Streaming woes a massive blow for Spark ambitions
Spark always said New Zealand vs South Africa would be the toughest test of its streaming service — given the other pool competition is soft, the quarter-final will probably be a cruise for the ABs too, and the semis and final will be live on TVNZ.
It failed that test — and that’s going to have huge, possibly mortal, impact on its chances of landing season-long competitions from NZ Rugby and Sanzaar or other major codes.
Streaming is the future. Freeview is planning to pull the plug on terrestrial broadcasting in 2035, the Herald understands.
But NZ Rugby and Sanzaar will now be very, very nervous about handing their next five-year contract (for 2021 through 2026) to any party who is offering streaming only. Sky is suddenly in the catbird seat.
The telco says only a “small number” were hit by problems — and gripes do have to be seen in the context that streams peaked at 132,000 during the match (notably, just 1000 shy of the Herald’s breakeven calculation, though Spark has not said how many people paid and how many got it as a freebie as part of a Spark plan).
Still, after a promising start, social media lit up like a Christmas tree about halfway through the first half. Although only a few lost the service altogether, many had brief pauses in the action as Spark Sport buffered.
Spark activated its safety net and the second half was simulcast on TVNZ’s Duke channel (and said TVNZ would carry yesterday’s games free, too).
The telco got kudos for having a well-organised fallback plan in place (though some TV-less millennials were angry there was no TVNZ On Demand streaming option).
Spark will argue it took a safetyfirst approach by simulcasting the game after only minor issues. It would be a stronger argument if Spark could identify and resolve the problem.
New Spark boss Jolie Hodson said it was not an issue with domestic broadband capacity.
After the UFB fibre rollout and other upgrades, NZ is blessed with scads of bandwidth. Managing it is the tricky part.
It’s notable that many who were able to watch the opener (60,000 streams) and the Australia-Fiji clash (88,000 streams) then had problems when 132,000 piled in for the ABs vs South Africa. And Saturday night’s woes come on top of wobbles with Spark’s English Premier League football, and the “known issue” that some 40,000 rural households just don’t have good enough broadband to stream the RWC.
As the Herald warned then-Spark boss Simon Moutter when the telco first won World Cup rights, these are the All Blacks we’re talking about.
Gripping game of rugby this, but unfortunately the big story at the moment is the broadcast issues.
You can come back from a streaming disaster, as Optus showed across the Tasman. But it will take time, and Saturday’s was Spark Sport’s big showcase — and the only one it will get — during negotiations with NZ Rugby and Sanzaar over 2021-2026 rights to Super Rugby and All Blacks games. For rival Sky, those negotiations just got much easier.