Announced by their official Twitter account - source

So for those amongst us who want to watch more than just the Socceroos at the World Cup you now can - will also extend into the EPL season from what I've read.

Just out of interest is that locked to your phone or can you cast that to your telly?

Yes - they have an Apple TV app as well as Chromecast support (which works really well).

Supported devices

Brilliant.  That's me sorted then. 

Farking SBS with just the one match a day during the group stages.

Nup you can chrome cast to your tv. Also works with Apple TV, web browser and Fetch TV.

It's pretty bloody good when you consider it includes every single game plus all the other programs around it for a full month for $15. Plus it will lead into next EPL season without phone lock in contracts etc.

Optus they ruined the premier league... but $15 a month isn’t to bad for the World Cup

It will also be $15 for EPL apparently.

how? I remember trying to watch the foxtel stream and it would be dogshit. At least with optus we are acutally getting the full UK stream, post-game shows, highlights, updates.

Trying to catch up on the EPL when foxtel had the right was a fucking nightmare. Mooy's in half the fucking EPL ads on optus lol.

Optus have been 10 times better then foxsports beside there 1st year where they had expected bandwidth teething issues i'd never want the EPL to go back to the overpriced foxsports

You can get a 25$ a month phone plan unlimited calls/text with optus sport which is absolutely fantastic under foxtel i had to pay for an entertainment base pack that was basically re-runs of all old shows no one watched then a sports pack then a HD add on costing over 50< a month 

If optus gets the HAL i dont think i'd ever watch foxtel again.... 

Id say the only thing i miss about foxtel was is Bozza because bloke tells it like it is and is one of the few who have been to the very top of the game and if you ask me the only people who should be leading football in Australia are the few that have played at the top and succeeded Kewell, Bozza, Dukes etc 

Might dump Foxtel for a while & then take this up for the World Cup then dump Optus when the Euro/A League starts again.  

I was highly critical of Optus acquiring the rights with the lock in service contracts, but they've been excellent bar a few early hitches. 

It sucks that they didn't offer this at the start as it would have alleviated a lot of the complaints with their model.

Not sure I could go back to Fox having the rights without mobile/web access like Optus. 

I've been nothing but impressed with the Optus Sport offering - worked through a few early kinks to become a top notch service and, imo, the gold standard for sports streaming in this country at the moment.

Where's the casting bit on that link you posted?  They talk about Fetch TV and apple TV.  Can you chromecast?

Hmmm doesn't seem to be mentioned in that link, but here is another link describing it - source

Also from personal experience I use it almost daily haha - works very well :)

So I don’t have the new appletv so I need the app on my phone the AirPlay. Better work ok.

Anyone know sbs’ World Cup schedule?

Sort of.  They're covering just a 'match of the day' for the group stages.  After that I think they have all the games.  (Edit:  Doesn't look like they have the R16 matches.) They sold their soul for the one EPL game a week.

https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2017/11/15/how-watch-2018-fifa-world-cup-live

Fuckers.

Didn't realise this

But fuck Optus. The world cup should be free

Absolutely sbs sold their soul. Should’ve been more rage.

Yep. Acquired football rights using public money & sold them to a private entity.  Fuck SBS.   

There will be when the casual punter twigs to what's happened. 

I dunno the casual punter probably just watches the Socceroos. I’m keen to see what games sbs will show before investing in Optus. I expect I’ll need to though. Was facing a disengaged World Cup without this arrangement.

Come on it's a one off $15 fee for a full month's worth of content for the biggest sporting event in the past 4 years. If people are deciding whether it's worth it then this is the least of their worries in their lives. Saving $15 elsewhere on "luxury" items should be very doable. 

What is so impressive about it? I don't get it. Their epl coverage seems kinda cheap, without the bells and whistles I'd expect from such a service. They haven't even bothered hiring Australian punters and analysts to at least give it some local perspective like foxtel did. Now we have Alan Curbishley and Phil Neville commenting on games in between the endless great goals montages. Not impressed at all. 

In fairness, I view it as a TV channel rather than a streaming service. Maybe it's good for those who like watching football on their phones or something, but as a TV offering on Fetch, it's pretty underwhelming.

I'd really like to see more sport on there tbh.  If it's not a Saturday night, there's little I actually watch on it sports related.

Even international cricket, rugby, second tier leagues, hurling... the their winter olympics coverage with 7 was alright, but the Commonwealth games was a terrible experience with ads randomly coming in over medal ceremonies

I think that will come - not sure why the Optus deal for cricket doesn't use the Optus Sport app but yeah, it shall come.

They have been absolutely fantastic. So many dinosaurs that still believe Foxtel is footballs be all and end all.

Heads up. If you have a Foxtel Go account you also have access to Watch ESPN and Bein Xtra which expands the capabilities.

Combine it with Optus and you have access to majority of decent leagues online.

People must learn to adapt.

Foxtel has the 'go' app. its shit though that it can be chromecast/appleTV'd on to the telly but I guess thats for obvious reasons.

It can so there is no issue. I watch it on my telly.

@ the select few. RE foxtel go app. Do you run Apple TV or chromecast? Doesn’t work with Apple TV on mine.

You have to have the current Apple TV for it to work. The older models don't let you connect to the Apple Store and install apps, the new one does.

So can I just log into an optus website via Windows & watch it that way or do you have to do the app?   

You can certainly watch it in your browser - no apps required on your PC.

Sweet, then I can just HDMI the  laptop to my TV.   

Or you can get a Chromecast which costs like $50 and you can instantly stream at a press of a button from your phone without ever having to get up and link the laptop to the tv. 

I've got the chromecast dongle but it's the app that needs the casting ability built into it. Does the optus app you'd stream this on your phone with have the little chromecast icon in it?

And $15 is cheap as chips. 

Yes it has Chromecast capability. I've done it many times previously. Ie it has the little chrome cast icon to project to the large screen.

Chuck it up on the screen on a satty night and watch it till you fall asleep data free. 

Yet people are wanting it on foxtel so we can go back to extortion and data charges. 

Fuck that shit.

Cheers mate.

Is it HD?

-PB

I would assume so - the EPL certainly is and I can't imagine them not doing the World Cup in HD.

Just do what i did and swap your wife's service provider on her phone

Why? You don't need to do that now anyway. Im with Vodafone and when they open up this offer in a couple of weeks I'll just sign up via the play store. I already have the app from last year's August free month and it was awesome!

It is HD, and i think you need the app. Probably is a web login too or an app for pcs.

Just get a chromecast for $50 and don't look back! 

Like real HD? As in 1080?

Coz all the Acestreams I get now days are 1080p@60 

-PB

It's definitely not 60fps but it's 1080p (according to your internet speed of course).

The world cup is huge for our sport, Its beyond stupid to have it locked away 

This helps

So no one can tell me why the Optus EPL coverage is so impressive? Just because it's not foxtel? Fair enough. 

I'd say it's based on the amount of content they put out.

The games are the same, but they have a dedicated channel just to show repeats of the games, reviews, highlights, news and other shows with guests.  Overall it is fairly alright and considering we were going to get the NBN we decided on Optus for the football and it's been worth the money.  There's a bunch of crap on there, but overall it's not bad.  You can also access Netflix and Stan if you're really desperate for entertainment.

Oh I know. I have Fetch TV. I just think their overall coverage leaves a lot to be desired and feels a bit cheap. No Australian analysts or points of view,  endless goal montages, absolutely no content other than EPL. I can't believe people are actually "impressed". Foxtel was a million times better. 

Yeh I agree.  I often feel like i'm just watching a syndication (and I know I probably am).  Closest thing i've seen them do to what you described was to have Michael Bridges and Mark Schwarzer tour a British jersey shop recently.

I do hope more content is coming soon but I signed up for the live premier league, and that's what I got, so i'm happy.

Other than to talk about aussie players (the very few that there are in the EPL), why would it matter if it's anchored by aussies or not? I'd rather listen to the locals dissect and analyse the games tbh. Bigger tv personalities anyway. 

I wouldn't want to watch NBA and all the pre and post game by some aussie crew for example. I'd rather listen to local Americans as it's their league.

I dunno, I'd much rather listen to Bozz than, say,  Alan Curbishley. The Foxtel crew could be entertaining all on its own. I also liked the discussions about Australian football as it relates to the European leagues. Now all the analysis is hopelessly dry, boring, and completely England-centric.  And there's barely any content apart from the epl replays. Other than the actual live games, I just don't get any use out of Optus sport. It's far from impressive. 

Bargain

Was gonna upgrade my phone with Optus but this has kinda pushed that decision back...

Fair call I guess. I don't feel as repulsed as you. At the very least they have some serious pre and post game discussions that last a lot longer than 15-20 minutes. I found when games were on late in the evening on Foxtel the crew would shut shop at half time because it was too late to have a post game review with interviews at 2am. That's the main issue I have with an Aussie team presenting here. 

you obviously don't watch it. They usually have Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Tim Sherwood(he has mentioned Ryan and Mooy quite a lot.. ), ex-players, etc.

You ever watched Bill & Boz? its the most cringeworthy sports show I've ever seen.

Can you watch matches on catch up ? 

Yes. 

Yep Optus Sports, Bein Sports and NPL on youtube/Facebook streamed via chromecast and you have so much football content for less than Fox.

It's the ENGLISH premier league, not the A League. Do you just moan for the fuck of it ?

Have to agree, OPTUS service for the EPL is tons better than the ok effort from FOX.

Every game with a full replay, highlights, interviews, daily shows and it goes on, all on demand.
None of this wait until 11:30am the next day to watch a replay of the game you want from FOX.

Completely agree with both of you. Fox's coverage of English Football was becoming extremely amateur. I don't care what Slater and Bosnich have to say about it anymore, they've been out of England for a long time and are hardly in the know anymore. Just focusing on their well outdated anecdotes and which Aussies are playing wasn't good enough anymore. They can cover that in Fox's own content separate from match day coverage.

Thing is $15 a month for the EPL is probably too much. With the big club's channels  - United, City, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal -  you get all the big games each week, albeit delayed by 10 hours. With most of them in the middle of the night, and SBS having one of the Saturday games you still get a lot. 

I also wonder what this means for SBS's game. If Optus have all WC games now, they don't need to do another deal with SBS for the next WC after the current deal expires in a years time. So no more EPL outside of the Optus paywall...? 

Theyll give them one game and at the cost of shit tonnes of optus ads so thatll be fun. 

Optus also cconfirmed that they've extended their EPL deal for a further three seasons - source

People were whinging when Foxtel had the EPL, seems like they're now also whinging about Optus having  the EPL.. 

Are they coming to New Zealand?

Can somebody tell me why you can't download the optus sport app on your smart TV and just watch it through that? 

I guess you need the Fetch TV box.  

That'd be because it's too difficult to code apps for the plethora of smart TV's out there - much easier to focus on the main devices (Fetch Box, Chromecast, Apple TV, Xbox, Playstation and web).

  My ‘android’ TV has a different app store on it.  IE:  There’s bugger all apps in ihe TV app store for some reason.  I’m not sure if that’s just my telly or all smart TV’s.

It depends what TV you have.

Fetch are adding the Optus Sport app to their retail boxes, but not in time for the world cup. At the moment you can only get Optus Sport on Fetch through an Optus owned box.

I don't need to change carriers, works on my tablet, phone, PC (linux), chromecast - thank you Optus. Just please don't do anything stupid during the WC and let it fail or break the app etc.

I'm ready to roll with the WC with the Optus Sport app through Apple TV.

I am worried about the first game against France though. It will be on prime time (8pm) in Sydney and i am worried that so many connections at once will either crash the network or make it buffer and stutter.

It's a big test for Optus. 

It is a big test that's for sure, but with the game being simulcast on SBS I'm sure a lot of the strain will be taken off the network as people will just tune into their TV coverage.