Optus has secured exclusive Australian broadcast rights to the English Premier League for the next three seasons.
The deal is reportedly worth more than $50 million and includes "live broadcast coverage and digital rights for broadband and mobile". Optus' coverage will commence in   August 2016. 
It is a huge blow for the current rights holders Fox Sports, and rich Qatar-owned broadcaster BeIN Sports, who both reportedly submitted competing bids.
Fox Sports, which is part-owned by Optus' telco rival Telstra, said they were "disappointed" to lose the rights as the league's foundation broadcast partner in Australia.
The deal is expected to have wider implications for broadcast sport in Australia, with the English Premier League a central part of Foxtel's strategy of targeting sports-mad subscribers.
Optus released a statement on Monday morning announcing the shock deal, describing it as "another significant step in our strategy to become a mobile-led multimedia company".
"Today's announcement is a great win for Optus and will ensure that Aussie football fans can watch all the action from the world's most popular football league," CEO Allen Lew said in the statement.
It is unclear how the public will access the content at this stage, with no specific details on "product constructs or pricing at this stage".
"Our goal is to make this content available to as many fans as possible - but we're not going in to detail about distribution platforms at this stage," a spokeswoman for Optus told Fairfax Media.
That could mean on-selling rights to other existing broadcasters, an online subscription model, or a new platform for distributing the matches to the EPL's millions of fans in Australia.
A senior Australian soccer figure said the deal's value suggested soccer had landed as a major sport, with broadcast values only improving.
The move is likely to have flow-on effects for other broadcast deals, including the A-League.
The domestic league is screened on SBS2 and Fox Sports, and - due to the English Premier League's poor viewing times for Australians - receives stronger audiences.
Football Federation Australia is seeking a re-negotiation of the current broadcast deal, which would include a move to a more popular free-to-air channel.
This is not Optus' first move into the sports broadcast arena. In   October the company announced that it had signed a sponsorship deal with Cricket Australia to be its streaming partner. 
All Optus users are now 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.
Lew at that time flagged the deal as "just the beginning", declaring "open season" on Australian sport broadcast rights. He set 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.
Digital rights for the AFL have already been secured by Telstra.
The Financial Review reported on Monday that Optus has also expressed interest in the NRL mobile streaming rights and is considered a "potential bidder" for the pay TV rights, currently held by Fox Sports.
with AAP