Optus Sport has successfully extended its exclusive streaming rights for the English Premier League (EPL) for a further six years, and its streaming rights for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League (WSL) until 2024.

Optus faced competition to secure the rights from Stan, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video and Foxtel’s Kayo, who were all reported to be potential bidders in a blind auction.

Optus missed out on the rights of the UEFA Champion League to Stan in June but has held the rights for EPL exclusive coverage since 2016, taking the rights off previous holder, Foxtel, in a deal reportedly worth $63 million per year.

The extension of the streaming rights for the WSL will see coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 hosted in Australia, with Optus revealing an active subscriber base of over one million.

Optus CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, said: “We are thrilled to be able to significantly extend our exclusive partnership with Premier League and the FA Women’s Super League and continue to bring the best football coverage to more than a million of our passionate and loyal Optus Sport customers.”

“This is another proof point that we are continuing to deliver unique customer experiences and exceptional value for our Mobile and Home customers, in addition to our industry-leading Living Network, Australia’s fastest 5G, and our newly launched SubHub, a revolutionary subscription aggregation platform,” Rosmarin said.

Optus’ vice president of TV, content and product development, Clive Dickens, said: “Optus Sport has more than doubled its subscribers since 2018, engagement is up over 49% year-on-year and we’ve seen nine of our top 10 most watched matches occurring during 2021.”

“This includes the historic EURO 2020 England vs Italy Final, which broke the Australian record for a live sports streaming event, with almost one million households watching the match live, no single streamed Tokyo Olympic event reached this many households,” he said.

Premier League chief media officer, Paul Molnar, said: “The Premier League is delighted to extend our partnership with Optus for a further six seasons up to 2027/28.”

“Optus has proven to be an outstanding home for the Premier League in Australia and has helped to grow the fan base of the Premier League and its clubs through market-leading content and impressive innovation.”

“We are looking forward to continuing to work with Optus in the years ahead,” Molnar said.