If you are an Optus Sport subscriber, you've probably missed out on World Cup matches due to the ongoing technical issues, which have plagued the provider since the start of the tournament.
As a standalone streaming service that costs $15 a month, Optus Sport in Australia obtained the broadcasting rights for the World Cup. Unfortunately, Optus has completely dropped the ball on their streaming coverage of the tournament, with numerous complaints of downtime, freezing, and reduced resolution during match time.
What went wrong?
A specific instance of Optus being down was the Costa Rica v Serbia match on Sunday. Viewers hoping to stream the game were instead greeted with a “Playback error; please reload the stream and try again” message. These errors came on the back of connection issues that resulted in some Optus customers missing out on the Socceroos first match against France on Saturday.
The flood of complaints directed towards Optus was staggering, forcing even the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to step in and urge the TV network to fix the streaming problems.
Deal reached between Optus Sport and SBS
Luckily for Australians and Optus customers, a deal was reached with free-to-air public broadcaster SBS, in which the next two days of World Cup action will be streamed for free on SBS. SBS already had broadcasting rights to some matches of the tournament, but will now be showing all World Cup matches for the next 48 hours, for free!
The following World Cup matches will now be shown on SBS instead of Optus Sport:
- Group H: Colombia v Japan June 19
- Group H: Poland v Senegal June 20
- Group A: Russia v Egypt June 20
Meanwhile, the Australian national team will also look to clean up their act after a tough defeat to France in their opening Group C game. Thursday’s match against Denmark represents a chance for both the Socceroos and Optus Sport to get their act together!