Fans of the English Premier League have their first official clue as to how Optus is planning to broadcast the world's most popular football league in Australia.
Optus secured exclusive rights for the Premier League in November last year, outbidding current rights holder Fox Sports and Al Jazeera-owned beIN Sports with an audacious $189 million over three years bid.
But for those hoping to know exactly how they'll see Leicester City's Jamie Vardy hit the back of the net or Arsenal's Mesut Özil slot through another assist in the next season, details from Singtel-owned Optus have been thin.
Optus has now launched a registration page for keen Premier League fans who want to be kept up to date with the telecommunications provider's plans.
It includes questions like 'Are you an Optus Customer? Do you currently watch the English Premier League? Are you interested in broadcasting the EPL at your business premises' and reply options such as 'Yes, I want to be involved in beta testing of the Optus EPL product'.
However, the page is not readily accessible through Optus's website and requires customers to know the exact URL.
Optus is trying to position itself as a multimedia business and sees sport as an important part of that strategy. Its chances of drawing in new mobile and broadcast customers, as well as hanging onto existing ones, increase with having exclusive content.
"We've seen how other providers have used the EPL to their advantage in terms of bringing value to their basic carriage service and we think that we can do the same thing here," Optus chief executive Allen Lew said. "It gives a lot of credibility to our stated strategic objective of wanting to differentiate ourselves through content," he told Fairfax Media when Optus secured the rights to the league in November.
