Phoenix Academy
190
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370
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over 10 years

Bit annoyed about Spark Sport snapping up the F1 and not even having their service up and running with mere days to go until the first Grand Prix. Looks like they've chucked it on TVNZ Duke as a sort of, 'sorry, we're not quite up and running yet but here it is for free.'

If they have the site up and running before Friday then fair enough, but otherwise it's a big fail.

Also appears that they won't be launching with on-demand availability, which will only be available at a 'later date.' 

LG
Legend
5.5K
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23K
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over 16 years

Spark and TV has been a fail since they first tried it way back in the 90's

Marquee
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8.1K
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over 16 years

The punishing thing about this is what to do for sport mad elderly. My granddad loves his sport and is in his mid 80's. He struggles with Sky TV, let alone moving him to a smart tv with apps and logins for multiple services. It'll be an awkward period for this age group unfortunately.

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

brumbys wrote:

The punishing thing about this is what to do for sport mad elderly. My granddad loves his sport and is in his mid 80's. He struggles with Sky TV, let alone moving him to a smart tv with apps and logins for multiple services. It'll be an awkward period for this age group unfortunately.

This is the problem with the new technology......firstly the suppliers rarely get the offering right the first time (well done spark for taking F1 and not having the platform ready) secondly they end up costing the end user more to upgrade their kit to make it work. The biggest issue with streaming is that NZ's network simply aint up to the entire population watching an event any the same time. The country will go into shutdown mode when the interweb crashes when we are all trying to watch the RWC final.

Starting XI
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4.3K
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over 11 years

I believe the final will be on TVNZ, but the point still stands. Come the first All Blacks game and it doesn't work there will be a lot of angry people. Also despite such an advance warning I expect there will be a lot of panic the day before the RWC starts when people realise "wait,  it's not on TV?!!!!  How do we watch it?"

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

yeah, there's a requirement that it's free to air from the quarter finals onwards I believe. but the round robin will only be accessible to those who a) can afford it and b) have the internet speed to stream it and c) have the unlimited data plan to allow it.

First Team Squad
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1.7K
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over 15 years

theprof wrote:

brumbys wrote:

The punishing thing about this is what to do for sport mad elderly. My granddad loves his sport and is in his mid 80's. He struggles with Sky TV, let alone moving him to a smart tv with apps and logins for multiple services. It'll be an awkward period for this age group unfortunately.

This is the problem with the new technology......firstly the suppliers rarely get the offering right the first time (well done spark for taking F1 and not having the platform ready) secondly they end up costing the end user more to upgrade their kit to make it work. The biggest issue with streaming is that NZ's network simply aint up to the entire population watching an event any the same time. The country will go into shutdown mode when the interweb crashes when we are all trying to watch the RWC final.

I was listening to a network engineer on the radio the other day, and that's just not quite true. While yes, you could argue that certain areas don't have fast enough internet to the door. But the entire network doesn't fall apart because everyone is watching the same thing - the Spark server doesn't send out 4,000,000 different data streams. It sends out 1, which is split as it propagates across a network.

There are still big scaling problems, but the capacity of the network as a whole is not one.

Phoenix Academy
190
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370
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over 10 years

I'll be interested to see their RWC pricing. 

$20 a month for the currently non-existent Spark Sport service seems a tad excessive, as someone who's only interested in F1 from their current lineup. But from August onward it's palatable when the Premier League kicks off. 

Will feel a bit on the nose for existing $20-a-month subscribers to have to pay the same one-off price for the RWC that everyone else will. Frankly, with the most important All Blacks games already free-to-air I'm not sure how many subs they'll actually get.

Legend
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over 16 years

20Legend, think I heard the same dude on radiosport explaining that the network is goo enough blah blah, but then the same week another station has another expert on saying that Spark's setup is flawed and the system will not cope with the increased demand. Hard to know who to believe but if the Aussies couldn't get it right then I see no reason to believe or expect Spark to get it right. They've never been the smartest when it comes to investing in technology - eg introducing CDMA as their 3G network when the whole world was using the Vodafone platform.

Re the pricing thing, Spark have said that even with a monthly subscription, the live games will be an additional cost. You'll get the extras at no additional cost just not the live games apparently. Which only gives you a small advantage over the rest of us who wont pay for it as there must be live free coverage of the finals onwards.

Starting XI
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over 11 years

Actually rather than free coverage of the finals on,  the announcement was that TVNZ will screen 7 games live (the same as 2015) which will include the opening match and the final, with further details yet to be announced (unless I've missed a more up to date announcement). Fair to assume at least one semi final and quarter final will be in the other 5 free live matches, but who knows? I guess it wouldn't make much business sense to put all the important or all the All Blacks games on TVNZ as then noone would pay for it. 

Legend
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15K
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almost 17 years

I am very interested to see what happens here. To me this is a pretty big fail from Spark to not have anything up and running at all, in time for the F1 starting. 

As we all know, Spark are loudly and proudly following Agile project methodology now. Under that guise, how have they not got anything up and running? Surely a shell website with "coming soon" is a minimum viable product that could be knocked together fairly quickly. If they are behind, then with how Agile works, I would expect them to be closer than literally not having a website up. 

To me this could be an indicator that they are actually quite some way off having their App going i.e. not just a week or two. 

Or if they are planning on releasing the website as a big bang, then they aren't really Agile at all. I would expect them to be quite strict in the methodology given the re-structuring and redundancies that took place in the name of going Agile. 

Or, call me a cynic, but is it that they just used going Agile as an excuse to trim the workforce, and now, like so many other organisations, they are attempting to work in an agile manner but still falling into the waterfall principles by habit......

Legend
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over 16 years

I haven't seen anything that says they have even a web page that works, certainly nothing looking like an app.

Early retirement
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almost 17 years

paulm wrote:
Surely a shell website with "coming soon" is a minimum viable product that could be knocked together fairly quickly.



https://www.sparksport.co.nz/

I couldn't comment on the rest.

First Team Squad
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almost 17 years

It's not too relevant to watching EPL, as they don't have it, but I have signed up to Kayo Sports, which is the online arm of Foxtel AU, I use a Smart DNS service and pay the $25 AUD a month (free 2 week trial), but the offering is incredible,for example if you start watching a cricket game that has started, you can choose key moments, and it shows you replays of the wickets, or 6's etc.

It's light years ahead of anything i've seen. All Live and then On demand too, with a 'spoiler' or 'no spoiler' feature which turns the scores on or off on the initial front screen.

Hopefully they'll get the AU EPL rights back at some point, Optus have them currently, but Kayo have almost every other football league (A-League, Championship, Serie A, Bundeslgia, La Liga, MLS, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Ligue 1, and all AU internationals (men and women), and other Sth American leagues.

The HD quality is excellent too, matches the sky coverage. Speaking of Sky i have just cancelled their service yesterday.

Early retirement
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almost 17 years
Legend
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over 16 years

Hard News wrote:

paulm wrote:
Surely a shell website with "coming soon" is a minimum viable product that could be knocked together fairly quickly.



https://www.sparksport.co.nz/

I couldn't comment on the rest.

it may be up but it's not working.......good old white screen of death.

Early retirement
3.1K
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34K
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almost 17 years

It's working fine for everyone else I have spoken to, both App and website.

Starting XI
2.5K
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2.4K
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over 8 years

If anyone previously used reddit.com/r/soccerstreams, which got banned, there is now a discord server for people to find streams that reddit can't ban.

This link (https://discordapp.com/channels/535895547530182692/535895547530182700) should take you there, and you can select the match threads you want down the left hand side. Not sure if you need a discord account or not, I already had one.

Legend
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15K
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almost 17 years

Hard News wrote:

paulm wrote:
Surely a shell website with "coming soon" is a minimum viable product that could be knocked together fairly quickly.


https://www.sparksport.co.nz/

I couldn't comment on the rest.

Well there you go... ignore my post HAHAHAHAHA

Phoenix Academy
190
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370
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over 10 years

Hmm, tried to watch via the internet explorer on my Xbox, only to get some message about a DRM key error. All of their apps in the pipework seem to relate to mobile devices and smart TVs, I haven't seen any mention of them developing anything for consoles. So the only way I'll be able to get Spark Sport onto a tv (short of shelling out for extra devices, Chromecast etc) will be the basic bitch method of laptop + hdmi cable.

Phoenix Academy
190
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370
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over 10 years

The price to watch all 48 matches live and "on-demand" on Spark Sport increases to $79.99 if rugby fans leave buying a pass until June, and Spark will bump the price up to $89.99 during the nine days before the tournament starts on September 20.

Hmm, interesting strategy to punish latecomers. Also no discount or benefit offered to existing subscribers, there's an incentive there for people who sign up early for the RWC but no incentive for those already handing over $180 over the course of the F1 season.

I hope the PL isn't offered on a separate pay-per-view basis next season, but suspect it will be. A season of F1 + a September sign up to the RWC clocks in at $270, chuck an extra $20 p/m on there for the EPL from August thru May and you're talking $450.

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.
First Team Squad
1K
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1.7K
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over 15 years

theprof wrote:
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.

Early bird is $60. All games, live, on-demand, anytime, anywhere.

Sky Sport is 2 or 3 monthly billing periods (so at best $140), but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!), a 12-month minimum contract, no (or completely useless at best) on-demand offering with the rugby or any other of those sports. (Does the $70/month sky even include MySky/HD??)

I don't care much for Rugby, but if someone offered an all access pass to the Football World Cup for $60 I'd have bitten their hand off.

Starting XI
2.1K
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4.3K
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over 11 years

I think that's coming from the perspective that it's similar to a month of Sky with Sport, but you have to commit to 6-12 months of at least basic Sky rather than being able to get it for just 1 month wouldn't you?

Anyway $60 seems a good deal, I expected more like $150. Very surprised all NZ games will be FTA though which I would imagine would cut down the number of subscribers. There will be the hardcore (and technologically capable) fan who wants to watch the majority of games so will pay. But I expect a lot of people will now just say "fudge it I'll just wait an hour, and the semis and final are live anyway." As an England fan I'll probably go with the $60 option since individual games are $25 and none of their's will be FTA. Hope to get a PS4 app so I don't need to buy a new device for a one off event.

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

20 Legend wrote:

theprof wrote:
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.

Early bird is $60. All games, live, on-demand, anytime, anywhere.

Sky Sport is 2 or 3 monthly billing periods (so at best $140), but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!), a 12-month minimum contract, no (or completely useless at best) on-demand offering with the rugby or any other of those sports. (Does the $70/month sky even include MySky/HD??)

I don't care much for Rugby, but if someone offered an all access pass to the Football World Cup for $60 I'd have bitten their hand off.

RWC is for 5 weeks, so hardly 3-4 billing cycles. I have sky basic+sport in HD, Monthly bill $73. for that I not only get access to more than one sport, more than one tournament I get access to a whole range of other crappy TV shows that I might want to spend time viewing. No matter how you break it down $60 for 5 weeks is $12 a week for just the Rugby World Cup. Whereas with Sky you get a-league, cricket, darts, superbikes, AFT etc etc

Starting XI
1.3K
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2.7K
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almost 9 years

theprof wrote:

20 Legend wrote:

theprof wrote:
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.

Early bird is $60. All games, live, on-demand, anytime, anywhere.

Sky Sport is 2 or 3 monthly billing periods (so at best $140), but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!), a 12-month minimum contract, no (or completely useless at best) on-demand offering with the rugby or any other of those sports. (Does the $70/month sky even include MySky/HD??)

I don't care much for Rugby, but if someone offered an all access pass to the Football World Cup for $60 I'd have bitten their hand off.

RWC is for 5 weeks, so hardly 3-4 billing cycles. I have sky basic+sport in HD, Monthly bill $73. for that I not only get access to more than one sport, more than one tournament I get access to a whole range of other crappy TV shows that I might want to spend time viewing. No matter how you break it down $60 for 5 weeks is $12 a week for just the Rugby World Cup. Whereas with Sky you get a-league, cricket, darts, superbikes, AFT etc etc

but with Sky you have to commit to a 12 month minimum contract so thats $876, compared to $60 - $90 for 5 weeks of Rugby.

Marquee
1.7K
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7.5K
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almost 17 years

theprof wrote:

20 Legend wrote:

theprof wrote:
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.

Early bird is $60. All games, live, on-demand, anytime, anywhere.

Sky Sport is 2 or 3 monthly billing periods (so at best $140), but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!), a 12-month minimum contract, no (or completely useless at best) on-demand offering with the rugby or any other of those sports. (Does the $70/month sky even include MySky/HD??)

I don't care much for Rugby, but if someone offered an all access pass to the Football World Cup for $60 I'd have bitten their hand off.

RWC is for 5 weeks, so hardly 3-4 billing cycles. I have sky basic+sport in HD, Monthly bill $73. for that I not only get access to more than one sport, more than one tournament I get access to a whole range of other crappy TV shows that I might want to spend time viewing. No matter how you break it down $60 for 5 weeks is $12 a week for just the Rugby World Cup. Whereas with Sky you get a-league, cricket, darts, superbikes, AFT etc etc

but with Sky you have to commit to a 12 month minimum contract so thats $876, compared to $60 - $90 for 5 weeks of Rugby.

Yep, if all you care about is RWC, it really is a great price.  If you are a sports fan, or even a rugby fan it is just another $60 to spend on top of everything else.  Sky aren't great, but the break up of sports/events into different providers is going to cost sports fans more in the pocket than sky's monopoly did.

Phoenix Academy
190
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370
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over 10 years

20 Legend wrote:

but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!),

Not to defend Sky, but to be fair they use they don't usually interrupt their sports coverage (ie, during play) with ad breaks. That would be maddening. Quite amusing watching the Nascar uninterrupted on Sky with the American commentators frequently buggering off for ads. The ESPN channel does have ads but that's more a product of the frequent stoppages inherent in basketball + NFL. And it's all just ads for ESPN programming anyway, from memory there's nothing commercial.

To be clear re: Spark I think the RWC price is reasonable enough, I just don't like the whole ignoring the 9000 (their numbers) poor sods essentially paying to beta test the platform for them. Surely waving $19.99 of the RWC cost for existing subs would be a reasonable measure. 

Also don't see how they're going to offer the EPL to existing monthly subs, it will surely be a standalone price in line with what they've done for the RWC. Otherwise how does the current $19.99 suddenly stretch to covering that whole new bunch of content. I fear they'll basically just become an online version of Sky's pay per view structure, rather than a flat fee = everything service. Fair enough if that's the direction, but then cut the price of F1 and don't bundle it with MMA + field hockey stuff that I don't watch, and NBA which I already get elsewhere. 

A la carte or buffet, commit to one or the other rather than doing a bit of both.

LG
Legend
5.5K
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23K
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over 16 years

Will Sparks broadband be able to cope or will it break down or go sluggish?

Tegal
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Head Sleuth
3K
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19K
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almost 17 years

ajc28 wrote:

I think that's coming from the perspective that it's similar to a month of Sky with Sport, but you have to commit to 6-12 months of at least basic Sky rather than being able to get it for just 1 month wouldn't you?

Anyway $60 seems a good deal, I expected more like $150. Very surprised all NZ games will be FTA though which I would imagine would cut down the number of subscribers. There will be the hardcore (and technologically capable) fan who wants to watch the majority of games so will pay. But I expect a lot of people will now just say "fudge it I'll just wait an hour, and the semis and final are live anyway." As an England fan I'll probably go with the $60 option since individual games are $25 and none of their's will be FTA. Hope to get a PS4 app so I don't need to buy a new device for a one off event.

I dunno, I’m not that big of a rugby fan but I’ll be buying it at that price. 

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

Lonegunmen wrote:

Will Sparks broadband be able to cope or will it break down or go sluggish?

I'm guessing even spark don't think it will be able to cope given they've put all the NZ games on free to air along with several others in addition to the ones the had to. Listening to people who try to watch the Formula 1 coverage it doesn't sound like its that reliable. Lots of lag and buffering.

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

theprof wrote:

20 Legend wrote:

theprof wrote:
Still can't believe there are people out there saying the $70, $80 or $90 for the five weeks for just the rugby is cheaper than sky? Sky basic + sports for the same time is no more than $70.00. And you'd have got access to all sports, plus other stuff that you may or may not want to watch.

Early bird is $60. All games, live, on-demand, anytime, anywhere.

Sky Sport is 2 or 3 monthly billing periods (so at best $140), but you'd also have ad breaks (on a paid service for fudge sakes!), a 12-month minimum contract, no (or completely useless at best) on-demand offering with the rugby or any other of those sports. (Does the $70/month sky even include MySky/HD??)

I don't care much for Rugby, but if someone offered an all access pass to the Football World Cup for $60 I'd have bitten their hand off.

RWC is for 5 weeks, so hardly 3-4 billing cycles. I have sky basic+sport in HD, Monthly bill $73. for that I not only get access to more than one sport, more than one tournament I get access to a whole range of other crappy TV shows that I might want to spend time viewing. No matter how you break it down $60 for 5 weeks is $12 a week for just the Rugby World Cup. Whereas with Sky you get a-league, cricket, darts, superbikes, AFT etc etc

but with Sky you have to commit to a 12 month minimum contract so thats $876, compared to $60 - $90 for 5 weeks of Rugby.

but with spark's online offering you're spending $60ish bucks plus your monthly data subscription which may or may not cope with the speed requirements. That takes your cost for the 5 weeks up to maybe $130?

Starting XI
2.1K
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4.3K
·
over 11 years

Surely you can't include the full monthly internet subscription in the cost, unless you're suggesting people without current plans are going to take out a new one specifically for that 5 weeks then cancel it. I'd imagine that group would be small. Most subscribers will already have internet that they would be paying for anyway. Possible some people may up their mobile plan if they intend to watch games on mobile devices without access to WiFi but again that wouldn't be the majority.

Legend
3.6K
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15K
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almost 17 years

Where do you draw the line in the cost comparisons.

At this rate we best include your monthly power bill or else how will you power the set-top box, or charge your device to watch online?

Are you going to sit in your lounge and watch? Best include the mortgage, and the cost of your couch too. 

;)

First Team Squad
1K
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1.7K
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over 15 years

theprof wrote:

Lonegunmen wrote:

Will Sparks broadband be able to cope or will it break down or go sluggish?

I'm guessing even spark don't think it will be able to cope given they've put all the NZ games on free to air along with several others in addition to the ones the had to. Listening to people who try to watch the Formula 1 coverage it doesn't sound like its that reliable. Lots of lag and buffering.

I think it's clever. The early stages will introduce die-hard fans to the idea of streaming, while many of the population will remain content with delayed coverage. Once you've introduced the idea of streaming sports to these people, you can deliver the semi and final free to air (maybe even get some extra advertising $$$) without the fear of the platform falling over.

Just on the F1 note, I've seen on social media people complaining. But it has worked flawlessly for me and the F1 contingent at my work (I work in at a tech company). Guessing there's a fair amount of user error here.

Legend
3.6K
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15K
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almost 17 years

But in all seriousness, this is a really good debate. 

There are pros and cons to bundled versus unbundled sports. 

We are in an extended period of change at the moment, and I'm not sure what the final state will look like. 

If we look to the entertainment industry as a guide, as they are further ahead in this game, it doesn't look promising. I don't know about the rest of you, but I frequently think of a film or series I would like to watch, but if it's not on Netflix, Lightbox, TVNZ or Three, then I basically can't watch it. I could purchase Neon or something else to get access to more, but that's far from any guarantee. 

For example, we wanted to watch the Home Improvement series from the 90s after our kids took a liking to the old Full House, but that is not available anywhere. I wanted to watch Seinfeld, but would have to purchase Amazon tv. I liked the Meateater series on Netflix and I wanted to watch Season 1 as it has NZ episodes in it, but that's not on Netflix, only place I could find it is to buy the DVD direct from the Meateater website, for an exorbitant price. 

If you want to have access to any mainstream movie or series, you would have to purchase every service, it's really not a lot different to the sporting landscape. The difference from Sport is that you can sort of make do with the services you have, as there will be other content that might suffice. 

Looks to me like Sky is basically in that boat now. They won't have everything you want, but you might make do, as they have other sports/competitions you will like (ish). 

Anyway that's just a bit of a ramble, but an interesting comparison nonetheless. 

First Team Squad
1K
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1.7K
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over 15 years

Yeah. The death of movie/TV streaming will be having too many providers. (Which seems to be the way we're going).

However, in regards to sport it could get cheaper if it helps break down regional barriers and even if the sports do the streaming themselves. Imagine the PL simply $10 a month for their world wide streaming service. Then the Champions league was maybe $50 a season. Etc etc.

Legend
3.6K
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15K
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almost 17 years

That sounds wonderful (a global streaming offering). 

The american sports seem to be well ahead of the game in that respect. 

Legend
8K
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14K
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over 16 years

paulm wrote:

Where do you draw the line in the cost comparisons.

At this rate we best include your monthly power bill or else how will you power the set-top box, or charge your device to watch online?

Are you going to sit in your lounge and watch? Best include the mortgage, and the cost of your couch too. 

;)

I totally agree, I guess I'm trying to point out the ridiculous comparisons of those saying spark's offering is cheaper than Sky. They are two totally different things. Comparing Sky's total package cost to what spark is offering is dumb. Apples with apples, skys sport package is no more than $25/month for every sport, so for Rugby it would be no more than $10/month. Compare that to the RWC of $60ish for 5 weeks.

Even if I paid $25/month just for the RWC ie $6/week with Sky its cheaper than $60/5 weeks ie $12/week for spark's offering..

First Team Squad
280
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1.3K
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almost 17 years

I think they will have to offer the EPL as part of the $19.99. for as it stands, it's $20 bucks month for what is really a pretty small amount of content.

I have zero interest in motorsport, MMA and little interest in rugby (AB games against Tier 1 nations only) so EPL is the only thing I'd be interested in. I remember PLP was $240 a season (I think), so would assume they would look to include it in their pricing.

Interesting to see where they go,as i think they have set their price pretty high, Kayo in Aus is $25 a month and has pretty much every sport you can imagine (EPL excepted). Full list here - https://www.finder.com.au/sports-on-kayo

So you'd imagine they'd need to add sports to the $20 price point to keep people interested, rather than keep increasing it as they add more sports.

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