If there’s one thing most of us just can’t seem to get enough of these days, it’s free time. We’re working longer hours, we’re travelling more and we’re spending lots of time connecting with friends (thanks, technology!) And if you’re like millions of Australian sports fans, you’re grateful to have that mobile device at hand for those times when you can’t be at home in front of the TV to catch your team’s game, or to take in the nail-biting final round of US Open golf or ATP tennis.
But there’s a small problem with catching up with sports while you’re out and about – a lot of the time, you simply don’t have a few hours to yourself to sit back and take in the match. You want to get a feel for the excitement, rhythm and pace of the game but you’ve only got 15 minutes on your lunch break rather than a couple of hours. If only there was a solution that worked better than manually fast-forwarding through the replay while keeping an eye out for the good bits.
Kayo Sports Live and On Demand
The arrival of Kayo Sports has already been embraced by fans for a huge range of reasons. You get access to a whole planet’s worth of sport – streaming live or on demand – and a bunch of ground-breaking interactive features including seamless split-screen playback and live, interactive statistics as the game takes place.
And especially handy for those sports that take place overseas while you’re sleeping – every tennis fan knows what we’re talking about – is the way Kayo makes it easy to watch your favourite sport on your own schedule. If you can’t be around for the live stream, you can jump in and watch the game later as though it was live. There’s even a “no spoilers” setting so you’re guaranteed to not find out the result before you see the game.
Having access to these high-quality replays on demand is one of the best things about Kayo. But if you’re trying to get caught up with a game while you’re on the way to work on the train in the morning, you probably don’t have the two hours to spare to see out the entire match. That’s where Kayo Minis come in.
Meet the Kayo Mini
The Kayo Mini is such a brilliant idea, we’re surprised nobody’s thought of doing it before. The concept is simple – and if we were going to compare it to anything, it’d be those condensed versions of books that Readers Digest puts out, or a longer form of the “previously” recaps before an episode of Game of Thrones.
As soon as the event has finished, Kayo’s crack team goes to work assembling a custom condensed version of the match, running minutes rather than hours. But it’s different from your usual “highlights reel” – or even going through the Key Moments (another great Kayo interactive feature) in the full game. The Kayo Mini aims to give you a game with a start, middle and end, with all the highlights and all the highs and lows that made the game the journey it was.
Mini Sports
Currently, there are several sporting codes that are being given the Kayo Mini treatment, as Kayo works on expanding and refining the concept. The eventual goal is to have what could be called “dynamic” Kayo Minis, where you could pick the length you want your Mini to be. That way, you could perfectly tailor your game catch-up to the spare time you’ve got.
Cricket
If ever there was a perfect game for Kayo Minis to cover, cricket is it. With even the shorter forms of cricket making for an extended viewing session, the Mini is set to make your cricket catch up viewing nice and easy. Taking one example – a One Day International between Australia and Pakistan ran for a solid 8 and a half hours, all available to stream live on Kayo in its entirety if you want, of course. But if you’d prefer not to lose an entire day to a cricket replay, the Kayo Mini version takes you through all of it in a fast-flowing 22 minutes. Currently, Australian men’s and women’s cricket matches are covered by Minis, with more to come, which should be extremely hand for any late evening cricket matches that will be airing.
Rugby League
Kayo is the best place to watch all things League, whether it’s every game from every round of NRL Live, or selected matches from the Super League. With Kayo you get all the same content as you would with Fox Sports, meaning excellent pre and post-game shows like NRL 360 and The Late Show with Matty Johns.
FeaturedFootball
The best football in the world has an official home in Australia via Kayo. As well as every game from every round of A-League, you can watch some of the best players in the world performing in leagues and competitions like the English FA Cup, La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy as well as English Premier League Replays.
Supercars
Australia’s biggest motorsport competition, the Supercars Championship hosts 15 exciting races around the country – and one in New Zealand – every season, and now you can ensure you don’t miss out on any of it. Every race throughout the 2023 season is available as a Kayo Mini, meaning if you missed out on the Bathurst 1000 or simply want to relive Scott McLaughlin winning yet another race, there is an easy solution.
F1
Every race and round of the 2023 Formula 1 season can be streamed Live and On Demand, direct from the track, with the Kayo streaming service. Kayo Sports offers access to all Fox Sports channels (including Fox Sports 506) as well as ESPN so that you can watch the best of F1 as well as lots of other motorsports under one subscription. F1 is included in the Kayo free trial offer. Check out our Kayo pricing page to learn more about Kayo plans comparison and special features.
MotoGP
Every race weekend of the 2023 MotoGP season can be streamed Live and On Demand, direct from the track, on the Kayo streaming platform. Kayo Sports offers access to all Fox Sports channels as well as ESPN so that you can watch MotoGP racing as well as heaps of other motorsports under one subscription. MotoGP is included in the Kayo 7-day free trial offer.
How Do You Find Kayo Minis?
If you’re searching through Kayo for the section where all the Kayo Minis live, you’re doing it wrong – the idea here is to integrate them into each match’s dedicated page. So when you head to a match in one of the sports above, you’ll see below the main replay window there’s an option to play the Kayo Mini version of the game.
Will There Be More Minis?
Less than a couple of years into its life, Kayo Sports has proved to be massively popular with the sport-loving public – and when it comes to features, the Kayo team is only just warming up. Already the likes of the Key Moments feature – which lets you skip back or forwards to the most important moments in a given match – are contributing massively to Kayo’s rising popularity. And they aren’t finished – there’s a huge range of expanded and new features coming to Kayo over the coming months and further into the future, and expanded Kayo Mini coverage looks certain to be a candidate for expansion.
Imagine being able to catch up with an entire day of a PGA golf tournament in your choice of 10, 20 or 30 minutes. That’s very much on the cards (we believe test Minis have been done for golf events already) and it’d be a phenomenal thing to have around.
And of course, the AFL with its breakneck pace and endless action would be perfect for Kayo Minis. We’d be pretty sure that AFL support is not too far away – it is, after all, one of the biggest sports in the nation in terms of following and viewership!
Getting Started with Kayo
If you haven’t yet given Kayo a try, and the idea of having a world of high definition sports at your command sounds like an awesome concept, then now’s the time to check it out. Kayo offers a full one weeks access free of charge so you can stream anything and everything to your heart’s content – including Kayo Minis – and then it’s only $25 a month for full access and the ability to watch on two screens simultaneously, with no extra costs for anything. To be able to watch on three screens at once that price is bumped up to $35/month, but whichever package you choose you’ll be able to access the Minis. Be sure to check out this hands on review of Kayo Sports for a detailed overview of all the features Kayo’s packed into their apps. If you love your sports, we think you’re gonna want your Kayo around.
What people are asking about Kayo Sports
If you’re having issues with your subscription, or would like to know more about Kayo Sports and its offering, you’ll have to contact Kayo via a digital medium as they do not operate their service model with a phone number or call centre.
Their Kayo Support Crew operate 8:30am – 11pm AET 7 days a week and you’ll be able to contact in the following ways by heading to their website:
– Live chat: There is an option on their site in the bottom right hand corner to chat with their customer service staff.
– Submit a form online: Go to their contact page and fill out a form and someone will be in touch shortly.
– Send them an email: for any enquiries, send Kayo an email on help@kayosports.com.au
A company called Streamotion owns and operates Kayo, which is why you’ll occasionally see references to things like creating and managing your Streamotion account. Streamotion is a part of the Foxtel group of companies, which is how Kayo gets access to all the content from Fox Sports.
The pricing for Kayo Sports is kept very simple and straightforward. There are 2 options: $25/month for Kayo One and $35 for Kayo Basic (which allows streaming on 2 screens at one time).
While the exact amount of data you’ll use while streaming Kayo varies depending on what you’re watching and whether you’re using any of the special features (especially Split View) in general you should expect data usage to average around 3.25GB per hour. If you want to limit your data usage, you can set Kayo to stream in Standard Definition, which takes data usage down to 0.5GB per hour.
Thanks to its access to the full resources of Fox Sports as well as ESPN, Kayo delivers over 30 sporting codes featuring multiple different leagues and competitions from Australia and around the world. If there’s a sport you follow, you’re almost certainly going to find it on Kayo. check out the range of sports and see for yourself!
Because Kayo is the Australian licensee of the various sports that it streams from Australia and around the world, the service can’t be used from outside of Australia, even if you’re an Australian customer who’s travelling. Using a VPN to access Kayo from overseas is also not supported. Remember that as there’s no lock-in contract, you can pause your Kayo subscription if you’re heading overseas and seamlessly resume it when you return.
With a user base of nearly 3 million Australians, PlayStation 4 and its successor the PlayStation 5 are hugely popular devices not just for games, but also for streaming video. Kayo is well aware of that, and that’s why Kayo is now supported on both PS4 and PS5.
The versatile Apple TV is one of Kayo’s best-supported devices, and accessing Kayo on it is as easy as heading to the App Store app on the Apple TV itself. If you then move over to the “Apps” tab, you’ll see a list of the top free apps. Find the green Kayo logo in that list, click on it, and select “INSTALL”. You then just need to run the app from the Apple TV’s main menu and follow the on-screen instructions to get started.
You can have as many compatible devices as you like set up to access your Kayo account, but the amount of them that can access Kayo at the same time depends on which Kayo plan you’re on. For Basic plan users, up to 2 devices can stream at one time.
The Kayo app for Samsung smart TVs works on all smart Samsung models released in 2017 and later. You can find it by pressing the Smart Hub button on your TV remote, then heading to the Samsung Apps tab. Find the green Kayo app icon and select Download Now. The Kayo app will then be added to your Smart Hub menu.
While the Main Event channel doesn’t always appear on Kayo, you can now order and stream events from the channel as they happen and watch them directly on Kayo. You don’t need to have a current Kayo subscription to watch. You can see what’s coming up and buy access to the events you want at Kayo Sports’ website.
No – as a streaming service, Kayo doesn’t offer a recording feature at all. But it doesn’t need to, since all sports streamed by Kayo can be watched live, on delay “as live” or watched any time after the event has finished, complete with extra features for many sporting codes. On-demand replays are generally available for several weeks after the event, though how long depends on the particular sport.
Unfortunately, Xbox One does not support Kayo. But Kayo Sports can be streamed on Xbox One through the Edge browser. For Fetch TV it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a Kayo app.
There’s no Kayo app for LG smart TVs just yet, though it’s possible there will be in the future. In the meantime, the best option for LG owners would be a dedicated streaming device that supports Kayo, the Apple TV 4 or Google’s Chromecast.
Because it’s designed to be used as a service focused on sporting codes and events rather than a TV schedule, Kayo doesn’t have a regular TV guide even though it offers some live channels. Instead, there’s a “Fixtures” menu which lays out what games are on when, code-by-code, making it easy to jump straight to what you want to watch.
If you’re done with Kayo and want to cancel, head onto the Kayo web site and make sure you’re signed in. Click the menu icon at the top right, then click on “My Account”. Scroll to the bottom of that menu and click “Cancel Subscription,” then follow the prompts.
Kayo Sports is the most extensive sports-only streaming service in Australia. However, Foxtel has the same Fox Sports programming available as add-ons to other Foxtel subscriptions, or as part of the Foxtel HD bundle. All the Foxtel options are significantly more expensive than what Kayo has to offer.
Another player in the market is Stan Sport, which offers a more limited selection of sports including rugby union, French Open and Wimbledon tennis, and European championship football. This service is available as a $10 add-on for the Stan streaming app.
Getting a Kayo Sports subscription is super easy. Visit the Kayo Sports website and click the subscription button on the home page. Then select the package you want to try out and follow the steps required to register an account and submit your credit card details.
Kay Sports streams in HD (high definition) video, which requires a connection of at least 7.5 Mbps. At lower bandwidth Kayo will stream at SD (standard definition) video. Currently, Foxtel is the only sports streaming Fox Sports content in 4k resolution video.
Kayo Sports may not be the first sports streaming service to make an appearance in Australia, but it is the first to customise its service around the sports viewing experience. The user interface draws on advances made by Netflix, customising the flow of programming according to your viewing history and preferences. Many of the app’s features are designed specifically with sports viewers in mind, such as the SplitView streaming option, ability to disable spoilers and integrated stats.
To sign up for Kayo Sports you need three things:
1. a valid email address
2. a password
3. a credit card or other valid payment method.
If you have all the above, you can head over to Kayo and sign up.
Once you have signed up, you can load the Kayo app or visit the Kayo website and submit your username and password to access Kayo’s content. If you hit your subscription limit for simultaneous streams you will be blocked from viewing live streams on additional devices and may encounter issues logging in to your account.
If you’re the owner of a Samsung smart TV made in 2017 or later, then Kayo is ready to go – just head for the Samsung app store and download the latest version of the Kayo app and you’ll be up and running in no time. HiSense smart TVs made from 2019 onwards also directly support Kayo – the app should be pre-installed in the app carousel, but if not, head into the TV’s settings and check for a firmware update. Sony Bravia TVs that run the Android TV system – most models released in 2016 and later – are ready for Kayo too; just head to the Google Play app store to download the app and get started. Split View is only available on newer (2019) Bravia models. This Android TV app can also be used on other brands of TV that use Android TV 7.0 or later, including selected models by Panasonic.
