CEO of Football Victoria (FV) Peter Filopoulos has revealed FV are in discussions with Optus Sport and Foxtel subsidiary streaming service Kayo Sports.
Speaking recently on the For Vuck’s Sake podcast, Filopoulos claimed FV’s broadcast strategy to live stream all NPL Victoria games was creating an abundance of content.
“Part of our ambition was that we are going to have heaps of content for a Kayo or an Optus,” he said.
“These platforms now are subscription-based platforms who are constantly going to look at curating content.
“Pleasingly, we are now in firm discussions with Optus and Kayo Sports in ways they can capitalise on that content with weekly shows … on their platforms.
“That’s the whole motivation around it and I think we need to innovate.”
Filopoulos confirmed the governing body was also looking to create its own over-the-top (OTT) streaming service, after encouraging viewing numbers for the start of the NPL Victoria season.
“We’ve got over 40,000 unique viewers every week now,” Filopoulos said.
“We’re also evolving the product and we’re currently experimenting with our own OTT platform, so that we can transition the broadcast away from other people’s platforms and onto ours.
“So [moving] away from Facebook and YouTube and [directing it] through our own OTT platform, similar to the way Netflix is delivered to the consumer.
“We are experimenting with that at the moment and hopefully that’s not too far away.
“Once we have our own platform, we can control our own destiny.”
NPL Victoria Men, Women and U20’s games are currently streamed on the NPL Victoria Facebook and YouTube social channels.
South Melbourne FC, one of the clubs heavily involved in a push for a national second division, registered over 10,000 Facebook views on NPL Victoria’s live stream of their game against Eastern Lions on Sunday. The YouTube view count for the match was over 5,300.