby.)
No problem with that for SANZAAR for one simple reason: it's an overseas market only.

The 6N within the 6N is a totally different kettle of fish, as any fule kno.
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
The 6N organisers are not allowing joint bids this time around.

A joint bid between ITV and the BBC was enough to outbid Sky last time, but it looks as though they are structuring the bids this time around to make sure there's only one possible winner.

At the moment ITV screens all the home matches in England, Ireland and Italy while the BBC televises games in Wales, Scotland and France
 

half

Alan Cameron (40)
On the Optus streaming, Simon Hill who is a Soccer broadcast / journalist with Fox Sports wrote an article last week pertaining to the digital footprint of soccer.

I will leave the link at the end if any ones wants to read it in detail.

However the over riding metrics coming from his article was the pace and size of digital audiences especially the under 35 market.

The article refers specifically to soccer and the A-League only so its not worth copying much to this post. However the theme or the direction this article shows IMO would be no different or have little difference to us.

I think the speed streaming is gathering pace cannot be ignored.

Anyone interested in the article itself this is the link, remember its solely about the A-League, so its more about the direction digital is taking and as i said i don't think it would be that different to us.

https://coupler.foxsports.com.au/ap...68f0596554689a292c3?__twitter_impression=true
 

Kenny Powers

Ron Walden (29)
How will Optus streaming work if I have a mobile contract with another provider such as Telstra or Vodafone. Mobile contracts run over significant time frames 12 - 36 months and are only exited with significant cost. Will it really increase viewer numbers if Optus are successful, its not like everyone can easily shift to an Optus mobile. Likewise if it is delivered by cable/nbn do I have to select Optus as my service provider or can I get it if I am with another provider and what will the cost be unbundle from an Optus service?

Anyway I feel that the generation that will readily adopt mobile coverage has already been lost to rugby, by a decade of under performance.
 

The Honey Badger

Jim Lenehan (48)
I would have thought that Fox would have built in a RIGHT OF LAST REFUSAL in their current contract pertaining to the next set of rights.

Anyone know if they do or not??

Given they have had exclusive rights for decades I find it hard to believe they dont have a right of last refusal, for the next rights.

So of course they can hang back and say what they like.

I think the main thing they dont like is going FTA for 1 of the key games each week.
 

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
You can pay for Optus Sport if you’re on another provider. $14.99 per month I believe

The whole issue of streaming or cast resolution will very interesting if Optus wins the RA media rights.

Most of Optus Sport is today shipped out at - guess what - 720p resolution!

(See this for user anger and complaint: https://yescrowd.optus.com.au/t5/TV...stream-1080p-Full-HD-at-60fps-yet/td-p/524512)

720p will look awful on most modern larger screen TVs. Only 1080p today from Optus Sports seems to be upscaled (ie not real 1080p native) via the dedicated Fetch Mighty STB. There is talk come June this year of 4K but only via Optus 5G home modems.

As an aside: all this is way behind Kayo in terms of technical broadcast/streaming standards.
 
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WorkingClassRugger

David Codey (61)
The whole issue of streaming or cast resolution will very interesting if Optus wins the RA media rights.

Most of Optus Sport is today shipped out at - guess what - 720p resolution!

(See this for user anger and complaint: https://yescrowd.optus.com.au/t5/TV...stream-1080p-Full-HD-at-60fps-yet/td-p/524512)

720p will look awful on most modern larger screen TVs. Only 1080p today from Optus Sports seems to be upscaled (ie not real 1080p native) via the dedicated Fetch Mighty STB. There is talk come June this year of 4K but only via Optus 5G home modems.

As an aside: all this is way behind Kayo in terms of technical broadcast/streaming standards.


Someone over on r/rugbyunion has posted what I think is a copy job of an article detailing what a move to PE would entail in terms of broadcast. And that could very well be a move to Amazon's Prime platform. Mentions their reported plans to create essentially what would be their version of the Nations Championship and some sort of Club World Cup structure as being part of that deal. I've asked them for the source to see if I can find it.
 

WorkingClassRugger

David Codey (61)
Someone over on r/rugbyunion has posted what I think is a copy job of an article detailing what a move to PE would entail in terms of broadcast. And that could very well be a move to Amazon's Prime platform. Mentions their reported plans to create essentially what would be their version of the Nations Championship and some sort of Club World Cup structure as being part of that deal. I've asked them for the source to see if I can find it.


So he's claiming it's from an industry based publication. But hasn't given the name. So not too sure. It does in a few details mirror the Financial Times article detailing the potential for the Nations Championship and Club World Cup as part of the CVC bid. As well as Amazon or potentially even a standalone OTT option. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

But, looking at the proposition of going to Amazon. It's a good high quality platform with what is projected to have 100m subs worldwide by the end of 2020. And it only costs me $6.99/month. Which makes it the cheapest of the options so far.
 

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
So he's claiming it's from an industry based publication. But hasn't given the name. So not too sure. It does in a few details mirror the Financial Times article detailing the potential for the Nations Championship and Club World Cup as part of the CVC bid. As well as Amazon or potentially even a standalone OTT option. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

But, looking at the proposition of going to Amazon. It's a good high quality platform with what is projected to have 100m subs worldwide by the end of 2020. And it only costs me $6.99/month. Which makes it the cheapest of the options so far.

No doubt at all WCR that Amazon has been mentioned in the CVC/globalised rugby context.

And no wonder - as I posted above back to a Q @mst asked, these IP distribution platforms have massive global reach and require zero in-home or otherwise additional STBs or local specialised transmission infrastructure (other than massive server farm feeders and big exit bandwidth pipes at the global centre, all relatively cheap when amortised over huge audiences).

And the economics of sub-based streaming as such are compellingly multi-layered; live sports rights do not have to be intrinsically profitable as such so long as they pull-in 'sticky' subscribers in big numbers where the marginal revenue so gained well exceeds to the marginal cost of the gain. And then on top they will push into real-time advertising, nice cherries on big cakes.

This all comes to the essence of the CVC C play: revolutionise the way the code is globally comp-designed, presented, marketed and TV-IP distributed all in a manner far superior to the ways the traditional stuffy and hidebound RUs have done it in the past.
 
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mst

Peter Johnson (47)
^^^^^ As per the conversations RH and I have been having, below is an example of the commercial streaming platform we discussed. These are becoming more readily available to support the emergence of streaming as the primary broadcast means. It supports a lower cost in-house production model many sports are moving towards as its provides a more holistic media / marketing / product (broadcast / web content/ audio for podcasts (etc): NHRA.tv will operate on a cloud-based video streaming platform utilizing Sony’s intelligent media service, Ven.ue.


Original post @ #2473
 

Archie

Frank Row (1)
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RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
^^^^^ As per the conversations RH and I have been having, below is an example of the commercial streaming platform we discussed. These are becoming more readily available to support the emergence of streaming as the primary broadcast means. It supports a lower cost in-house production model many sports are moving towards as its provides a more holistic media / marketing / product (broadcast / web content/ audio for podcasts (etc): NHRA.tv will operate on a cloud-based video streaming platform utilizing Sony’s intelligent media service, Ven.ue.


Original post @ #2473

Yeah @mst, just as we’ve been saying, THAT is the future of online sports broadcasting, production and super-selective presentation optionalities.

Most rugby RU boards of directors would be dumbstruck and speechless to even begin to contemplate what SONY IMS and the NDRA are doing as per that short clip.

Imagine as a rugby fan, instant, easy, selectable access online to:

- now, right now, show me all the scrums from the last weeks’ games

- show me the best distance kickers for 2019 and their kicks over 40 m

- show me all wingers’ tries by Aust teams

- show me all dominant tackles by selected team or player

- show me all maul tries

- show me the game minutes where team x won in the last 5 mins of the game

- show me all player x’s tries in the last 3 years

- show me the best place kickers in 20xx

- show me every try that team x made in the last 3 years

- show all media conferences by coach x in last year’s Tests

- show me all Tests that France has won in the 6N in the last decade

- show me tackle % success rates of player x or team y this year

- show me the best tries scored over 15 phases in all Tests last year

And so on
 
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RebelYell

Arch Winning (36)
Have Amazon, let alone Optus, even been involved in the production element of a sport? Or simply the broadcasting..
 

Slim 293

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Probably not, but then neither have Fox, they all just broadcast it don't they?


To a large extent, yes............. as the production for most sports now are generally outsourced to third parties (AFL, cricket, Olympics, Commonwealth Games), or in some cases the sporting bodies themselves look after their own productions eg. Tennis Australia (Australian Open, Davis Cup etc), Supercars, NBL to name a few.
 

Jimmy_Crouch

Ken Catchpole (46)
Yeah @mst, just as we’ve been saying, THAT is the future of online sports broadcasting, production and super-selective presentation optionalities.

Most rugby RU boards of directors would be dumbstruck and speechless to even begin to contemplate what SONY IMS and the NDRA are doing as per that short clip.


Come on, be better than that. They have taken the rights to the open market to seek out these types of solutions.

That kind of technology (abeit not in online/cloud format nor at the speed of delivery) has been used by super rugby teams for years. In 1998, the Waratahs were using this type of thing for their team and individual video sessions on Mondays. The analyst would spend all weekend databasing/coding the footage but by Monday you could see anything you wanted. Very basic user interfaces but you could go for left to right passes from second receiver after a lineout or right shouldered tackles by the centre inside the 22m if you wanted.
 

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
Come on, be better than that. They have taken the rights to the open market to seek out these types of solutions.

That kind of technology (abeit not in online/cloud format nor at the speed of delivery) has been used by super rugby teams for years. In 1998, the Waratahs were using this type of thing for their team and individual video sessions on Mondays. The analyst would spend all weekend databasing/coding the footage but by Monday you could see anything you wanted. Very basic user interfaces but you could go for left to right passes from second receiver after a lineout or right shouldered tackles by the centre inside the 22m if you wanted.

It's nothing to do with me 'be[ing] better than that'. How woefully patronising. Especially when you make implicit assertions to justify such statements re RA's intentions not backed up by any evident factual data.

There is simply zero evidence that RA have 'taken the rights to the market to seek out these types of solutions [as @mst and I have been outlining]'. The clear evidence from RA on this media rights-bidding front is that genuine visual and related innovation for the viewer is way down their list of priorities, even if it is on on the list at all as priority no 37. Rather, the evidence in the RA bidding rights process so far is that 'we want max $s for the rights whomever will pay'. The candidates seem to be Optus Sport and Foxtel, with Ch 10 somewhere in the FTA background.

Streaming over IP is not in itself deep viewer-driven presentational innovation, as such it's just another means of shipping out a video signal.

Optus Sport - for example - is principally cast in 720p - dinosauric as a video delivery standard - with very little state-of-the-art visual delivery innovation if any. Fox Sports traditional format delivery of rugby and its appallingly not-innovative tired commentators shows no signs whatsoever that they would invest - for niche rugby - in the kind of presentational and visual display innovation as @mst has been highlighting in the NDRA examples.

There may have been cases where local teams did a certain amt of video deconstruction of the type you suggest, but this is a world away from using such techniques in the form required for mass visualisation, presentation and user selectivity.
 

half

Alan Cameron (40)
Huge nay Massive nay Mega Massive News.

I follow sports management around the world and a huge new STREAMING players wants to enter the Australian market.

They are called Danz and if you want to look at their track record have a look at what they paid for the J-League in Japan and fights in the USA.

Danz is a very big player and I am sure Castle is well aware and could be the reason she is making such a brave stand against Fox / News.

They could outbid Fox. They seem interested in Rugby & Soccer as they can broadcast them globally.

From the smh

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer...-sports-broadcast-rights-20200303-p546k5.html

A billion-dollar behemoth is wading into Australia's sports rights fight, with DAZN set to launch a streaming service that could emerge as a serious competitor to Fox Sports and Optus.




London-based DAZN (pronounced 'Da Zone'), an over-the-top streaming platform similar to Kayo Sports, has announced plans to expand into more than 200 countries - a dramatic move considering it only operates in nine currently.

Borne out of the sports content and data company Perform, DAZN is little-known in Australia but has successfully disrupted the traditional pay-TV model for sports across Europe and Asia, and is estimated to be spending between US$1 billion and US$1.5 billion per year on rights, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Majority owned by the Ukrainian-born billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik, DAZN has primarily focused on soccer, and has spent millions on the rights for the UEFA Champions League in Germany, Serie A in Italy, and the J.League in Japan, where it signed a deal worth nearly $3 billion over 10 years which began in 2017.

In the United States, DAZN is chiefly known as a broadcaster of combat sports - having sewn up the international rights for several major boxing promotions companies - and that is what the "first step" of its global expansion will centre upon.
Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez's soon-to-be-announced fight on May 2 will be the first major event shown on DAZN in Australia. But DAZN's SVP of commercial and partnerships, Alex Peebles, said the group will be assessing the domestic landscape closely.

"We're very much focused on this as phase one and looking at it from a global perspective," Peebles told the Herald. "If we see opportunity in any market we go into, to go deeper and invest in premium rights specific to that market, we'll look at that in any case and invest as appropriate.

"What we've done is looked at the nine markets we've gone into, the learnings we've had from customer acquisition, what fans are into and what's going to make sense on a global basis.

"That comes off the back of some pretty amazing numbers we've done to date - we streamed over half a billion hours of sport to millions of subscribers last year, and that was just in nine countries.

"We're doing significant scale now and a global rollout helps takes things to the next level."

Peebles said DAZN had "no specific plans" around other sports in Australia, but the rights to Australian rugby - including Wallabies Test matches and Super Rugby - are currently up for grabs and seem an obvious option.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the company's thinking have also suggested DAZN is making strong overtures for the rights to the A-League.
Fox Sports have a deal to show the A-League until 2023, but would not stand in the way if another broadcaster was to take the struggling competition off its hands for the right price.

DAZN is expected to bid for the next round of rights to the Premier League in England, currently held by Sky Sports, BT and Amazon. Industry sources anticipate a bid for the Australian rights, too, which have been the domain of Optus Sport since 2016.

On Tuesday, Optus announced it had secured the rights for the 2020 Copa America, which the Socceroos have been invited to play in.

The A-League has suffered from an alarming decline in ratings on Fox Sports in recent years, but competition executives believe that is partly down to the migration of audiences to services like Kayo, while also touting strong digital engagement figures as proof of strong interest.

"Nobody is sitting here saying TV ratings going down is a good thing, and it doesn't matter. Nobody," the A-League's special advisor, former Premier League mastermind Richard Scudamore, told theHerald. "Irrespective of whether the game likes it or not, that's one of the key measures by which people measure success. But it's a stick with which people get to beat you by.

"Generally, if you look at the interest levels, the engagement levels, participation levels in the game, the viewership of other soccer products - there is interest here, and it is inevitable that if [the A-League club owners] get things right and I'm confident they're on a pathway to do that, this thing will turn and grow."

Peebles said "very competitive" pricing plans in Australia would be unveiled by DAZN in the coming weeks.
 
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