Optus Sport Slammed On Social Media For "Disgraceful" Coverage Full Of Outages

The company with broadcast rights to every World Cup 2018 match in Russia, Optus Sport, has found itself mired in a controversy after its live streaming service went down Friday night causing outrage from fans. Optus Sport purchased the rights to broadcast all 64 games at the tournament in Russia both live and on-demand and promised that "Aussie viewers will be able to experience every emotion of the tournament". But when the feeds went down viewers became outraged and took to social media to berate the company. Some examples of the outraged fans are below.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I hear the streaming is going well ! Absolute disgrace ! Long month ahead ! If you going to have it deliver it !</p>&mdash; Robbie Slater (@RobbieSlater17) <a href="https://twitter.com/RobbieSlater17/status/1007601663861903360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2018</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">well, looks like <a href="https://twitter.com/OptusSport?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OptusSport</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/Optus?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Optus</a> have managed to prove that they&#39;re completely incompetent and incapable of actually providing service, and are proving they couldn&#39;t care less about their customers</p>&mdash; Eric Berry (@efcso) <a href="https://twitter.com/efcso/status/1007604355447439361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2018</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dear <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorFifield?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenatorFifield</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TurnbullMalcolm</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/billshortenmp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@billshortenmp</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MRowlandMP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MRowlandMP</a> act now and please make SBS take the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WorldCup?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WorldCup</a> games that they sold to <a href="https://twitter.com/OptusSport?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OptusSport</a> back. The Optus stream drops out constantly,leaving many football fans unable to watch the games due to this streaming &#39;service&#39;.</p>&mdash; Lawrence Champness (@champy) <a href="https://twitter.com/champy/status/1007602941635596288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2018</a></blockquote>

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The problems began during the Group A game between Egypt and Uruguay causing viewers of the stream to experience disruptions and constant buffering leading to frustrated fans. A former player and Fox Sports pundit named Robbie Slater criticized the outage as an "absolute disgrace" while the Matildas player Sam Kerr said she was "furious" for all the Australians who could not watch the game.

The Optus Sport Twitter account was inundated Friday night before releasing a statement on its Facebook page. The company apologized for the technical difficulties and directed customers to its website as a temporary solution to view the game free of charge. A spokesperson for Optus said, "Some Optus Sport customers experienced a disruption to their 2018 Fifa World Cup viewing experience on Friday night. This was due to an extremely high number of viewers logging into our platforms just before kick-off causing some systems to overload."

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"While most customers on most platforms were unaffected, we apologize unreservedly to those customers who were, and are continuing to investigate the cause of these systems issues." Optus also purchased the rights to the Premier League after successfully outbidding the previous rights holder Fox Sports. During the opening weekend of its coverage of the 2016-17 season also suffered from technical difficulties and subsequent outrage.

Optus Sport executive producer and presenter Richard Bayliss reassured customers in a statement saying "the technology is now is light years ahead of where it was a year or two ago. And there are scores of people whose job it is to make sure everything goes off without a hitch and having seen how hard they’ve been working in the lead-up to the World Cup I don’t think people should be concerned at all."

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/16/optus-under-fire-after-world-cup-streaming-leaves-fans-frustrated