Omnisport.tv to shut down
As an Omnisport.tv affiliate, we received a notice via email today stating that “as of Dec 1st 2009, Omnisport.tv will be ceasing all affiliate marketing activity due to the imminent closure of www.omnisport.tv.”
This isn’t as big (or far-reaching) as Setanta going bust but it’s worth remembering that just two months ago Perform Group, Omnisport.tv’s parent company, partnered with Kentaro to bring the England-Ukraine World Cup qualifier live online to hundreds of thousands of England fans.
Kentaro / Perform / Omnisport declared that project a success – and Omnisport’s mailing today was again careful to thank users for helping making Omnisport a ‘success’ – so the big question is why are Perform winding up Omnisport? Two possible answers:
One – the business was hemorrhaging money, which is quite possible given high costs of license fees and the fierce competition from illegal free streams available online.
Two – the business was a success, and Perform will now export the model to a partner that already owns the online rights and run it white-labeled for them.
Given the current economy and some obvious flaws in Perform’s model (charging per game, not doing enough to compete effectively with illegal streams, no fan / community engagement), the signs point to #1, and that’s a shame – I’m looking forward to be able to watch live football online, legally, at a reasonable cost, and Omnisport’s failure will make other potential investors in this model warier than before.
Back to the pubs then – or you could always watch football live online – for free.
Update: I’ve learned today that Omnisport.tv will be relaunched under a new brand – let’s see how that goes.
A pity i was hoping they would do better with reasonable prices.
Hi, when will they relaunch?
It’s interesting that you talk about these ‘illegal’ streams, when you actively market with articles on Soccerlens for the “Live Sport Network” – sites called free-football.tv and oleolefootball – only a brief seach on google brings up hundreds of results of people being scammed by this site, who take your money, then despite their claims only provide lists of these ‘illegal’ streams stolen from myp2p where they are available for free, and then offer no further support.
PS I was ripped off by them after signing up through Soccerlens! so i’m just bitter, but I thought a respected site like yourselves would run a mile from scammers like these.