The AFL Just Realised People Watch TV Online
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]
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Comments
Screw sport! Lets just get IPTV in general happening!
I 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..
I 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.
you 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
As 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.
Hugh the afl videos are unmetered if your with bigpond
the 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..
@ 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…
By 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.
In 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.