Today’s report in the Herald Sun that AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan has recently discovered that AFL matches are being streamed online via services like Justin.TV just goes to show how incredibly out of touch the people who make decisions about TV sports rights are.
McLachlan apparently only discovered this yesterday, even though it has been going on all season, and was last night trying to block it from happening. Good luck with that…
What the AFL (and the TV networks in general, really) fail to realise is that services like Justin.TV and other online P2P video streaming services are merely filling a void – if they actually bothered to offer their own IPTV solution, not only would they be able to reach a much larger audience by catering to those who don’t have access to the TV broadcasts, but also make a bit of coin through targeted, unobtrusive advertising. Sure, they’ve got an agreement with BigPond for some streaming to occur, but it’s locked to certain countries and fails to really embrace the idea of a global web.
There’s still a couple of years to go on the current AFL TV deal, but let’s hope that when the networks start negotiating the next deal, they throw in an enticing IPTV component as well…
[Sun Herald via TV Tonight]
JB
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 10:41 AMScrew sport! Lets just get IPTV in general happening!
woodduck
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 11:06 AMI heard the NBA were going to offer a cheap version of this idea… I also tried to port into bigpond from overseas proxy… no love and they only show the games that are on tv anyways I think. If they looked into teh NBA deal, they maybe ona winner, but Foxtel would be the loser!!! boo hoo foxtel..
ryan
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 12:27 PMI paid for the NBA version this season and it was absolutely horrible, it either didn’t stream at all or would buffer every 2 minutes. Meanwhile the Justin.tv streams would work everytime but in lower quality.
hugh
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 12:36 PMyou can watch the afl on there website live in the uk but not here. i would totally watch Geelong Cats matches if telstra had it on there unmetered service
Simeon
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 12:41 PMAs long as the AFL stays hand-in-hand with Bigpond it will never:
1. Be any good
2. Be free
3. Serve the interest of the AFL or its fans.
With SO MUCH DAMN MONEY I wonder why the AFL can’t put their online property into their own hands.
Rix
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 3:43 PMHugh the afl videos are unmetered if your with bigpond
Brett Chapman
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 9:38 PMthe AFL nees to start making the TV agreements national before they mess with online. Living in Queensland means that I can’t watch Friday Night games until late late at night. Even then, despite advertising a 11:30 pm start time ( which is ridiculous in itself ), it really starts at around 11:50.
The Sunday game is no better. We do get a game but it is usually the lesser game, one featuring the B list commentary and often interstate sides. Do they think that because I am interstate that I would have some affintiy for an interstate side over a Melbourne team… not on your life!
With the introduction of the extra channels, there is no excuse for not showing the game on one or the other. Channel 9 is no better. they used to broadcast the AFL footy show live on 9HD (when the intern remembered to flick the switch…) so we could see it at 9:30 instead of 11:59… but now that they have to manage 3 channels, that got too hard. I refuse to watch that fat Ginger Idiot so no footy show at all for me.
how can it be a national game if we can’t see hte best of best nationally? Now even the finals are delyaed here in Queensland. Not boding well for the Gold Coast’s entry inot hte game is it. A bit hard to promote your new club if you can only see games at midnight..
Babba
Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 11:46 AMI recently moved to Qld…loved everything about qld apart from i don’t get to watch AFL footy show…it sucks…i totally aggree with you mate…i think channel nine should do something about it…may be show AFL footy show at 9:30pm in standard def. 9 or 99 (Go)….
Brett Chapman
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 9:40 PM@ Simeon..
+1 on the BigPond partnership.
A shocking website, useless content and all clubs forced into similar format.. Who runs this game, the AFL or it’s partners. If it keeps going this way, it’ll become like the Corporate whore, the NRL…
afl merchandise
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 5:22 PMBy the time the existing agreement ends in a few years I think they will be much more aware of the need for quality online streaming of the games.
carmen
Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 5:55 PMIn my opinion best site to watch online tv is http://gtv.id.lv There are hundreds of live channels, music, sports, news etc. And it’s all for free.