Telstra's digital guru Adam Good is tackling the new frontier in sport Digital sport broadcasts are no longer regarded as "flight of fancy." AS HAWTHORN players executed a flurry of handpasses in front of goal last Friday night, trying to find the loose man, 800,000 people were tuned in - but not in the conventional sense. They were scrutinising the game on mobile phones and tablets, many joining just as Jack Gunston found Shaun Burgoyne, who slotted the ball to send his team into today's Grand Final. On a typical weekend, some two million users now keep track of the game using the AFL Live application. If all goes well, many will spend endless hours debating the game, without a mention of the technology. If something goes drastically wrong - say, the broadcast drops out and they miss the crucial goal - they will curse it. And the blame will fall on the shoulders of Telstra's online authority Adam Good. During any big game, usage of the app swells rapidly as the match reaches its crescendo. The match on Friday last week, one of the biggest of the season, was more dramatic. At 7.30pm, there were about 350,000 users logged on. At 8.30pm, shortly after kick-off, Telstra's chart looked a seismograph recording an earthquake as the audience ballooned to about 710,000. And as the end drew near the audience hit its peak - about 800,000 - as smartphone users at home, in pubs, at dinner parties, on trains and trams and everywhere else across the nation tuned in for the finale. Telstra's head of digital content Adam Good says the start of a game can be strong as people are trying to get a sense of the match up. This is the danger zone for Good and his team bunkered down at Telstra's network control centre, the hub that ensures the systems tick along. Over the course of a football weekend, eight to 10 technicians sit before laptops, smartphones and "every other device you can imagine"" monitoring the pipes that deliver data to phones and tablets. ``The start of a game can be strong as people are trying to get a sense of the match up,"" Good says. ``If it is close, a real lot of people come in the last 10 minutes - that is when everybody is checking in." In essence, it means more people are trying to send and receive data down the internet ``highway"" and it is Good's team that must ensure they don't crash into each other. There is an equally potent metaphor that Good and his staff use. "It is like if everyone in Melbourne tried to flush their toilets at the same time - the system would be under tremendous strain."" Along with those watching live feeds and videos, there are also more than a million people logging on to check the score or look at game stats. This is football's brave new frontier and the audience is arriving in droves. News Corp Australia, publisher of the Herald Sun, has also put the game at the heart of its strategy to attract digital subscribers. Working with subsidiary Fox Sports, the company offers digital subscribers full-length replays of Fox Footy's AFL programs among other features designed to capitalise on the popularity of the game. Goods says that at the preliminary final between Hawthorn and Geelong, Telstra's network handled the traffic surge without a hitch. He is hoping he can say the same thing tonight. Big game data. WHEN it comes to broadcast sport in Australia, free-to-air TV is still king. But the landscape is rapidly changing. Digital sport broadcasts are no longer regarded as "flight of fancy" or a mere accessory to traditional television, pay TV and radio. On average, a record 4.78 million people watched free-to-air broadcasts during each round of the AFL Premiership Season last year - comprehensively the biggest weekly audience for any sport in the nation. But new technology is looming large, here and around the world. In the US, telco giant Verizon last year agreed to pay $US1 billion for mobile streaming rights to America's National Football League for the next four years. The deal doesn't cover streaming rights for tablets or computers, which the NFL kept. In 2011, Telstra signed the digital streaming rights deal with the AFL, paying $153 million over five years to broadcast footy games to smartphones and tablets. The challenge now for the telco is getting a healthy return on its investment. The job it has set itself is to convince consumers to part with $90 a year to see games, many of which are on free-to-air. It is pinning its model on immediacy - the concept that sport fans want to have the game in their pockets. The app provides live streaming of every match, replays, and assorted statistics, radio broadcasts, match previews and game summaries. This year it has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times - 400,000 times by Android users and 1.1 million times by iPhone users. In a typical week, there are more than 17 million hits on the section of the app that simply provides game scores from iPhone users alone. Given the numbers, it is surprising that just a year ago, Telstra chief David Thodey raised the prospect of tearing up the rights deal. He made the threat during a storm of controversy over digital broadcasts. At the heart of the debate was the TV Now app launched by rival Optus. It allowed customers to record matches screened on free-to-air television and watch them on their smartphones on a delay as short as 90 seconds. AFL chief Andrew Demetriou labelled Optus is a "disgusting organisation" for endangering the footy code's rivers of cash. The Federal Court ultimately found the application breached copyright laws, prompting Optus to axe it. But it raised serious questions about how Australians would have access to content in the supposedly borderless online world. Monash University faculty of law member Rebecca Giblin said Australia, by banning TV Now, risked over regulating the sector and stifling new technology. ``The worst-case scenario is that Australians will be limited to dumb technologies that don't offer the most convenient features,"" she wrote in an appraisal of the decision. Telstra has since opened its app to other telco users. It is only with Telstra, however, that the data chewed up while watching a game doesn't count towards a customer's monthly allowance. GOOD, 44, is officially Telstra's director of digital media and content. He has had offices in the US, China, Australia and New Zealand. But his workplace for almost 20 years has been the internet. He was hired by the telco a year ago to oversee the second full year of the AFL Live app, among other duties running the media portfolio. Three months ago, Good (right) flew to the US to meet with the giants of the market where sport and technology collide. His aim was to set his compass on the path forward for new technology. There, he met representatives from Major League Baseball, the NFL and the National Basketball League, YouTube, Twitter, broadcaster ESPN and audio devices group Beats By Dre. While it sounds like a ``boys own"" adventure, - all gadgets and behind-the-scenes looks at famous US sports teams - it was serious business. At the moment, Telstra's revenue comes largely from the margin it makes on mobile and internet services and from its dwindling directory advertising and home-phone businesses. Like all good companies, Telstra does not intend to shrivel as the market evolves. Telstra has more investors than any other Australian company and the household investors in particular expect it to continue paying an annual dividend of at least 28c a share. It can cut costs to prop up its performance. It did just that this week, announcing 1100 job cuts in a move that sent shockwaves through its workforce. But ultimately the telco needs new revenue streams. And, as odd as may seem now, it believes ventures such as the footy app are brimming with potential. The question Good asks himself is this: If you can carry a footy game around in your pocket, what other services might you want with it? The US trip provided some of the answers. He points to the "At The Ballpark" app, run by Major League Baseball, with its "focus on the game-day experience." Good says innovations he learnt about while visiting the US will likely find their way to Australia next year. He is envisaging a system that gives you the ability to send a 10-second highlights video from your phone to a mate with one touch. There are also plans for next year's app to have a stronger fantasy football component. Even long-form panel discussions about the game are being considered. Good says fans are particularly interested in keeping track of trades and club rumours outside the season, so there will be an element of that as well. ``I think the Australian codes are still trying to innovate pre-game,"" he says. ``People are looking for analysis as they come to the game. They want to know the best bus routes to the game, where to buy merchandise and once they get there they want everything to be connected. ``Fans want to go deeper into the clubs.""