Pirated streaming of sports and premium TV is costing broadcasters and sports bodies billions of dollars a year, constituting “industrial scale theft of video services”, according to media analysts at Enders.
Enders found that pirated feeds account for a “double digit percentage” of all viewing of premium sports and television, based on private data from broadcasters and analysis of internet data, though it was unable to put an exact figure on the scale of the problem.
Sky and DAZN are among the companies that have warned of soaring rates of TV piracy in the UK and Europe, which executives say is undermining their ability to buy expensive rights to show sports such as Premier League football.