Marriage Of Sport And Phones Passes The Popularity Test
The Sunday Age
Sunday September 23, 2007
TRADITIONALLY, the transistor radio has been a central part of any wedding at this time of year as male guests combine paying their respects to matrimonial bliss with the important business of following the scores in the footy finals.
Technology, though, waits for no man, or radio, and the humble transistor is well on the way to being superseded by the video screen mobile phone.Over the next few months, sports lovers who can't get to a television will be satisfying their need not just to follow the scores, but to actually watch Test and one-day cricket, the rugby World Cup and a range of European soccer matches on their mobiles.This battle for the eyes of Australian sports fans is big business, with Telstra alone having 2 million customers with 3G or Next G phones that have AFL mobile coverage. With 100,000 of these phones being sold each month, the reach is growing rapidly.In August more than 60,000 people used Telstra's mobile phone AFL site, viewing almost 3 million pages.Last summer 3 mobile, which has built its profile around cricket, clocked up more than a million live streams of its Ashes coverage, a significant increase on the previous year's cricket uptake.3's product and services general manager, Amanda Hutton, says customers' appetite for viewing sport on mobile phones is growing, but 3 is not attempting to cut into TV's turf. "We see it as complementary to television. We work closely with Channel Nine; we're not competing with them," Ms Hutton says. Still, television networks are keen to protect their rights. While cricket is streamed live to mobile phones, AFL and rugby are kept on a tighter rein. Scores and game statistics for Saturday's grand final, for example, will be available live, but fans will have to wait about 30 to 40 minutes to watch highlights of each quarter, and a full match package at the end. Full replays of AFL matches cannot be streamed until 12 hours after a game.Vodafone has exclusive Australian mobile rights to the rugby World Cup and is showing 60 hours of live coverage. It also offers ABC and SBS free-to-air live over the phone.While rates vary, subscribing to 3's cricket coverage costs $5 a month, which includes unlimited viewing. Vodafone's sport and rugby packs cost between $3 and $8 a month.Ms Hutton says that while some people will watch their mobile phone for hours, customers on average watch in six to eight-minute blocks.She says she has seen phones being surreptitiously checked for footy updates during weddings, and that last year's soccer World Cup showed how handy people find sport on a phone. "We saw lots of customers tuning in to watch the games live in the middle of the night. Maybe they were too lazy to get out of bed!"
© 2007 The Sunday Age
