There’s a crackdown on sports piracy – but is it already out of control?
By Theo Leggett, International Business Correspondent
In July 1995 The People ran a headline that read “Football’s Gone Round the Spend!” It boasted that three clubs would together spend more than £20 million on new signings, with Stan Collymore’s move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool setting a British record at £8.5 million. That figure seems modest today when transfers of £100 million are routine, but at the time it marked football’s transformation into a commercial juggernaut.
The shift was driven by the early‑1990s creation of the Premier League and its inaugural television contract with Sky, which paid over £300 million for five years of rights and placed live top‑flight matches behind a paywall for the first time. The model proved lucrative and was later copied by other major sports such as motorsport, rugby, golf and cricket.
Now that model is under strain. According to consultancy Ampere Analysis, about half of British sports fans admit to using “alternative” ways to watch pay‑walled content. The summer has already seen a series of enforcement actions. In August a man from Lancashire received a six‑and‑a‑half‑year prison sentence for operating an illegal streaming service that police say generated almost £1 million in illicit profit. In June a postman from Pembrokeshire was jailed for more than three years for selling illegal subscriptions and providing pirate software to nearly 2,000 customers. A third individual from Merseyside was handed a suspended 32‑month sentence in August for comparable offences, and several pubs have been fined thousands of pounds for showing matches without permission.
Broadcasters that have spent huge sums on exclusive sports rights are now forced to defend their investments more aggressively. In the past, copyright infringement was viewed as an irritating but manageable cost of doing business. Today, with advertising revenues falling and viewers drifting away from long‑term subscriptions such as Sky or TNT Sports, the threat feels more existential.
The stakes are high. The Premier League alone secured a domestic rights deal worth £6.7 billion over four years, with a comparable amount coming from overseas sales. The influx of TV money has allowed clubs to attract world‑class talent and has given the league a global profile. Football has been the biggest beneficiary of pay‑TV in the UK, but other events—Formula One, the Six Nations, Wimbledon—also command steep fees for exclusive coverage. Free‑to‑air live sport is becoming increasingly rare.
Piracy could undermine that wealth. The practice is most common among younger, digitally native fans, a group that is growing each year, but older viewers are also turning to illegal streams. “For 18‑ to 34‑year‑olds, it’s over 70 % who admit to doing this regularly,” says Daniel Monaghan of Ampere Analysis. “Over half of 35‑ to 44‑year‑olds admit to it, and about a third of those aged 45‑to‑64.”
The 2024 Champions League final was the first UK match in more than three decades to be placed behind a paywall, requiring viewers to pay at least £4.99. The move sparked a backlash, including criticism from Prime Minister and Arsenal supporter Sir Keir Starmer, who wrote on X that “hardworking people shouldn’t have to fork out for a subscription to watch this match.” According to Gaming Compliance International, commissioned by the Guardian, 3.7 million IP addresses in the UK accessed illegal streams of the final, compared with roughly seven million who watched it legally.
One frequent pirate user, who goes by the name “Kiran” and works in the tech sector, prefers not to reveal his full identity. A devoted Arsenal fan, he watches Premier League, Champions League and major La Liga games. He holds a TNT Sports subscription but turns to streaming sites for matches not covered there. “What it comes down to is the financial side – that’s the big one – and ease of access as well,” he explains. “Getting every single game will cost you hundreds of pounds a year.” The streams he uses are free, with links easily found on social media.
Kiran also points to the long‑standing Saturday blackout, which prevents live broadcasts of games between 14:45 and 17:15 in the UK to protect attendance at lower‑league matches. Broadcasters abroad can and do show those fixtures, feeding the pirate market. “I pretty much got into streaming stuff due to the blackout,” he says, adding that rising subscription costs have pushed him further toward illegal options.