King Pyrrhus of Epirus, the poor old chap, is said to have been a man of valour, honour and strategy, but he’s only mentioned when describing a victory that comes at too great a cost.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Sure, he was an ace general who beat the Romans (281BC) and Macedonians (279BC) – but with such enormous loss of life and expertise from his armies that he proclaimed “one more victory like that and we’re stuffed” or something like that.
Which brings us to the World Cup television debacle, and whether the decision by the hapless Optus to hand the TV rights to group stage games back to SBS is a Pyrrhic victory. Or, given so many Australians already had vital games ruined, whether anyone had a win at all.
Not Floptus – but while they’ll never live this down, it won’t stop them from being able to buy up the rights to any other event. So not the viewer.
SBS? They look like heroes, but they sold the games to Optus in the first place, in return for one English Premier League (EPL) game a week. Ratings points, at the expense of their vast multicultural World Cup audience. Now SBS coverage will be lacking because they weren’t prepared for all this.
Average sports fans? Yes these matches will now be free-to-air once again – but once the knockout stage starts, when the games get really good, it’s back to Optus.
This was never really a matter of cost – $30 isn’t bad for a month of World Cup action – it was the fact Optus couldn’t deliver, and its streaming was positively faecal.
Plus, even if you subscribed, you couldn’t get the Optus Sport app on a laptop (from where I run an HDMI cord to the TV).
Non non, for this you would also need an Optus Fetch TV box ($180-$400) – or a tablet ($400) or phone, plus a Chromecast dongle ($40). What’s that you say? The NBN hasn’t made it to your place yet? Forget it.
Being a sports fan in Australia is a stone cold shakedown. After the $30/$180/$40 World Cup, I am then free to pay $55/month to Foxtel so I can watch Aussie Rules and the UEFA Champions League, plus $40/month for the NBA playoffs (on top of Netflix because the family demands it, and Stan because I work for one of its owners.)
Bit by bit we’ve gone along with it, as access has become harder and more costly.
Optus buys the World Cup? “This is the way the world is going,” we shrug … then act surprised when things go cactus. It’s How to Boil a Frog – and not just the France game.
A government cuts tens of millions from public broadcasting (Abbott, SBS; Turnbull, ABC)? Folks blame the broadcasters.
Did anyone jump up and down last year when this Government cut scores of sporting events from the anti-siphoning list? (That’s a list of events deemed important enough to the public that free-to-air must get first bid at the broadcast rights).
The events cut include precisely the games everyone is upset about: World Cup football group games not featuring Australia, finals not featuring Australia, and Socceroo World Cup qualifiers played overseas. All over to pay-TV without protest.
At least this week the sports viewing public has shown a bit of backbone. Which is important for couch potatoes.
If we’re regarded foremost as consumers, we need to actually exercise our choice.
Optus splurged $63 million on the EPL rights in a bid to hook us into their telco services. Now they, or any other broadcasting dilettante, minister or network, know people care about football, so they’d better deliver.
(PS: While’s we’re talking about boiling frogs, some brighter minds than mine say that’s a myth too.)
C’est la vie?
Et tu, Pyrrhus?
