Well the EPL season has come and gone and gives an opportunity to reflect on the change in broadcaster, after moving from Foxtel to Optus.

For me it's been a downward step in terms of my enjoyment of the EPL experience, and probably the lowest amount of games I've watched in an EPL season in 10 years. 

Optus have given it a go, and the quality is there but for me it highlights a few things that made more of a difference than i thought they would:

1. i just don't like the idea of sport on demand as much as i thought i would. It doesn't feel live to me through a netflix type interface. 

2. I prefer a local take as analysis on the games which has a bit of humor about it and also shares your experience of a bunch of EPL loving guys pulling an all nighter to watch premier league (as it was with Robbie, Bozza and Adam Peacock).

3. Also unlike on foxtel i don't ever watch games a few days later the way i would if foxtel were showing a replay or even if i had iq'd a game. 

What do you think? 
Has it changed your experience for better or worse,  or had absolutely no effect? 
Do you think it has been a success for optus or made a massive dent in Foxtel's profits? 

Personally went from watching the highlights every other week and the occasional game on Foxtel to not having it. Personally don't care for the EPL, much prefer the A-League, but for a casual observer of the EPL it wasn't worth the effort of going to Optus. 

Thats interesting. It's great too actually. Your continued foxtel subscription is centred around the A league and thats how it should be. 

Really didn't like it to be honest. The delay isn't good enough, have to not look at my phone and turn off notifications during games just so I don't find out a goal 30 seconds before it happens. Sometimes I will watch it off my data on my phone (which is through Optus) yet its still not HD? That is a joke. Also some of the choices in terms of who covers a game. Sol Campbell covering Spurs games should not be allowed, in particular he did a North London Derby. When we played the last game at White Hart Lane it switched from the beautiful scenes at White Hart Lane of the pitch invasion to Ryan Giggs and Michael Owen discussing why Manchester United didn't win in monotone and devastated voices. Going into a game hoping that your internet isn't dodgy is annoying, would be alright but Australia's internet is crap. Unfortunately they will keep it and I will probably get it again because there is no way I could live without watching Tottenham. The amount of neutral games has gone to almost none too, previously you could have a game on the TV and have the laptop up doing other shit or even university work but now I know that if I am doing that it won't be in HD.

I friggin hate it.
I didn't bother goign to optus, have foxtel. have netflix, not going to pay more !
Yer, it sure has ruined my wonderful nights on the couch watching 2-3games. Ok I may fall alseep through a united game or similar but at least I could wake up and see another game on.
Even the replays I'd watch for I couldn't watch everything live lol.....
Used to have mates come over, or having gone out with the Mrs's whoever was out with us would come in for caffiene and watch as well.
So it was pretty social for me.
Yes I've missed seeing Bozza and the boys banter.
Thank goodness for SBS showing Sat night games, at least that has been ok. Covered quite a few Pool games incl last night !
I succumbed to live streaming but as we know that varies in quality but end up finding one that does ok.

I agree that SBS did a decent job and that its good to see a bit of it on free to air but as someone who was willing to pay for it. I 
 
The social aspect was the same for me too. "Let's head back to mine as the game is starting soon". 
For some reason with live streaming that aspect just isn't there. 

Three only people i know who've liked the change were people who didn't have foxtel in the first place,  and people who had to share a tv that find it more convenient they can watch on their ipad if the tv is in use by others....

Ideally optus would cut their losses and come up with a deal to return it to foxtel.

I read somewhere optus's revenue suffered greatly - not surprising considering what they paid for the epl, not enough coming in from their other offerings for many obviously didn't sign up due to the epl as they would have hoped.
IF they offered a more attractive deal to just reel in first time support this first year they could have gained some ongoing customers imo.
I'd love it if it went back to Foxtel - nearly like the Packer Bond deal re Ch9 long ago.
I can't watch games on the ipad let alone my i6+ but for highlights if I can't wait.
SBS as mentioned was OK but Foss is too serious - Bridges is ok but there needs to be some form of banter as it was with Bozza/Slater etc.....
Obviously having the token female lead Lucy Z they can't have on the same time her wacky animated brother Ned, thats what it needs, some zip for as you mention good to see a review before and after.
Isn't there meant to be a new Live Stream option coming for next season via the EPL ? 
If so lets see what cost that will bring ?????

I also miss the local content pre game and at HT etc,
I've watched every Man City match but not many others or even the highlights show

For the short term, I enjoyed it but they need to grow their content.

We personally got rid of Foxtel, as the costs were too much for content they were providing. And we went with Optus (not because of the EPL but their NBN plans were bundled better, cheaper and unlimited downloads compared to Telstra/Foxtel).

The EPL coverage on there seemed fine to me, not that I was a huge fan watching it on Fox. Sure some local content would be good, but the amount of coverage on Optus far exceeds anything Foxtel ever achieved.

Hated it... we are 20 minutes from geelong and can't get decent internet to have gotten it this year. I had mates in geelong who got it but the reliability was so bad that they gave up. 

I miss the old foxtel days and as previously mention the idea of adam, boz And slater doing all nighters was great.  A good laugh. 

But i also have foxtel primarily for a-league so the epl was just a massive add on.

Nothing better than those days of 3 a-league games with the the epl following. So good. 

So a friend gave me access to the Optus EPL. I watched more games on it than I previously did with Fox Sports as I had easier access to it. I find it crazy that they did not have all matches available on demand, since no one else had this, WHY THE F NOT have it?

Optus' platform was by and large easy to use and did not have much troubles on my internet connection (VDSL 2, which has at max 85 mb/s download speeds). Video quality was good though the couple of seconds it was behind could be tedious for people.

Optus really need to open this service up to the public at large as a stand alone product if they really want to capture the market they are hoping for. Restrictive practices have dealt themselves a loss of potential revenue from the service overall.

SBS's coverage has been as expected. Quite decent really and I must admit most of the EPL I watched this past season came on SBS just because it was generally the early game. Ideally it would be good if SBS got the highlights show along with the one match a round. Though personally I still think this is a dud deal by SBS by giving up so much of the World Cup, which in my personal view, is worth a lot more.

So to conclude, I watched more EPL on Optus/SBS than I have for the past few years on Fox Sports. Because I have good internet, the service worked well for me, but overall until they open the service up as a stand-alone product, they will struggle to get the number of subscribers they are looking for. The platform is easy to use but they do need to add all matches to catch-up.

I've watched one full EPL game this season, highlights here and there (maybe 20 minutes a month). A friend gave me his login details to use with the Optus Sport app on my phone, but it's not the same as watching on the TV. The one game I watched was a SBS game too.

Previous seasons I'd watch at least a match a week, sometimes watch the Saturday early game and the one after.

Lost a bit of interest in the EPL since the Optus move. Watch a shit tonne of HAL and Bundesliga though. 

I've never had Foxtel but Optus was good in terms of content.. heaps of shows and games and replays online. The problem for me was the slow internet. 

Same in Germany with Sky losing the rights and DAZN showing it online. It was pretty good via the Xbox app and the Internet is fast enough. It did cut out occasionally. Thankfully DAZN have interesting half time segments and show memorable goal clips at ht.