By Kaluka Wanjala

This article may be late but as they say, better late than never, right? Ever since the first match of the 2018 World Cup, I have relied on my smartphone to watch over 50% of the matches. And no, I am not talking about illegally streaming the matches using some shady website or using one of those apps that you download and hope it works all the time and does not bombard you with pop ads left, right and centre.

The reason why I have watched most of the 2018 World Cup matches on my phone has to do with the fact that I am not always at home when they start. With most of the afternoon matches, I am always out and about or just not near my TV and not having my phone would mean that I miss most of these matches. If you are like me, you probably are in school or at work by the time the first match kicks off and need ways to watch all the matches you want on the go.

Kwese-Iflix App

This is the app I have been using for the last couple of weeks. I am meant to understand that Kwese and Iflix joined forces recently as previously they were independent companies. I have known about both Kwese and Iflix for sometime but I have never subscribed to any of these services before.

The DStv Now App

If you are a DStv subscriber, you do not have to rush home everyday just to watch the live matches. You can do so on the go through the DStv Now app. I personally did not know DStv offered such an option until two weeks ago. The app is available on both Android and iOS and once you get it, go to LiveTV > Sport and stream the matches on the relevant SuperSport channel.

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The StarTimes App

I have never been a fan of StarTimes and I would be the first to admit that I do not know the channels it offers. Even with that said, they got into my radar recently as they were among the first pay TV providers who announced that they would be streaming all 64 world Cup matches this year. We already knew DStv was going to stream all matches but we have already established that the MultiChoice-owned company is very expensive. This is why the announcement by StarTimes got my attention, Yes I know, I like cheap things.

Conclusion

I am a big fan of companies that create products specifically for smartphone users. Not everyone is willing or able to watch live sports on their TV and having an option to do that on your phone is necessary. The ability to stream live sports on your phone legally will definitely introduce new products to consumers and introduce new subscribers to the Pay Tv services. Not everyone is willing to spend thousands of shillings every month on a Pay Tv service yet they only want the live sports action. Still on this, not everyone is willing to spend a ton of cash on data so as to watch their favourite team play. This is why this partnership between these three service providers and Safaricom makes sense, the service providers benefit, Safaricom benefits and most importantly, the users of these services benefit.

I hope this is the start of a new era and we should be seeing additional products from Telcos such as Safaricom and Pay Tv or Video On demand service providers.

The apps listed above are just the ones that got my attention and have local payment options. There are a ton of other international apps that you can get but why should you when you have these?

Fun Fact about this world cup: Every team I have supported have lost, I am beginning to think that I should support the teams I want to see eliminated for the sake of my sanity.