OVO Mobile has secured its second global broadcasting rights deal, with Badminton Australia signing 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.

Under the agreement, OVO will broadcast all national, international, youth and Masters events staged by Badminton Australia, internationally on OVOPlay.  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.

OVO said more than 220 million people play badminton worldwide, particularly across Asia and especially China, while in Australia, badminton attracts more than 100,000 players and numbers continue to grow year on year.

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

“Badminton is played competitively by an international community of people that is nearly nine times the population of Australia,” he added. “Add to that fans of the sport, and we are talking about a massive audience that is hungry for unique, quality content.

“There is a huge audience for badminton in Australia, particularly among local participants and people who are fans of the Asian and other international leagues.  I can’t think of a better opportunity for us to escalate the growth of our local and international audience base for free-to-air content, and introduce quality subscription and pay-per-view offerings as well,” Jones said.

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