Can the Premier League Stop Cyber Pirates Scoring

25 May 2005

Can the Premier League Stop Cyber Pirates Scoring

The FA Premier League is preparing to do battle with cyber pirates who are jeopardising its £1
Billion television rights deal by streaming live football matches over the Internet.

Currently the United Kingdom operates a match day ‘blackout’ which is designed to protect and
preserve attendance at matches by prohibiting the broadcast of games on a Saturday afternoon.

However, pirates are circumventing the blackout by broadcasting the matches live over the
Internet. This is done by transmitting a broadcast, which is being shown live in a foreign
country, to a server which is usually located in the USA, users in the United Kingdom can then
link to this server and watch the match live.

The sites which offer these links are usually discovered by users accessing football message
boards and chat forums. 

The Premier League has a £1.024 billion deal with Sky whom are permitted to televise matches later
the same day. They also have a £320 million deal with foreign broadcasters which provides them
with the rights to show matches live in 195 countries. 

The Premier League argues that these actions are a breach of copyright. They have employed a
technology company called NetResult to locate these sites and shut them down. So far they have
closed 50 sites. However, as soon as one site is shut down another is opened with a similar domain
name.

On an average Saturday it is estimated that 50,000 people watch matches on-line. Whilst this
problem is not yet an epidemic, it is clear that with the constant rise in quality of broadband
and the popularity of the Internet, the viewing figures could dramatically rise. This would of
course affect the exclusivity of the current TV deals and perhaps the attendance figures at
matches. The revenue from both of these are crucial to the functioning of a successful football
league and could also have a resounding effect on lower leagues as they too benefit from this
revenue.

Jody Tsigarides