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Free Viewing of All FIFA World Cup Games on SBS FTA TV for 48 Hours

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Save yourself $15 and watch all of the Optus Sport World Cup games on SBS FTA TV for the next two days. At least this solution should work

LIVE MATCH SCHEDULE 

Monday, June 18

Group F Sweden v Korea Republic LIVE from 9.40pm* on SBS (kick-off 10pm*) NEW

Tuesday, June 19

Group G Belgium v Panama LIVE from 12.45am* on SBS (kick-off 1am) NEW
Group G Tunisia v England LIVE from 3.30am
on SBS (kick-off 4am)
Group H Colombia v Japan LIVE from 9.30pm
on SBS (kick-off 10pm*)

Wednesday, June 20 

Group H Poland v Senegal LIVE from 12.45am* on SBS (kick-off 1am) NEW
Group A Russia v Egypt LIVE from 3.45am
on SBS (kick-off 4am*) NEW

Related Stores

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closed Comments

  • -4

    Whohoo, 'word cup games' r on :D

    • +5

      Scrabble world cup?

    • +1

      Woohoo

  • +2

    Pricejack!

  • Woohoo for next 2 days!

  • +19

    So Optus CEO guarantees fix by tonight. Obviously they're still not confident in their product…..

    • It was fix by last night… then it broke again.

      • So, it wasn’t fixed?

        • mine worked fine last night, i did only watch the first half of the first game though..

  • -5

    what shows are now not being shown? boooooo.

    • +32

      Shows like:
      "24 Hours In Emergency"
      "SBS World News Late Edition"
      Another repeat of "Rain Man"
      "The Crystal Maze" (2:30am repeat)
      "Michael Mosley" (12:30am repeat)
      "De toutes nos forces"

      I can't see anyone shedding a tear.

      • +13

        Big Brother Iran

        • +13

          Isn't it just called Iran?

        • +5

          @Scrooge McDuck: Not like the Australian Government keeps every single citizen's metadata or anything right. We have less privacy than Iranians by legislation while your making jokes about them.

        • +2

          @Diji1:

          Do we have religious police in Australia?

          Please, tell me, how much privacy do Iranians have?

          BTW: *you're

        • +1

          @Scrooge McDuck:

          how much privacy do Iranians have?

          I'm more concerned about Iran's treatment of their citizens. Here in Australia you can be involved in a violent protest and not be arrested. 29 women in Iran who took part in a peaceful protest don't share the same freedoms. Who knows if they're still in gaol.. maybe they have disappeared?

        • -2

          @heal:

          Where? How? Why do I keep getting arrested for peaceful protests and knowing my rights then?

          Does what you mentioned apply to QLD? To people who are not rich?

        • @Scrooge McDuck: Yes, and it is a big problem within a secular organisation.

        • @Lysander:

          Where? How?

          Frequently, though I've only seen protests in NSW. Same freedoms across the country and there's a lot of leeway given (blind eye) to those protesting.

          Why do I keep getting arrested for peaceful protests and knowing my rights then?

          If you keep getting arrested, perhaps you don't know about your responsibilities.

          Diji1 compared Australia to Iran. I did too and put it in perspective.

        • -2

          @heal:

          Well, I do know my responsibilities. The problem here is that even if you protest peacefully you can get arrested and then you have a record forever. Such record can prevent you from ever working in certain professions as you need to disclose every such thing, even if 20 or 30 years ago.
          For example, to get registered every year I need to disclose everything, even if I received a caution in the UK 20 years ago and then the regulator decides whether or not to give me a practising certificate.
          While Iran is worse, compared to other Western democracies Australia is Iran.

        • +3

          You are shitting on the suffering of oppressed people in Iran by comparing their plight to your plights in Australia.
          You need to stop doing that.

        • @Lysander:

          even if you protest peacefully you can get arrested and then you have a record forever

          You have to be convicted to get a criminal record, which means that you broke a law.

        • @heal:

          It is not about conviction at all. For certain professions (such as law) you have to disclose everything, including whether you have been accused (even if not convicted) and things like a caution.
          Plus, I have asked police - they have their own databases where any information stays until your death (e.g. how often they visited a certain address and what for, even if it was just your neighbour trying to get you and there was no merit whatsoever for the police to come to your house).
          Police and government collect and keep a lot more data than you imagine.

        • @Cubist:

          And everybody who buys an iPhone shits on the depression and desperation of the poor Foxconn workers who regularly commit suicide because of the horrific and inhuman working conditions.

          Did you not read? I acknowledge Iran is in a different category although if we are honest, it is the women who suffer the most and not only in Iran but many other countries. Plus I am not here to solve the problems of the world as otherwise we could start with the consequences of consumerism of which this website is definitely a centre (think of all the unnecessary stuff ordered merely because it is free or cheap, and the rubbish and toxic waste resulting from that, killing people, especially children in developing countries who have to retrieve valuable metals without protection).

          And just because it is worse in Iran, does not mean I should ignore that this country is similar to countries that are police states.

        • @Lysander:

          You have a really great knack for moving away from a point being made towards you, to a point that you wish was being made towards you.

          Your ability to get arrested at peaceful demonstrations (How you even manage this is beyond me) does not compare at all to the plight of those being oppressed in Iran. You need to stop drawing parallels where there are none.

        • -1

          @Cubist:

          You are funny. As soon as one does not accept your argument you try to get personal.
          I tell you what: I guarantee you or anyone else can get arrested in QLD just sitting on a bench watching a movie on your tablet - just for that, especially if you choose to exercise your rights vs police when they ask for your personal information and you refuse to give it to them (as is your right). They will then make up something to arrest you.
          Not theoretical - seen it happen many times.

          Just a few examples - I have several lever arch files full of it.

          http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-23/lawyer-echoes-concerns… (so different from Iran? Certainly that is how it starts)

          http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-18/qld-police-misconduct-…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-S5wW5bMfo

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amDxvNSg0GY

      • +6

        This is BS. How am I meant to watch De Toutes nos forces, now?

  • +29

    What a joke this Floptus is !
    Underestimating demand and using non-scalable resources ??
    One day, one day, Australia will catch up to third world countries when it comes to internet infrastructure

    • +5

      But today…IS.NOT.THAT.DAY!

      • +2

        Not this decade

        • +22

          Optus: Demand has been unprecedented.

          No shit, it's only the most watched event in the world!

          Idiots!

        • +2

          @Scrooge McDuck: Not like their a telco or anything so what can they do about it? Oh wait …

        • +1

          You mean it's not the State of 'Origin' or the AFL 'Grand' Final? Australian media has lied to me!

        • +1

          @Scrooge McDuck: Yep, the single most popular event in the world and demand is unprecedented?

        • +3

          @Scrooge McDuck:

          If only they’d had some way of counting how many people were likely to be connecting to their paid streaming service that needs an account..

    • +15

      I actually gave them some credit for the $15 price. The content shouldn't be behind a paywall, but that definitely beats what Foxtel would have charged.

      But then the quality is crap, and it just plain doesn't work. Just give the World Cup back to SBS altogether, Optus. They may be an underfunded public broadcaster, but at least they have a way to get HD video to consumers without drop-outs and quality problems.

      • +1

        Don't give them too much credit, the $15 is for just 1 (one) sport, so a couple of hours of content a day.

        As much as people love to bash Foxtel the $40 pm for the minimum sport package includes just about every sport out there and hours of live games every day + heaps of supporting programming that all costs $$$ to make.

        I know none of that really matters to someone who just wanted to watch one particular sport but at the same time it's not really fair to compare Optus $15 sport plan to foxtels $40 options.

        • +10

          Thanks, Rupert.

        • I only watch (association) football. Right now, the only football of any value is the World Cup.

          So, for this month at least, the World Cup is literally 100% of the sport I would watch.

        • +1

          True ozbargainer stop paying for sport package after first 12 months. I have been on basic + sport for ~$25 for 7 years now. Only need a 2-3 mins call up every 3 or 6 months to renew.

        • @yamahamoto:

          I've got a pretty good package I'm happy with Telstra internet/Foxtel.

        • @arcticmonkey:

          Just pointing out the facts of the situation mate. I know that's not the cool thing to do in the internet these days.

    • +1

      Typical corporate driven culture. Spend all the money on the "lobbying" to get the contract, none left for the tech folks to actually get the platform up to speed. I'm betting the CxOs and the board are probably finger pointing already at their tech department.

  • +4

    Think Optus did soccer a disservice with the stuff ups, lots of general joe's turned away from watching over the weekend. Would say a fair portion of those people won't be bothering to tune in again.

    The funny thing is that there is little accountability from Optus which highlights the monopoly that we have to deal with

    • +16

      Optus and Foxtel do a disservice taking games off FTA. This is how it should be.

      The World Cup should be on the Anti siphoning list but I don't see that happening with the Liberals in charge.

      They'd rather give money to Fox.

      • +12

        Agreed. I’ve gradually lost interest in sport as I’ve gotten on, but World Cup is sacrilegious. Was worse when EPL it was on Fox as I refuse to give that Rupert muppet even one penny.

        Wish the govt would give the people at least this one event every four years, it’s the biggest sporting event ffs.

      • Have you seen how much the TV rights cost these days though… The last NRL TV rights deal was worth $1.8 billion! Channel 10 struggles to afford the rights to the bold and the beautiful re-runs. I doubt any of our FTA channels could afford a TV rights deal that big… And that's just one sport, I'm sure the AFL deal is worth even more.

      • +3

        Surprised a comment so wrong is so upvoted. The world cup is on the anti siphoning list. However SBS won the rights, then traded every game bar one per night to Optus for one EPL match per week for 3 years. The anti siphoning list doesn't preclude that and never has. This is nothing to do with the Liberals or Fox.

        • What! Shouldn't we just be hating on big companies and downvoting anyone who talks some sense is stead of grabbing a pitch fork!?

    • I hear it was Akamai that had the issue. Still, should have tested and ramped up adequately.

  • +7

    What a mess. Optus has dropped the ball on this one.
    I am watching the WC from London, on BBC1. Flawless coverage, no ads, some expert talking heads, even if they are talking up England's chances…
    Yep, let's privatise the public broadcaster. What could possibly go wronb?

    • SBS is not a full public broadcaster, but i get the sentiment

  • +18

    Should never have left SBS arrggghhhh

  • +4

    Didnt they have the rights then on sold most of the games ?

    • +2

      Certainly did. SBS traded for $$$ and some epl matches. Good interview of head of SBS today on SEN radio who said it was to help balance the books now.

      • They sold the rights because they knew Turdbull was going to get their funding

        • -3

          The government commissioned an ABC & SBS efficiency study to identify areas where saving could be achieved without affecting the services provided. SBS funding has been reduced by 1.7% or $25.2 million. The government is proposing to change the SBS Act which will allow up to 10 minutes advertising per hour and product placements, thus increasing the revenue.

          They sold the rights because they knew Turdbull was going to get their funding

          I'd expect to see this comment on a GetUp forum.

        • -2

          @brad1601: Bravo! Plus we dont need the Government setting up in competition with commercial enterprises. Government should enable commerce, not compete with it.

        • @2ndeffort: are you being sarcastic or are you actually a dolt?

        • +1

          Captain's username checks out.

        • @CaptainNewspeak: Are you a real Captain?

  • +3

    Good on Optus for finally fixing the problem if only for 48 hours.

    What's everyones stream quality like? When mine does work the stream is okay, but no where near the quality of SBS HD.

    • +1

      Streaming is generally rubbish when it comes to TV in Australia, across the board.

      I actually gave up recently, dug out my old HDTV tuner dongle, and set it up to record any shows I'm interested in. It's a massive, massive quality improvement on any of the TV streaming services. Plus, no forced ads - there's even commercial detection you can turn on to autoskip the broadcast ads.

      This doesn't really help with the World Cup, though (well, it will for the next 48 hours, but not after that).

    • +1

      I've found the stream on Fetch TV (Mighty) to be best followed by SBS HD on ftv and then mobile/web. But it might be different for you depending on your bandwidth.

    • The frame rate appears to be around 20 per second, but video quality wise it's fine. Watching it on a real NBN (fiber) 100/40 connection and haven't had any problems so far.

      • Maybe that's the problem then. Must be the frame rate i'm noticing. After a while my eyes adjust but it's pretty annoying for a while.

        • Foxtel Go is a bit worse than the Optus streaming. I'm almost used to it. When the camera pans across players during plays it's a bit painful to watch.

        • +1

          @Cluster: Instead of moving forward with technology we're going backwards. Sports should be watched in HD.

  • +2

    Yay for optus! Let's secure the exclusive rights to the world cup(which mind you is only every 4 years) and put it behind a damn paywall

  • -1

    It's good we get some SBS coverage back.

    SBS were scheduled to cover two of the three English group stage matches, but none for Egypt, Iran or Croatia, for example.

    So much for a multicultural broadcaster.

    • +1

      This qualified as multicultural back in the 70's ;)

  • +2

    Save yourself $15

    $15 is the cost for a month of access, not two days

    • Well either way you'd have to pay $15 so they're correct, you can't buy a 2 day subscription for cheaper.

    • Agreed, you can’t buy a two day subscription but that doesn’t mean these two are comparable. If you still want to watch after two days you have to pay $15 only difference is your plan expires two days later

  • +3

    Feck yeah baby!

    There should be a law here like in other countries where the world cup has to be shown on free TV.

    • +3

      There used to be, then Liberals gradually stuffed it up.

      • ah I see. I think UK still have that but they are more football obsessed than us so it figures. Shame really. I love to have all the games free to watch

    • We have that in Australia, but only for events like the AFL Premiership, NRL Premiership, State of Origin, Australian Open, Bathurst 1000, etc.

      For the World Cup, the only games on the list are Australia's games and the final.

      • +1

        Bathurst makes it but the World Cup doesnt?

        • Yep. The list is decided by politicians, and they need the crucial Western Sydney vote.

        • @marlor: What? And there are no soccer fans in Western Sydney??? LOL

  • +1

    I thought that it was free on SBS already - Watched Australia v France live on Saturday night

    • +1

      Only some matches.

    • +2

      They had the rights for all the aussie games + a 'match of the day' so have been missing out on a few games.

    • +2

      only aussie matches with some group stage matches and all matches from semifinals.

    • +5

      Because it keeps dropping out, buffering, stuttering, and the quality is absolute rubbish when you put it on a big screen TV.

      It's worse than SBS broadcast TV. When you're paying, you'd expect a full HD feed with no artifacting, or even 4K. But this looks like a bad YouTube video.

      • -7

        Is there any other option?

        If you’re not happy with them, stop paying and dont watch World Cup or EPL.

        Try to be content with what you have. Watch the games on your tablet, works for me.

        And jeez again there is only $15 per month. People pay $10 per day to get a coffee hit and never utter a complaint.

        • +1

          There should be another option. The entire World Cup should be in the anti-siphoning list, like the Olympics is.

          The World Cup is the most-watched sporting event in the world. It is a bigger global event than the Olympics, so it should get at least the same treatment.

        • +1

          I'd complain if my coffee stuttered and spluttered and there was a hole in the bottom of my cup.

    • I thought this is OzBargain, no?

      • -5

        Yes and people on here hunting for bargain definitely could afford $15 per month.

  • +5

    It seriously should have never left SBS.

    Apparently SBS did it so that they could show some of the premier league games. But honestly, if you're a fan of either, wouldn't you want access to ALL the games and not just some here and there and end up having to pay for a subscription elsewhere anyway?

    So now, if you're a fan of both FIFA and Premier. You have to pay a subscription fee. This whole scam benefits optus and is a loss for football fans.

    As the greatest man on earth would say. This was a terrible deal, I've never seen such a bad deal, and I know deals.

    • +2

      They probably have a tight budget so I'm not gonna blame them especially after funding cuts. As for choosing to show epl games I guess they thought they wanted to show bit of both rather than no epl games and all WC.

      • +1

        True. But that just means regardless of what you watch now, an Optus subscription is needed.
        I can't see how many people would want to just watch a handful of games?

        • +1

          I think lots of people would be in the “watch a few” category.. I would be happy with Aus games, big games (Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain, Portugal), this year’s gallant minnows (Mexico, Switzerland) and personal interest (England). Then the semis and Final.

          I happen to get Optus Sport anyway due to getting decent offer to transfer from Virgin, but otherwise the SBS free-to-air would suit me.

      • -1

        If your budget is too tight, don't go and buy the Ferrari.

        • +1

          Better still, don't buy it with government money.

          The point is that the cost of buying the rights to the world cup are increasing. Commercial networks have the funds to buy them outright, without doing a deal with a 2 bit provider like Optus Sports. They are limited in what platforms the game can be screened. If you don't have a Chromecast or Fetch TV you're stuck watching on a tablet, phone or PC. They really need to put some effort into making apps for smart TV's and gaming consoles.

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