Singtel-Optus chief executive Allen Lew has declared open season on Australian sporting broadcast rights, setting the goal of partnering with a range of codes to entice mobile and internet customers away from his rivals such as Telstra and TPG Telecom.
As first flagged by Fairfax Media, Optus on Thursday announced it had signed a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with Cricket Australia to be its streaming partner. The telco hopes that offering live streaming matches and free season passes will encourage customers to see it as more than a mere utility provider of phone calls and downloads. 
But speaking  to Fairfax Media, Mr Lew said the Cricket Australia deal was just the beginning, with broadcast rights at other codes under  negotiation through a content team at Optus. The telecommunications giant is fighting hard to partner with media players such as Netflix and differentiate itself from rivals wanting to eat its market share.
"Optus has never been in sports rights and we're now in the game," he said. "We've chosen something very timely with summer coming up and we've chosen a national sport - I wouldn't say that the NRL or AFL are national.
"We have the necessary budget, as we showed with our mobile network budget, to do what we need to do, and as long as we can justify it I'm sure our shareholders will give us the dollars to do it."
He declined to name the sporting codes under consideration. However, the A-League, rugby union and English Premier League mobile rights are all believed to be  up for grabs in Australia. Digital rights for the AFL have already been locked up by Telstra, with an NRL deal thought to be close behind.
"We have done quite an extensive study of the different engagement levels of the sports codes so we know what excites Australians [and] we'll be working through that priority list," he said, adding that any deal had to meet three key conditions.
"Whatever we do in content must lead to greater mobile connections and ... we have to look at the opportunities to look beyond live broadcasts, which everybody has already done for the last 50 or 60 years in television.
"And the third thing is how it plays into our innovation halo, which is our image of being the most innovative service provider here in Australia."
From   October 29 all Optus users will be able to access the Cricket Australia Live Pass, which gives them the ability to watch matches. This typically costs $29.99 a season and the data used up on mobile devices will not count against their download allowances.
The three-year deal gives Optus  all the traditional perks of sponsorship, including tickets for customers and cross-promotional branding.
But Mr Lew said the key to the deal was Optus' ability to use mobile technologies to help make the game more interactive and exciting - something he hopes will grow the fan-base of both Optus and Australian cricket in general.
"The key is how we use the content and intellectual property they have to come up with something unique that allows us to deliver edgy, entertaining and amazing content," he said. "We will work with Cricket Australia and separate broadcasters ... and we'll also work with fans on the ground and our own creative people to come up with interesting content beyond just broadcasting live matches or having TV interviews."
He said Optus was in talks with several platform providers that had the technology to combine the social media output of fans and official video from matches into a  package allowing fans to get a real sense of having taken part in the match. The first version  will be launched in time for the first Test of the summer, against New Zealand on   November 4.
One of modern cricket's biggest shortfalls is the length of Test matches when compared with sports such as rugby and Australian Rules Football. But Mr Lew claimed this would work to Optus' advantage because it meant the marketing opportunity lasted all day.
"How do you create that interest level to get people to come in at exciting times to watch it and how do you boost the peak audience?" he said. "That's where mobile comes into play ... because it's with people all the time."
Cricket Australia previously signed a content deal with mobile carrier 3, which in turn became Vodafone Hutchison Australia. But its efforts to give customers live match videos did not gain traction and Vodafone Australia ultimately dropped Cricket Australia in 2012 as it went through a transformation program
"The fact that smartphones and 4G is more predominant now than perhaps the time when Hutchison [Whampoa] had it ... means it's a bigger opportunity for us," he said.