UEFA Champions League 21-24: FTA on RTE&VMTV, LiveScore other matches

Delta2113

Will we see Adverts during the game pop up. Hope I'm wrong but can't see presentation etc. being great.

irishfeen

icdg wrote: »

It may well be, but how they will monetise these rights is an interesting one. This may well be one of the first instances of a streamer taking up premium sports rights and attempting to do it for free. Not tied to a broadband or tv subscription, not connected with an existing broadcaster, not requiring you to have a gambling account of some sort.

And they outbid VMTV, so presumably they didn’t pick up these rights for peanuts.

Just looking at the app now, they have betting on all games it seems and plenty of app ads too. I presume they will have ads before live streams play and ads at half time. Possibly on screen ads during games too. They obviously think this will make them money. VM could possibly have bid very low thinking they were up against RTÉ and TG4. It wouldn’t surprise me if these rights were relatively cheap.

Dodge

irishfeen wrote: »

I think the delay with streaming is not really an issue at all. By all accounts IPTV is in fact closer to real time action then satellite broadcasting.

The backhaul to uplink locations takes longer.

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

irishfeen

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

I suppose it’s all to do with how the actual broadcasters are set up (fibre/satellite/servers). I have heard that channels on IPTV in the UK are often a few seconds faster then the same channels on satellite but you are almost certainly right on the case of LiveScore If you tested it.

Can I ask you what bitrate LiveScore are running at 720, 1080 do you know?

Dodge

Not sure tbh. I only watched on my phone

dulpit

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

A delay like that has a number of issues too, namely:

1. In play betting is problematic (but don't care about that)
2. News alerts for big results at full time can spoilt it
3. Loads of messages from friends if something big happens before you see it (Ken Early on Second Captains mentioned this the other week when something happened, he was watching on Now TV and got a tonne of WhatsApp before he saw the incident, so knew something was about to happen.)

I reckon for the "casual" viewer, these won't matter if the stream quality is good.

Actually - for this specific app, can you use PIP? Or are you full screen or nothing?

Dodge

PIP worked for the Serie A football

I think casual viewers will stick with the TV option to be honest. I do it myself and I don’t think I’d be described as a casual football watcher

If there’s a game on TV and a slightly more appealing game available to stream, I’ll probably watch the TV game

Delta2113

Just tried to cast to Tv from App - get "Select device:" in a blank white box. Not a great sign.

Headshot

Not a fan of the livescore app at all.

The delay is really fecking annoying and the picture quality is rubbish

lertsnim

Delta2113 wrote: »

Just tried to cast to Tv from App - get "Select device:" in a blank white box. Not a great sign.

Casting fine for me just now. Only complaint is it could do with a boost in frame rate.

irishfeen

Headshot wrote: »

Not a fan of the livescore app at all.

The delay is really fecking annoying and the picture quality is rubbish

Any idea what bitrate LiveScore are running at 720, 1080??

Delta2113

lertsnim wrote: »

Casting fine for me just now. Only complaint is it could do with a boost in frame rate.

IOS phone?

theoneeyedman

While it's good to see a new player in the system here, it's a pity to see it tied to what looks like a gambling website, or at least on the face of it that's what it looks like. There is no financial outlay required, so at least that's not so bad, but personally I find casting a glitchy enough system at times,can be unreliable, and I hope livescores have servers able to handle the traffic (I suspect they will, I know nothing about them - are they a big outfit?).

There is still a large swathe of the country without decent broadband so, this is not a great solution for them, and kids (won't someone think of the children!) accessing through a site/app heavily promoting gambling is less than ideal too, but that's the way its going I suppose - broadcast TV like RTÉ, Virgin, BT, Sky and ITV have huge promotions for gambling, fast food and alcohol during games too.

carlos

I've tried the app on ios and played a few of the Serie A highlights via airplay to the apple tv

picture looks to be 720p at 25fps with a lowish bit rate, i'm guessing somewhere around 3mbps.

this is going to be the problem with this service being free, to have a good tv experience they would need to improve both the frame rate and bit rate which massively increases their hosting costs

awec

While streaming may be the future I still think it's not ready for the mainstream yet. I don't think I'd be relying on livescores for my football fix if watching these matches was important to me.

720 @ 25fps is going to be very noticable.

iseegirls

theoneeyedman wrote: »

There is still a large swathe of the country without decent broadband so, this is not a great solution for them, and kids (won't someone think of the children!) accessing through a site/app heavily promoting gambling is less than ideal too, but that's the way its going I suppose - broadcast TV like RTÉ, Virgin, BT, Sky and ITV have huge promotions for gambling, fast food and alcohol during games too.

I've just downloaded the app, and the first question that pops us asks if you're under or over 18. I presume that if you choose under 18, that the gambling ads wouldn't display?

lertsnim

Delta2113 wrote: »

IOS phone?

Android

dublinman1990

Okay. I was not expecting an announcement like this one to ever happen. It's very peculiar in the sense that the company who got these rights, namely Livescore, are not very well known among general sports fans here for having to broadcast live TV sports rights to viewers in Ireland. They are a completely new entity to the Irish market who are taking on a big gamble to take on the Champions League rights to both casual sports & regular sports viewers alike.

I think this announcement made this morning is sort of mirroring the announcement of what happened with the UEFA CL matches in Australia. A new start-up company, completely new to that country at that time, reportedly got these rights to show these games to online viewers via an app in a rights cycle auction for a sum of AUS$20 million. I think I remember reading about this seeing this story on the Sydney Morning Herald or The Guardian website in the UK.

Would I be right to suggest that a deal of this similar scale was done here in Ireland even though there knowingly some big differences between the 2 countries. The population size of Australia is much bigger than Ireland so I would be guessing that the cost of the new rights deal here would be much smaller than what was paid for in Australia. I would be guessing Livescore would have paid under a ballpark figure of €5 million for these new Irish rights to be shown via their app.

icdg

I don’t think it can really be compared with the Australian deal, which was a never heard before from company founded two years ago by a 25 year old and has since fallen apart, because they never had the money to back the bid in the first place.

LiveScore are well established and have prominent backers (in the gambling industry, as I think has been mentioned).

awec

icdg wrote: »

I don’t think it can really be compared with the Australian deal, which was a never heard before from company founded two years ago by a 25 year old and has since fallen apart, because they never had the money to back the bid in the first place.

LiveScore are well established and have prominent backers (in the gambling industry, as I think has been mentioned).

Yes but live streaming sport is not LiveScore's forte. I would be sceptical of the sort of quality you're going to get, but then again it's probably telling that they aren't going to charge even an insignificant sum for it.

People will point at Amazon, but Amazon are enormous.

irishfeen

Who do we think will pick up the remaining 3rd package?? Can VM go back in for it I wonder? If anything one big game and highlights every game week would still be a decent addition to their channel.

Atlantic Dawn

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

irishfeen

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

Ads and online betting .. they must see a return in it not to mention they might not have actually paid a massive amount for the rights.

Delta2113

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

irishfeen

Delta2113 wrote: »

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

Tbh I’m delighted all games will be available FTA .. the gambling element is irrelevant because sky, BT, RTÉ and all other broadcasters are shoving that down our throats during games and pre and post game.

Don’t think we can just single out LiveScore as the baddies here.

theoneeyedman

irishfeen wrote: »

Ads and online betting .. they must see a return in it not to mention they might not have actually paid a massive amount for the rights.

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

irishfeen

theoneeyedman wrote: »

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

Your giving UEFA far too much credit I think ...Champions League scheduling in Ireland or Coronation Street you can be sure does not give them sleepless nights.

UEFA care about money paid for the rights - end of! LiveScore paid more money then the rest be that €100 or €1m

Dodge

theoneeyedman wrote: »

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

Ireland means absolutely nothing to UEFA. Why would Gazprom care if 200,000 or 80,000 in Ireland saw their ad?

They don’t have any FTA broadcasters in the big countries like the UK. It’s all about the rights fees...

Delta2113

My idea off a free-to-air channel is that it must be carried on Saorview. Don't like this term being used.

forzacalcio

Delta2113 wrote: »

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

Where can one avail of this sub for ad free? I cant see it anywhere