Experts believe the Premier League and EFL are no closer to curbing the spread of online piracy
Football is back with a bang. Last weekend's Premier League action saw 34 goals scored across the 10 opening games of the season. Only once before has such a barrage of goals been scored in an opening weekend, back in 2003-04 when 36 were scored. The fun wasn't just had in England, major leagues returned across the world and fans seem more than ready to resume their obsessions, whether they be in the stadium or at home. Another thing which returned last weekend was the 3pm "blackout" - a rule which prohibits the broadcast of any match in the UK between 2.45PM and 5.15PM. This is done to encourage supporters to go to stadiums to watch games live and exists to protect all of the clubs in the football pyramid.
While a commendable approach to protecting the gate revenue and soul of football clubs up and down the country, this rule also has a rather unintended consequence - an uptick in illegal live streaming. One interesting thing about the situation is that while no 3pm kick off can be shown in the UK, they are all being watched somewhere in the world due to the magic of international TV rights deals. So if you support Manchester United and they are playing Burnley at 3pm you can't watch that on Sky Sports or BT Sport, but a fan in Kansas or Doha can enjoy that game completely legally on live TV from the comfort of their couch. It's not just the Premier League, the EFL has similar rights deals, as do the leagues north of the border. This of course leads to millions of people desperately searching online for illegal live streaming websites. Andy Chatterley, CEO and co-founder of anti-piracy firm MUSO foresees an increase in such activity: “Will the embargo coming back cause a pirating spike? Yes, massively.”
Overseas fans only. 3pm blackout is back.
— Roker Report (@RokerReport) August 14, 2021
However, it's not to suggest that this phenomenon kicks into gear about 2.45 on a Saturday afternoon and by 5.00 it's over. People illegally live stream matches all day every day for different reasons. The price of watching football these days is a big factor. Sky, BT and Amazon have the rights to broadcast English and Scottish football. Currently, it costs £66.99 a month to subscribe to all three of those providers – that's more than £800 a year. Make no mistake, 3pm kick off or not, there are plenty of people who just will not or cannot pay that. They will instead use dodgy IPTV boxes or apps, and/or frantically hop from one awful, pop-up filled website to another in search of that reliable stream which can guarantee 10 minutes of solid coverage. We've all been there. This is pretty much common practice among university students in particular.
Evidence of this would be the pandemic. When football returned during Project Restart, the authorities and broadcasters decided to ensure that every single Premier League game was available in one way or another live on television. That way every fan could see their team play, because they were barred from entering stadiums. A different approach was taken by the EFL with the iFollow platform but the point was the same - if fans can't go to stadiums, we need to provide them with an alternative. Despite this accessibility, fans still flocked to streaming sites in their droves to watch games. During that time when every game was available to watch on TV legally, there were still 337 million visits to sport piracy websites from the UK alone between July 2020 and June 2021, according to figures from MUSO. While the blackout surely isn't helping the situation, it's difficult to describe it as the root cause or the major contributor.
The quicker the industry wakes up to that fact and starts working towards making football more affordable, the quicker they can solve the issue of lost revenues through piracy. They've been burying their heads in the sand for decades and they need to accept that a large portion of the UK population simply cannot pay this kind of money. Likewise, they won't abandon their clubs. They will find another way, and that other way is live streaming piracy in all shapes and sizes. While the price is a big kicker, the 3pm embargo itself mustn't be underestimated as a factor. With this policy, you're not only pushing those without pay TV subscriptions into illegal live streaming, but alienating those full paying customers who shell out hundreds of pounds and often still don't get to watch their team.
Every year Sky have a smaller and smaller share of the football, but the price stays of Sky Sports stays the same
— Andy Castell (@AJ3) June 13, 2019
Breaking up a monopoly is cool, but now needing BT and Amazon too is just costing regular people more money for the same thing
The conundrum shows no signs of being solved. It's a vicious cycle because fans will always want to watch football and that desire is only growing. Therefore, top divisions like the Premier League will always charge extremely high fees for their TV rights based on that demand. Thus the providers who win those rights will need fairly expensive subscription models to break even on the expenditure they make buying the rights. Sheffield Hallam University senior lecturer Dan Plumley described the situation as one of "supply and demand," and “if you’re a broadcaster paying big money, you have to reclaim that through subscriptions. It ultimately comes down to whatever someone is prepared to pay.”
So with the price of watching football in the stands or at home continuing to rise, very much not in line with inflation, and with the 3pm blackout returning, illegal live streaming will continue to be a popular destination for millions of football fans looking to watch the clubs they love.
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