Badminton Australia locks in global broadcast deal

OVO Mobile has secured its second global broadcasting rights deal, adding to its niche sports broadcasting portfolio.

Badminton Australia has signed OVO as its official broadcast and telecommunications partner for the next four years.

OVO’s deal with Badminton Australia follows 400 Thunder drag racing’s re-signing of OVO as its international broadcast partner last month.

The Badminton Australia deal is OVO’s first to cover all distribution channels including free-to-air broadcast, Pay TV, live event streaming, and all digital and mobile channels.

All content, including live, highlights, catch-up and on-demand programming will be available free to air in Australia, with pay-per-view and ad-free subscription tiers soon to be launched for local and international audiences.

“The calibre of competition played here in Australia is world-class,” Badminton Australia CEO, Derek O’Leary said.

“We know there is an international audience for our events, and the opportunities that come with that for our athletes, but up until now we had no way to consistently get their attention.”

Last month alone, more than 100,000 fans tuned in to watch unique live and catch-up sport and entertainment content from OVO, including drag racing, esports and rugby.

In the past 12 months, OVO attracted more than 2 million views on its platforms, approximately 20 per cent tuning in from outside Australia.

“It’s not only Australian fans who are hungry for quality content of their favourite sport,” OVO CEO, Matt Jones said.

We’ll soon be introducing subscription and pay-per-view tiers on top of our robust free-to-air offering to help capitalise on growing local and international interest, and our new deal with Badminton Australia is a big part of that.”

“Badminton is played competitively by an international community of people that is nearly nine times the population of Australia.

“Add to that fans of the sport, and we are talking about a massive audience that is hungry for unique, quality content.”

All content on OVOPlay is available free-to-stream and is also available data-free to OVO mobile subscribers.