November 19, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of StreamTime Sports, Nick Meacham is joined by Adam Leventhal, senior writer and broadcaster at The Athletic, to explore the complex and growing issue of illegal sports streaming. Adam shares insights from his extensive investigation into piracy, discussing its cultural impact, criminal networks, and the potential crisis it poses to sports broadcasting. This in-depth conversation sheds light on how fans, media companies, and leagues are navigating the digital age of streaming piracy.
Key Points:
- What role do fans play in the widespread acceptance of piracy?
- How has illegal streaming evolved from physical distribution to fire sticks, apps, and VPN-powered digital access?
- Why is piracy so difficult for broadcasters and rights holders to combat effectively?
- How does the UK’s 3PM blackout contribute to illegal streaming—and is change on the horizon?
- What global trends and market forces are driving piracy, and what can be done to tackle the issue on an international scale?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Stream Time
Sports. I'm your host, Dick Meacham, CEO
of Sports Pro Media. Now, this week's episode is a
special one for a few reasons. And on today's episode, we're
going to be going deeper than ever into the topic of piracy,
but in a different and quite unique way.
This week we've been joined by Adam Leatherthol, who's the
senior writer and broadcaster atThe Athletic, who's just
(00:27):
produced an incredible report and podcast on this very topic.
It covers all sorts of differentangles, including hearing first
hand from some of the fans and what they view and think about
piracy into details about how toaccess piracy and even to sell
it. But to get a bit of picture of
what I'm talking about, let's formally bring Adam straight
into the conversation. Great to see you, Adam.
Great to be here, Nick. Thank you very much indeed.
(00:49):
Yeah, it's been, it's been a hottopic that I've been
concentrating on for the last six months.
So it's, it's nice for it to be out there and for people to be
able to listen to it. And yeah, just pull at some of
the the threads and there are many.
There are many threads and I love the fact that in this
podcast, in this report you've done, you've really taken a few
different angles into how piracyis worked is working currently
(01:12):
today. We on this podcast have covered
piracy in a few different angles, but I I like the fact
that you've lent into the fan side quite a lot and the actual
practical aspects of people getting access to this stuff
outside of just logging in online.
But let's jump into it. Why did you decide to jump into
this, this podcast and this topic in the first place?
Yeah. I think in terms of why we
(01:35):
looked at it in, in the 1st place, I think, you know, a lot
of people will be aware of illegal streaming and it just
became very, very apparent when you started to look into it, how
prevalent it is. So we already knew that there
was an issue. We already knew because we'd
heard, you know, various stakeholders talking about it as
(01:56):
well. You know, be that the, the
Premier League or broadcasters, there's always been this sort of
creep and worry that what is piracy doing currently and what
does it potentially have the thepower to do in the future.
So that's why we went into it. And then actually the podcast
itself, we wanted to divide it up into three parts and that's
(02:19):
the the culture, the crimes and the crisis.
The culture side of things was really enlightening for me to
just basically go out and speak to people.
And, you know, right at the beginning of the podcast, I went
to Wembley. It was just prior to England
playing against Wales in a recent international.
(02:40):
And I thought, OK, I wonder if people will talk about this and,
you know, want to, you know, be part of it and, and even admit
whether they were going to be, you know, illegally streaming or
how they were doing it and stufflike that.
It didn't take me long to actually engage with people that
were quite willing to talk aboutit.
And, and a lot of them were pretty angry and animated about
(03:01):
the reasons as to why they illegally stream.
But what surprised me was how open people were about it and
clearly how big the market is for illegal streaming.
Because, you know, one guy for example, said, you know, I've
got a fire Stick and I have an IPTV service and I'm not alone.
(03:23):
About 5-10 people in my office have, you know, illegally
streaming in various different forms.
So that was, that was very enlightening for me to, to
actually sort of really engage in, in the public's view of it.
And then obviously, you know, weget into the crimes.
We also then look ahead, which I'm sure we can get stuck into
(03:44):
in terms of that crisis. Because, you know, one of the
things that a lot of people say is that this poses an
existential threat to the game because it is inextricably
linked with the the finances that underpin football.
And that comes from media rights, which you guys know so
much about. I mean, it was very interesting
to hear those initial comments that came through from fans and
(04:04):
how I guess it really does validate that the culture is the
problem here where it basically is now the, the stigma, it feels
like the cultural stigma around it is, is, well, it's no longer
there from a cut from a consumerperspective.
It that from their side, I thinkit's been normalised to the
point where actually it's a bit of a how do I scrub it like a, a
(04:26):
legacy of the political loss against them type mentality that
seems to not just be developing.It's it's completely matured.
And I, I walked away listening to this guy.
I'm not really sure what the future looks like before we
before we get to get to that, just tell some, some of the tell
us a bit more about the, the depths of the podcast and and
what aspects you you covered in there.
(04:46):
Yeah. So, you know, having spoken to
people, I wanted to sort of dig into it a little bit.
And I described the in the podcast, people may well have
already heard it, or if they haven't, though, they will.
But I describe it as being like an onion because there's layer
after layer, and you keep on digging and then you go, oh, OK,
oh, oh, oh. And and then it's all very, very
(05:08):
sort of deep and complicated. And I would have thought for
sort of rights holders and broadcasters, it probably brings
a tear to their eye as well, a bit like an onion.
So, you know, in terms of what we wanted to do is, you know, I
suppose this almost sounds a bitsurface, but just engage, engage
in the market itself. And we obviously did some sort
(05:30):
of undercover reporting and, youknow, going to the point of
engaging with the purchase of illegal streaming services.
And, you know, in, in the past, you know, if you look over the
last sort of 25 years, as it started to develop, people
might, you know, have to go to the pub and, and meet, you know,
dodgy Dave who would have some fire sticks.
(05:51):
And then you could actually haveto go out and have a, you know,
a physical interaction with someone or, or go to a market
and find the, the dodgy electronics stall, for example.
But now it's very much just a case of going online, going to,
you know, very sort of big famous marketplace sites and
searching for fire sticks, you know, finding a WhatsApp number
(06:15):
and engaging with it and gettinga code through.
Then you can basically set yourself up with your own
streaming service which will give you everything that you you
need and for a fraction of the price.
So I was able to find out about that.
I also then, you know, through speaking to sources who work in
anti piracy in particular, they were also basically saying,
(06:36):
look, these platforms are almostset up like proper broadcasters
and they'll even have like affiliate schemes and reseller
programmes and things like that.And you think, well, hang on a
minute, that's that doesn't sound like a sort of an
organised crime side of things. It sounds more like a, you know,
a proper, proper set up. But it is organised crime.
(06:57):
There is no sort of debate aboutthat.
And I was able to sort of dig into that side of things as well
and almost see how easy it is for this industry to to grow and
to almost become a reseller and to find out how much money can
be made and the margins that people are making.
But you know, ultimately when you, when you look at the whole
(07:18):
thing, yes, you know, piracy is growing and people might think,
oh, well, it's, you know, it's a, it's a growing business and
things like that. But they don't have to take on
any of the expenses, you know, and that's where that's why
there is such a huge frustrationof, of, you know, rights
holders, rights owners that they're being, they're having
(07:38):
their content stolen and that's why they're so aggressively
going after it and trying to stop it as best as possible.
But that in itself is a is a whack A mole game.
Absolutely. You spoke to people from Amazon
and Premier League and fans and anti anti piracy expert supplies
a few, a few of them, which I'm,I'm very familiar with it.
(08:02):
I, I sort of you talked a lot about the fire stick aspect of
piracy, which does seem to be the one that's really rampant,
has this whole layer of organised crime around it.
Did you find any other examples of piracy that came up in
conversation or was that really the one that is, let's say, the
bread and butter of piracy? This fire stick type approach?
Because I've heard of there are others that exist that are
(08:24):
purely digital but without the fire stick as aspect of it.
Yeah, I think that, you know, that it's long been a
frustration of, of broadcasters and leagues that the Fire Stick
and, and I must point out because, you know, it's
important to do this, that the Fire Stick has become a sort of
a catch all phrase for any, any device.
(08:45):
So obviously it stems from from Amazon having a Fire TV Stick
initially. And I think, yeah, lots of, lots
of those people who are trying to protect their rights have
been frustrated that people wereable to sideload piracy apps
very easily via the developer mode on these Fire Sticks to
(09:05):
enable piracy and to enable these IPTV services to to sit on
them. And it was interesting with Fire
Sticks. I'll come onto these a couple of
the other sort of main methods that are used in a moment.
But we did go on a bit of a journey with with the Amazon
Fire Stick and, and I engaged with, you know, people at Amazon
(09:26):
because I was, you know, gettinginformation that they were
really now facing a bit of pressure to to really clamp down
on it. Now this is this is quite a long
standing issue, but it just seemed that it had sort of
reached a bit of a head over thesummer and that there were
things that were starting to happen in the background.
(09:47):
And then obviously, and this would be longer in the planning
than just six months, but they obviously launched their new
fire stick 4K select. It's called on a new operating
system. And in amongst that they were
also saying that look, we're going to be blocking the piracy
apps on the new device. It's not as open there is, you
know, the developer mode isn't, isn't there anymore and it will
(10:07):
only be available via the App Store and things like that.
But also that over the summer and from now on, they are going
to be more aggressively blockingthe apps that people attempt to
put on there if they do still have an old version of a of a
fire Stick. And there are millions of those.
So this, this issue isn't just going to stop.
It's not going to be a line in the sand.
(10:29):
But yeah, I mean, one of the other big things which we we
discuss and sort of analyse in the in the documentary, and this
is where it's sort of in a bit of a grey area is, is VPNs.
Because, you know, we've seen brands like Nord VPN who we
engage with as well. And we, we spoke to them, you
know, they're, they're quite aggressively sort of in the
football market sponsors with Leeds and, and Sunderland and a
(10:53):
couple of football podcasts as well.
And you just think, are they sort of plonking themselves into
this environment because they know how prevalent people trying
to circumnavigate the Geo restrictions are.
And I found it interesting to sort of speak to both sides of
the divide in that and learn a bit more about actually using
AVPN. Yes, it's good for your own
(11:15):
online security, but yes, it does also provide, you know,
masking. So you can, you can be somewhere
else where and and that then helps access, you know, a
foreign subscription or, or whatever.
But also then when you are usingAVPN, sometimes in the terms and
conditions, it's what you're actually giving away.
And you know, people actually trying to, or people now able to
(11:38):
access your, obviously your, your IP address, but also your
bandwidth and, and how that can create sort of links with bot,
bot Nets and all this sort of stuff.
It's, it's very complicated, butit's, and that's where it's
another piece of the jigsaw of, of piracy.
And that's that's known as Geo piracy in in the documentary
rather than just sort of your bog standard piracy.
(12:01):
I thought that was interesting both those both those aspects.
I wasn't really familiar with the fact that the pirates were
actually using fans computers tocreate this network of access
across the world with with that and I think the VPN side of it
is a very interesting topic. Your point about how VPNs, I've
seen the marketing and sponsoring a whole host of asset
(12:22):
sport and non sport related and yet when I speak to people about
their use of VPNs, it really comes down to something to do
with the subscription access or accessing content.
They shouldn't be in some way orshape or form.
So it's not that they have a story there, but I feel that it
is a bit difficult to see how it's worth their time marketing
(12:42):
so long sports unless it is linked with something that is is
a needle mover, because it's notnot cheap to to sponsor sports
like they do on one of the things you you did was a fan fan
survey with with you Gov Tell mea bit about some of the findings
that stood out for you in that survey, which I thought was
quite interesting. Yeah, so that and I'll tell you
(13:03):
another, another thing, which isjust, you know, come out on the
on the athletic as a as a followup to the documentary.
So the you Gov data, we commissioned a, a report from
from them and they're UK research group and they found
that 9% of the UK population hadillegally streamed over the last
(13:23):
six months and that equates to 4.7 million people.
And then on top of that, 9% moresaid that they were either
unsure or preferred not to say so.
And that's fair enough. And that, and that does also
reflect that, that there is, youknow, there is amongst some
people, albeit the people I spoke to outside Wembley were
(13:44):
very forthcoming. There will be some people that
go, I'm not quite sure whether Ishould be doing this.
And I'm not comfortable even conceding to someone, even
anonymously, whether I'm doing it or not, which is which is
fair play. But in terms of what they found,
you know, they, they highlightedobviously the main reasons being
cost and, and convenience and, and sometimes a little bit of a,
(14:04):
as, as you mentioned before, youknow, sort of sticking it to the
man and, and not wanting to comply.
I think that that's, that's partof the reasons why not being
able to in particular, because this was AUK survey, not being
able to access 3:00 PM kick offsis a, is a big thing because of
the blackout. And that's another sort of
element that we do analyse. And I think that that's, you
(14:26):
know, that's worth further discussion as well, But it just
showed that there is such a, a huge amount of people doing it
now as a follow up to the, the documentary.
And in some of the articles thatwe ran sort of running alongside
the, the release of the documentary, we, we asked people
if they wanted to take part in asurvey from athletic
(14:49):
subscribers. And despite one of the first
comments on, on one of the articles saying, Oh, we're not
going to fall for that trap. And you know, we don't, we don't
want to take part in any survey.It was completely anonymous.
I just want to point out it, it was completely anonymous.
Over 5000 people took the survey, which is actually a
really, you know, it's a good sample size, strong sample size.
(15:12):
Exactly. And it gives it quite a lot of
heft actually. And the the results are even
more overwhelming than the you Gov poll.
Now look, we did actually feature in the initial
documentary that there was another data set that we used
from a global research firm called Brand Finance.
(15:32):
And they'd highlighted that 44% of users had considered or of
the respondents had considered using illegal streams now.
So we obviously asked the directquestion to our subscribers and
they came back with 47% used illegal streams.
(15:54):
And that's, that's a huge amount.
Now I'll try and be balanced in this, but it was overwhelmingly
towards illegal streaming. The, the main reason why people
didn't was it was a moral position that they had taken.
So I think that's worth considering.
But 57% of respondents, and thisis over 5000 people said that
(16:15):
they had been doing it for five years or more.
So it does show that it's a relatively long standing thing.
The methods, again, the majoritywere using websites, which is
40%, Fire Sticks was 33%. And the main reasons, again,
cost, ability to watch the 3:00 PM kick offs and the
convenience, not having to have multiple subscriptions, just
(16:37):
having one place that they can go.
And you know, it does in the grand scheme of things, it does
make a lot of sense. Let's let's be brutally honest
about this. And one of the things that the
industry obviously do and there is obviously a lot of law
enforcement information and a lot of research done behind this
is what they try and do is just warn people of the dangers and
(17:00):
the potential dangers out there.However, that message from, you
know, what we learnt in the, in the documentary, we, we
highlighted some of the messaging that they have, but we
also highlighted the other side,some of the messaging it doesn't
seem to be landing with, with audiences.
So I mean, we asked, are you concerned about the risks of
cybercrime? No 73%.
(17:23):
Are you worried about links withorganised crime?
No 70%. So it's it, it just shows how
difficult it is for this tanker tanker to turn, you know, and
for anything apart from changingthe price point, making it more
accessible isn't going to changethings.
(17:44):
You know, that's, that's the long and short of it.
And then that leads you into thefuture and the the the coming
crisis, I suppose. Absolutely.
I mean, those those facts, thosethose results are, you know,
fairly damning for the state of this of the situation really.
And you've seen what happened inthe French Football League,
which has got a lot of coverage and a lot of that was linked
(18:04):
with a wider zone had to pull out of that.
That agreement was that the state of piracy was much, much
worse than they expected. And therefore, at that price
point was, well, we're just going to go to find it other in
other ways. And they've now then Lagoon has
launched a direct to consumer product, which is a much lower
price point, which I do think isat a price point that probably
makes people go, you know what, that's probably that's
(18:27):
palatable. I will.
I can probably do that versus taking it and fighting through
other means. Yeah, but on that point.
Just interestingly on that pointand before you go go on, because
I think it's interesting to to sort of analyse all those
different elements of it. But I was out recently at Web
Summit. I was speaking at we did a live
podcast out there and the guy from France responded to that
(18:50):
point about Liga and said, yes, it is an attractive price point.
Yes. However, still within that,
yeah, you get your Liga action, but if you support Paris Saint
Germain, you then have to get another subscription to watch
Champions League, etcetera, etcetera.
So the fragmentation argument isstill there even if you do find
a a solid price point for one ofthe for one of the competitions.
(19:11):
Sorry, I'm sorry to. No, but that's that is a great
point because I hadn't really thought about the Champions
League connection. You know, that's with Amazon
Prime or or a Canal Plus or a like that.
You need to have that, that, that as well.
And I don't think the LFP approach solves everything.
I think it just shows that therecan be an uptake.
But let's also look at the fact that I think the revenue number
that they're expecting this yearin terms of revenue generated
(19:34):
from those media rights might belike 20% of what they were
making a few years ago. And the outlook to get to where
they were from a revenue generation perspective.
See, it's very speculative at best.
So that means that, and that's because of you can look at the,
the pay TV model and what this means in particular in the UK
with, with Sky especially, probably the most impacted by
(19:55):
this, given their, their the dominant force in of owning
those rights in the Premier League.
I does feel like a huge revolution would need to happen
for this to be ultimately resolved.
However, then you look at it at the moment as things stand
today. Sky wouldn't have a lot of
interest in, but they don't necessarily want to have the
(20:16):
more rights made available. So let's go to the 3:00 PM
blackout conversation a little bit.
They don't necessarily want thatremoved because that means it's
going to be more games available.
More games being made available makes the rights that they've
been buying less valuable ultimately because it'd be more
more saturation of games to the market and they dominate the
market that they have a mature subscriber base that they'll get
(20:38):
limited value from having more games as part of their offering.
I would I would theorise. So they probably aren't that
excited about it. And then Premier League, they
know this is happening, but theyalso know the most dominant
investor in a single sports property in the world in Sky,
probably doesn't really want to see much movement happening
(21:00):
there either because of the reasons I just shared.
So I think Premier, Premier League's a bit of a rock and a
hard place. They know this stuff's going on,
but they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.
Yeah, I, I agree. And you know, that it's sort of
a codependent relationship between the, the Premier League
and Sky. And, and you know, I, I was at
Sky for a long time. I worked there for 16 years.
And you know, it, it was very much the case that you would,
(21:24):
you know, be be aware of, right,OK, when's the next right cycle
coming up? What, what's going to happen?
How is it changing? And, and, and it's been very
interesting to see how the dynamic has changed.
Obviously competition came, BT were there, they then got
Champions League and you thought, wow, is this really
going to, really going to change?
There's always been the sort of the looming threat of a big gun
(21:44):
coming in. Obviously Amazon sneaked in,
popped their head in for a bit, popped out again, and now Sky
have got a lot more games and they've been given a lot more
games, you know, so and Richard Masters recently speaking at
leaders were saying, look, thereare no more games that that we
can feasibly put outside of the of the 3:00 PM blackout, 3:00 PM
(22:05):
kick off time. And what interested me is just
to sort of take a moment and go back to not only when the when
the blackout was first brought in, back in the 60s, then
subsequently only really needed in the mid 80s, but when the
Premier League started in 9293, there were 66% of games on
Saturday at 3:00 PM. And then last season that
(22:28):
dropped down to 33%. So it just shows that they've
moved as many of the games outside of that as possible to
make it more commercially viable.
And going back to the point thatyou were saying about France and
the the sort of the financial redesign that has that has
subsequently happened from ultimately a broadcast
partnership crash is, yeah, you see the reality of what life is
(22:50):
like without those huge swathes of money coming in.
Now, look, the the Premier League and both, you know, and
Sky and any other broadcaster will be seeing what's on the
other side. And it almost feels as if it
doesn't have to be like France, because that was almost a Cliff
(23:11):
edge, you know, right, what we're going to do from one month
to the next. They can plan ahead far more
prudently, I think, and just come up with maybe a better sort
of partnership plan potentially.But where, you know, Sky could
work with the Premier League more in AB to B rather than, you
know, Sky being the the B to C arm.
(23:33):
You know, if the Premier League were to be the the the front of
it all and have their own, you know, Prem flicks platform as,
as is often coined, you know, they would have to basically
take on a lot of the additional stuff that people don't see.
You know, all the trucks, the cables, the broadcast side of
(23:53):
things. And, and even which I found
interesting just in discussions that, you know, the Premier
League, they don't have to provide any customer service to
anyone at the moment, you know, and that is all done by the
broadcaster. So that's quite a big
consideration and you know, that's what sky have have done
for years and years and years. You know, they've they've been
the people sending out trucks topeople's houses to put up
(24:15):
satellite dishes. Obviously now that's moved on
to, you know, streaming servicesand and stuff like that.
So I just think there seems to be quite a long runway to the
point that we get to a moment where consumers go, Oh, that's
that's actually a really nice proposition.
But any more delay and if it keep, if it goes beyond 2029 and
if we get another right cycle that takes us into the mid
(24:37):
twenty 30s. You just think, well, hang on a
minute. The the we know that the horse
has bolted already. You need to grab hold of a rein
or his hoof or something to stopit getting even further away.
Otherwise it's going to go and it's going to be a very similar
situation to, you know, the music industry.
But they yes, that was a slow burn initially, but they did act
(24:59):
and they did change the environment and that's what's
that's what has to happen. It has to happen because, you
know, people are getting now viaillegal streams.
What I would have thought if youoffered, you know, a normal
consumer the opportunity to havea, a nice platform where you
could access everything at any time, they would go well, I, I
(25:19):
think that's really cool. And yes, I will pay a, a slight
premium for that. It might be, it might not be as
high as what people are paying per month now, but at the very
least they would go, well, our, our sort of wishes have been
granted. And yeah, I, I will now actually
start to engage in that. And I think that something like
(25:41):
that has to happen because everyone's, so, you know,
consumers are so much more nimble now.
They, they, they want what they want when they want it.
And if you don't get it, then they'll find it.
So, you know, that's why, that'swhy it's grown so much.
Yeah, 100%. And I think one thing for us to
really think about is we've seenfor those following what's
happening across media rights investment across the world,
there's been huge revenue growthin the US.
(26:02):
But one of the main traits of those US rights holders is most
of their content is available through very mature or free to
wear providers, accessible at noextra cost to established
services. And whereas obviously in the UK
and in Europe, there's still a very much a pay TV legacy there
(26:23):
that the economics of that are still still holding, holding it
all together. But it is getting further and
further strained. And you couple that with what's
happened with the Premier Leagueand other football leagues as
well. With all the investment that's
come in financially, there's more pressure than ever on every
every single team to be driving more revenue, more revenue to
buy players, etcetera, etcetera.And that creates even more
(26:46):
difficulties for a sport to change and evolve when there's
so much riding on next year's paycheck and the state of the
league and, and, and French football is in tatters and will
be in tatters for some time for all these investors that have
bought in at the peak of its media rights revenue.
And there's no, there's no law at the end of the tunnel where
that returns ever going to come back to the fore.
(27:08):
So I, I, I don't the only, I don't think there's a real
solution here unless it is a real revolution in the way the
broadcaster's operating. And there's 3:00 PM blackout has
to go in the UK especially. And when I was actually living
in Jamaica for the listeners, the regular, the podcast, I was
there last year for a period andI was asking, how do I get
(27:28):
access to all the games that I want to be watching?
And people like, oh, the only way you can do it is get it off
an illegal stream somewhere. You can't get the bulk of it
because the local broadcaster didn't want to fork out the
rights for all the games and they thought just, no one was
able to watch it. So there's almost with that
happening as well in this sort of legacy of only selling, only
(27:51):
giving access to the rights thatare being bought, which is a,
you know, prudent business approach until now.
And you couple that with the lowcost point to access content
through social and YouTube and everything going on.
I just think it's the only one way.
And that has to be a complete revolution.
And I'm not even sure a Prem flicks model where people can
buy access at a low price point is still going to solve
everything. No, I agree.
(28:11):
I think it's, I think you know, as we were discussing before
with, with Liga offering it, butthen someone will always have a
problem with it because they can't access to something else.
You need to at least have a starting point that starts to
claw back some of those who havegone to illegal streams.
So anyone that is accessing illegal streams because of the
(28:33):
3:00 PM blackout, you offer themthe alternative and you give
them those games. Then you go, well, OK, well,
what more what more do you want?And then yes, OK, then it's
made. How do you actually join the
forces of of different governingbodies to offer one, you know,
United product, for example, like everyone wants to yeah, the
World Cup is is free to air. But if you wanted to watch
(28:54):
Champions League games or EuropaLeague games or, or whatever it
is, that would need adjoining forces between, you know, UEFA
in the Premier League or La Ligaor whoever it whoever it would
be depending on where you lived.But what I think is really
important is that, you know, you've mentioned a couple of
times a revolution is needed. It needs someone in power in
football to to make a bold decision that is going to be for
(29:20):
the benefit of the consumer rather than for the benefit of
the shareholders or the interested parties within that
league. And look, I'm not pointing the
finger directly at, you know, Richard Masters or, you know,
any, you know, Alexander Shefferin, you know, for, for
UEFA or whoever it would be. It's just about having to make
(29:43):
that big call where you can be the guy that delivers something
that you know full well is goingto put smiles on people's faces.
At least you have at least you have made that step forward to
say, you know what, we have to do something now.
And I think until someone actually is proactive in, you
(30:06):
know, picking up the can rather than kicking it down the road,
then it's just going to lead to to more and more drift away and
disconnection and and dissatisfaction at
disenchantment. All the disses they are dissing
the model at the moment. You know, it's so it's, I just
think it's, it needs that it needs that moment.
(30:29):
But the problem is the especially, you know, with the
Premier League in particular, it's different with US, you
know, leagues for, you know, NFL, for example, or even MLS.
When you have a model where teams are fighting for their
lives to stay in the division tosecure the finances that come
from the central central payments.
(30:52):
You know, it's never going to happen that that turkeys are
going to vote for Christmas. You know, it's just it's just
not that it's not going to happen of that analogy.
And yeah, I just think it's, it's just one that it's so
difficult to unpick and there isno, there's no time to stop and
go. You know what, we're just going
to pause for a couple of seasonsand we're going to sort all of
(31:13):
this out. We're going to be able to
recalibrate all our finances. You're going to be able to start
to, you know, work out how much your wages are going to have to
drop and etcetera, etcetera, allthat sort of stuff.
Just it, it's so difficult to dothat.
So I think that that's why the can is kicked down the road
rather than someone picking it up and going, look, come on, we
need to sort this out. I mean, that's also a challenge
(31:33):
with such a global proposition that the Premier League would
not want and it's stakeholders would not want to risk losing a
bit of its dominance in the market, which it clearly has.
And you've seen the result of what's happening in not only in
the French league, but Spanish. The Spanish league's in in a bit
of trouble. The CEO Javier Tabas has talked
about the fact that meteorites are a challenge and talked about
(31:56):
piracy as a as a major issue. And they've they've been
investing a lot of time in left to try and fight some of that as
well. Did you get Adam talking to to
fans and to the survey? Any sense of if there's a
difference between younger or older fan groups in terms of
their adoption of this? Is there, for example, younger
fans being more prevalent because they're more tech savvy?
(32:16):
Or is are younger fans being perhaps driven away from the
football, from football altogether, because basically
they can't access it as easily as they should?
It's interesting, it's, I haven't got the hard data on it
because the, the you Gov poll, for example, was of a
representative sample of UK adults.
So 18 plus the survey that we did from, from the Athletic was
(32:42):
anonymous and we didn't, you know, we didn't sort of dig into
any more of the, of the data on,on our subscribers.
But anecdotally, and this is sort of twofold.
I'll come into my own sort of like personal experiences with
my, my family and things like that.
But from speaking to people who illegally stream, it was very
(33:04):
much the case that, well, a couple of a couple of the guys
said, no one my age will pay, pay for a, a normal monthly
subscription. And I said, well, how old are
you? He was 23.
There was another guy who was 32.
So it's like, I'm 46 now and youknow, so it's like it's the, it
(33:27):
is the younger, younger generation that have disposable
income or, or may not have. And that's the whole point of
this as well, which we haven't really mentioned.
You know, everything's going up in in costs for for everyone,
cost of living crisis for for a lot of people all around the
world. So you do your little audit of
your monthly expenditure and youI can't afford Sky anymore.
(33:49):
I can't afford TNTI, can't afford Netflix, Apple TV.
Are we still paying for that? You know, like all these things
sort of rack up and you do, excuse me, you do your sort of
your audit. So I think it's clearly more
skewed towards a younger age group.
However, one of the first peopleactually that we spoke to
outside Wembley, it was a father, an older father, I think
(34:13):
he was probably in his 50s or so, 50s, maybe 60s and his
younger son who was in his 30s. So yeah, he's probably about 60
ish. He was, he was, you know, part
of the part of the equation as well.
So it's, it's people making decisions that might be LED
with, you know, old dad or mum. I'll find out from their, from
(34:35):
their, you know, from their kids.
Why are you still paying for that dad or mum or whatever, you
know, why don't you just get oneof these?
So I think it's obviously bleeding through from the
younger generation. And then that is obviously
having an influence on on peoplewho are older who are also going
well, I can't afford this, but Istill want to watch my team in,
in terms of, you know, what younger people are doing and
(34:57):
what they want to do. I think that that's also a big
battle, isn't it? It's, you know, if, if people
are growing up now in an on demand world, which has been,
you know, for, for a number of years now, but you know, it's
just that sort of drip, drip of,well, I want to access what I
want. How do I get it?
Well, why can't I get it? Why can't I have that?
(35:20):
So there's, there's almost an entitlement that, yeah, I, I
deserve to see that now. And, you know, things like the
3:00 PM blackout and whether that's going to have an impact
on lower league crowds and, you know, is it going to damage the
the trickle down of money into the football pyramid and stuff
that doesn't come into people's,you know, minds when they're
actually going. No, no, no, I want to watch
(35:40):
Arsenal against Manchester United now, right.
I'm on my laptop. Got it Bang, I don't care.
So I think that that's where, you know, the the game is sort
of sleepwalking a little bit into into the the situation.
And yes, you can have that whackA mole approach where you have
anti piracy measures and you do as much as you can and you you
try and shut them down, but you're you're pushing against
(36:03):
the tide ultimately. And I look at, you know, my son,
for example, but my daughter as well both into football.
But still the attention span is is not necessarily there always
to watch everything that's served up by by sky on or on
TNT. They want to they'll be their
(36:25):
mind and their attention will bepeaked by oh, oh, Real Madrid,
Liverpool. Oh yeah, cool.
That's that's pretty cool. Or, you know, then I mean all
that. I do say that however I do, you
know, I was going to mention someone like Bournemouth and and
Fulham, but I do remember sitting there on a Friday night
very recently watching with my son Bournemouth against Fulham
and it turned out to be a reallyentertaining game.
(36:46):
So it's going to differ for a lot of people, but I think that
ultimately the, the attention span and the attractiveness of
the product as well is a, is a big consideration.
And also, as we've seen and you'll, you'll know, you know
far more than I do about this, that when a, a big tech company,
you know, an Amazon or a Netflixor an Apple or whatever, step
(37:08):
into it, as is mentioned in the documentary, they want that big
interesting stuff that they can hook into other big consumer
moments, be it, you know, Black Friday or Christmas or, or, or
whatever. And that does then have an
impact If they only want to showthat stuff and that is the only
stuff that really has a worth. What does that then due to the
(37:32):
rest of sort of footballing structures and leagues?
And that's where you really needto worry about lower, lower
league football. It's not necessarily the 3:00 PM
blackout, it's the funding that's then going to trickle
down. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, there's a couple of things that jump out to me
before we move. I'll move on to my next
question, which is going to be about a little bit about what
you learn about some of the international destinations.
(37:54):
You saw where some of this piracy was coming from.
But the points I made before about the fact that generally
like for people's entertainment,people that are not paying for
the bulk of that now you know, whether it's an existing legacy
subscription at a £1015.00 a month of Netflix, which is just
kind of part and parcel of theirlives today.
Or YouTube and social media, which in YouTube in many
(38:16):
countries is the number one platform for consumption and
being used as TV this day and age.
And therefore the people that they trust and consume content
from, typically, I'm not asking their audiences to pay them a
surplus and fee because they usedifferent means and scale of
global audiences to drive opportunity to sell other things
(38:38):
to them. If you think about all the big
creators in the world and I think you've got that happening
and people are genuinely entertained advocates of that
content or create, perhaps they're following on these
channels and then they're being asked to pay a massive premium
for something that is a lot of it.
What they're being demanded to pay for in this case is like,
say a Sky who has the whole sports and entertainment
(38:59):
portfolio of content they have access to.
Well, a lot of it actually I don't really care about.
And sometimes I think if you actually throw the kitchen
sinker people that legacy of thebundle, I think for me, it hits
me the wrong almost like has a counterbalance.
So if you tell me, OK, it's going to cost you a lot of
money, but you're going to get non-stop full access to the
Premier League here, I'm I'm allears.
(39:21):
But if you're telling me that I then I'm paying for thousands of
titles of extra content that I'mnot interested in at all.
I think sometimes, not always, but sometimes we might have a
bit of a stigma against that. They're not already actively
interested in that content as well.
So I think there's a real tension about the cost cost
point, but also just the fact that sitting in these sports and
(39:42):
entertainment environments that aren't really fit for purpose
for for the modern, modern consumer.
Yeah, so, but let's, let's move the conversation so we can as
we'll wrap up shortly. But I want to hear a little bit
more about what you learned about more like the
globalisation of where these like hotspots were, I suppose,
or where piracy was being manifested or managed from.
(40:02):
Because obviously there's been different stories that have been
released about piracy rings being founded and and shut down.
But you were talking about SaudiArabia and I think China and
other other countries in there. What did you find about that?
Global cooperation, I suppose. Yeah, I think you know, the the,
the best sort of bellwether for this is the fact that the the
(40:24):
Premier League Singapore office was set up not solely but
predominantly to deal with piracy issues.
And then that obviously then bleeds into the whole Asia
Pacific region. And when we were looking into
Amazon in particular, there was multiple sources that said that
some of the malware that was being loaded onto or or coming
(40:51):
as a package of these pirating apps, which was being loaded
onto to Fire Sticks was due to aa national security risk
emanating from the AIPAC region.Now I have to be clear that
Amazon did push back against that specific accusation, but
they did over the process of theinvestigation also concede that
(41:15):
some of the apps that were beingblocked, there was 4 in
particular, they were blocked because they were exhibiting
malicious behaviour. So that's the sort of that's
coming from intelligence from multiple sources and also
focused on, on the APEC region. Now, what I found interesting
was in the the brand finance information was yes, Saudi
(41:40):
Arabia, for example, was was 1 country that was had a very,
very high prevalence of of illegal streaming.
And obviously that's you know, they have their own historic
links with with piracy and they sure do.
You know, they were involved with the whole B out QB in
sports losing a billion dollars and a billion pounds or probably
(42:03):
even more. And you can almost feel that and
it was something that I'd sort of wondered about maybe even
advance in advance of doing this, this documentary that you
know how how much of AA key lever piracy can be if you do
(42:23):
want to change the landscape. And I think that, you know, the,
the exact purpose across the board of, of piracy, yes, it's
it, it benefits the consumer, but but who is running some of
these bigger operations, I find really, really interesting.
And, and one that we dug into, which you know, is not a million
(42:46):
miles away from from Saudi Arabia was was run out of Egypt.
And it just showed the sort of broad nature of, of operations.
And that was hinged into stream E, which was which is a very
sort of infamous popular piracy brand as a, as a sort of alluded
(43:06):
to in the OR mentioned as in thein the documentary in the
States. And you know, this operation was
run by the Alliance of Creativity and entertainment,
which is basically an arm of theMotion Picture Association.
And they're, you know, they've waged A decades long war on
piracy and you know, they've almost at times in the olden
days around piracy Bay and stufflike that.
(43:29):
Pirate Bay, sorry, I should say from Sweden, you know, they were
almost being bullied by the pirates and sort of, you know,
it was like a Tom and Jerry sortof thing.
And which I found sort of, I found a bit of sympathy for the
Motion Picture Association. But back in the day when it was
sort of freedom of expression and, you know, freedom of
movement, decentralised Internetand all that sort of stuff, you
did sort of see, I, I understoodthe Robin Hood side of things.
(43:52):
But but now it's sort of, it haschanged a bit now in terms of
that Egyptian operation. You know, it showed how
diversified the, the revenue streams are for these
operations. And then it starts to bleed
into, you know, real estate and shell companies and, you know,
(44:14):
large sums of advertising revenue.
And I think that, you know, obviously the aim of the anti
piracy organisations is to discover right where where are
all these threads going? And I don't necessarily know
that they they do get to some ofthe big stuff, but I'm not sure
whether they get to the really, really big stuff enough to
(44:34):
really change things. And obviously the Saudi Arabian
B out Q situation was almost piracy being used as a, as a
sort of a, a weapon against a a fellow nation.
And that was that. It just showed how how strategic
piracy can be as well. Now, I mean, I've gone round the
houses in in all sorts of different places there, but I
(44:56):
just it, it just does highlight the fact that it is a, a global
issue. And what I did also find
interesting is that when you highlight, you know, something
like a stream E brand being run out of Egypt, there will also,
there will almost be a dismissiveness to it from a
loyal audience in, you know, in the UK or the US and basically
(45:17):
saying, Oh, no, no, no, that's not the real 1.
You know, we, we're watching thereal 1 and you can't shut that
down. So there's a sort of a defiance
to the, to the consumer base as well that they don't want this
to, to ever end. And the longer it come, the the
longer the gap goes between a a proper and you're right in what
(45:37):
you said before about it's so difficult to manage globally
because there are so many different rights agreements
between different countries. Until one of the big nations
does something that really, really changes the environment
where, you know, Auki say big nation, we're a small nation,
(45:58):
but in terms of having the Premier League, the most
lucrative Football League, etcetera, unless someone does
it, that can actually really lead to a systematic change.
It's it they're never going to really grasp it properly because
also consumer habits and and cultural differences around the
world as well. You know, it's, you know, people
(46:19):
just think it's normal now it's and people forget that they're
actually, you know, contributingto a sort of a criminal
operation or they're actually committing a crime themselves.
Because it's very, it's very rare that an individual consumer
would would be punished. And that's why the anti piracy
groups, they always try and target the higher the higher
ups, so they can at least have alittle bit of an impact on a on
(46:43):
a market below those individual hubs basically.
Yeah, I mean, I've seen some presentations over the years
where they talk about the fact that basically a teenager can
also set up a pirate, a pirated,pirated service through to you
have these huge organised organisations, organised crime
organisations running these things from right across the
(47:03):
world. So it's like, where do you,
where do you, where do you startand how do you get there?
And obviously the big fish is where you can have major impact.
But at the same time, you turn the lights off on one thing,
they'll just turn them on in another room, which is I think
one of the similar line that wasraised in the podcast.
So look, given everything you'vecovered and the documentary item
(47:24):
that you've produced and all theconversations you've had, is
there any light at the at the end of the tunnel here?
I mean, we've sort of alluded torevolution being needed and so
forth. But do you have any or do you
have any predictions perhaps of where the future will take us in
the in the near future anyway? Yeah, I, I think and we sort of
discussed this at the end of thepodcast as we were sort of doing
(47:45):
the same, you know, considering what could happen in the future
and and a bit of a sort of a positive element I suppose for
for all concerned, the broadcasters, the consumers, the
the, the rights holders, etcetera.
I think it's clear, as we've mentioned, something big needs
to happen and although there arecomplications with it and you
(48:08):
know, I've, we've done a, a separate documentary about Saudi
Arabia and soccer and at what cost it was called and, and
things like that. I did find it interesting when,
and there are complications to, to to Saudi Arabia's
relationship with FIFA and Dazone and and things like that
which people will know about. But the fact that they were able
(48:29):
to, although it was a new competition, there are lots of
caveats in this. Although it's a new competition,
being able to offer something like the Club World Cup for free
around the world. Although the Super League never
got off the ground and was widely criticised, it does show
(48:55):
that globally football, footballteams, football organisations,
broadcasters, heads of governingbodies and things like that
separate all the criticism, the ethical stuff.
Put that to side, It does show big things and big changes can
happen. Whether the motivations are
(49:19):
purely focused on the consumer, that's another, that's another
thing. But all these organisations that
that will say, Oh no, it's too complex or there's too much risk
or there's too much this or too much that things can happen and
they need to happen. So these things, although they,
you know, the Super leagues, forexample, is seen as like, you
(49:39):
know, a pariah sort of proposition.
It does show that that all theseclubs can actually come to A to
some sort of agreement to move in a different direction.
And that's the sort of massive shift that's needed to try and
(50:00):
sort of quell piracy. And I would be the last person
to stand up and advocate for Jenny Infantino.
We've done our our own documentary about him.
And there are, you know, there are lots of different views on,
on, on Jenny Infantino and how he runs FIFA.
(50:20):
But he does sort of bulldoze hisway into situations, quite
literally bulldoze his way into different nations who
completely, you know, transformed themselves from, you
know, Qatar to Saudi Arabia and,and giving opportunity to new
places and things like that. I wouldn't say we need to be
(50:40):
like Jenny Infantino, but someone or a, a team of people
or a team of leaders need to make bold decisions and need to
realise if they keep on professing that this, you know,
democratisation of football and making it available to the world
and making it all for the, the, the fans.
And that's what it's all about. And that's what makes the the
(51:02):
game go round and the ball roll and blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, will do something big and do it for the fans.
And yes, if that means that a football player earns 100 grand
or 50 grand rather than 250 or 500 grand, fine, fine.
The redesign needs to happen. Otherwise, those financial
(51:25):
guarantees that everyone loves and is sort of thriving off and
building, you know, their life'swealth at the top of the game,
people might just fall out of love with it.
And that disconnect may well just have a a bleed through into
other areas. You know, we might see even more
of a exponential growth in esports where people can
(51:47):
actually go, you know what, thatdoesn't cost me anything.
I'm going to, I'm going to go and enjoy that.
People have got a lot more choice nowadays and football
can't just rest on its laurels and think we'll be here forever
and we'll always be the biggest show in town.
If that is not the case. And, you know, the movement
towards piracy is a sign that people do move away from the way
things have been done. And they can always move away
(52:10):
from football and they can always, you know, things things
can maybe go back to how they used to be, which I don't
necessarily know if if people would, that would stop people
engaging in the game. I'm not sure because people do
love football, but maybe the fans would swallow a little bit
less razzmatazz if it was a little bit more affordable for
people to to watch around the world, I guess.
(52:32):
Absolutely. Well, I mean the you couple all
of that and what you articulate there and then this growth of
highlight, the value of highlights and non live content
to grow audiences to keep peopleclose to the game.
I think there's even more question marks about the whole
economic model that is underpinning it, not least what
we just talked about today around piracies impact directly.
(52:53):
But look, that is all we've got time for today.
The podcast is the Athletic FC Podcast and podcast title is the
Underground world of illegal streaming.
Go check it out if you haven't already.
Adam, thank you so much for joining us.
It's been a great conversation. Yeah, no worries.
I really appreciate you coming on and it's good to sort of,
yeah, pull on those threads. I think we did that enough,
didn't we? Well done.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Stream Time
Sports. I'm your host, Dick Meacham, CEO
of Sports Pro Media. Now, this week's episode is a
special one for a few reasons. And on today's episode, we're
going to be going deeper than ever into the topic of piracy,
but in a different and quite unique way.
This week we've been joined by Adam Leatherthol, who's the
senior writer and broadcaster atThe Athletic, who's just
(00:27):
produced an incredible report and podcast on this very topic.
It covers all sorts of differentangles, including hearing first
hand from some of the fans and what they view and think about
piracy into details about how toaccess piracy and even to sell
it. But to get a bit of picture of
what I'm talking about, let's formally bring Adam straight
into the conversation. Great to see you, Adam.
Great to be here, Nick. Thank you very much indeed.
(00:49):
Yeah, it's been, it's been a hottopic that I've been
concentrating on for the last six months.
So it's, it's nice for it to be out there and for people to be
able to listen to it. And yeah, just pull at some of
the the threads and there are many.
There are many threads and I love the fact that in this
podcast, in this report you've done, you've really taken a few
different angles into how piracyis worked is working currently
(01:12):
today. We on this podcast have covered
piracy in a few different angles, but I I like the fact
that you've lent into the fan side quite a lot and the actual
practical aspects of people getting access to this stuff
outside of just logging in online.
But let's jump into it. Why did you decide to jump into
this, this podcast and this topic in the first place?
Yeah. I think in terms of why we
(01:35):
looked at it in, in the 1st place, I think, you know, a lot
of people will be aware of illegal streaming and it just
became very, very apparent when you started to look into it, how
prevalent it is. So we already knew that there
was an issue. We already knew because we'd
heard, you know, various stakeholders talking about it as
(01:56):
well. You know, be that the, the
Premier League or broadcasters, there's always been this sort of
creep and worry that what is piracy doing currently and what
does it potentially have the thepower to do in the future.
So that's why we went into it. And then actually the podcast
itself, we wanted to divide it up into three parts and that's
(02:19):
the the culture, the crimes and the crisis.
The culture side of things was really enlightening for me to
just basically go out and speak to people.
And, you know, right at the beginning of the podcast, I went
to Wembley. It was just prior to England
playing against Wales in a recent international.
(02:40):
And I thought, OK, I wonder if people will talk about this and,
you know, want to, you know, be part of it and, and even admit
whether they were going to be, you know, illegally streaming or
how they were doing it and stufflike that.
It didn't take me long to actually engage with people that
were quite willing to talk aboutit.
And, and a lot of them were pretty angry and animated about
(03:01):
the reasons as to why they illegally stream.
But what surprised me was how open people were about it and
clearly how big the market is for illegal streaming.
Because, you know, one guy for example, said, you know, I've
got a fire Stick and I have an IPTV service and I'm not alone.
(03:23):
About 5-10 people in my office have, you know, illegally
streaming in various different forms.
So that was, that was very enlightening for me to, to
actually sort of really engage in, in the public's view of it.
And then obviously, you know, weget into the crimes.
We also then look ahead, which I'm sure we can get stuck into
(03:44):
in terms of that crisis. Because, you know, one of the
things that a lot of people say is that this poses an
existential threat to the game because it is inextricably
linked with the the finances that underpin football.
And that comes from media rights, which you guys know so
much about. I mean, it was very interesting
to hear those initial comments that came through from fans and
(04:04):
how I guess it really does validate that the culture is the
problem here where it basically is now the, the stigma, it feels
like the cultural stigma around it is, is, well, it's no longer
there from a cut from a consumerperspective.
It that from their side, I thinkit's been normalised to the
point where actually it's a bit of a how do I scrub it like a, a
(04:26):
legacy of the political loss against them type mentality that
seems to not just be developing.It's it's completely matured.
And I, I walked away listening to this guy.
I'm not really sure what the future looks like before we
before we get to get to that, just tell some, some of the tell
us a bit more about the, the depths of the podcast and and
what aspects you you covered in there.
(04:46):
Yeah. So, you know, having spoken to
people, I wanted to sort of dig into it a little bit.
And I described the in the podcast, people may well have
already heard it, or if they haven't, though, they will.
But I describe it as being like an onion because there's layer
after layer, and you keep on digging and then you go, oh, OK,
oh, oh, oh. And and then it's all very, very
(05:08):
sort of deep and complicated. And I would have thought for
sort of rights holders and broadcasters, it probably brings
a tear to their eye as well, a bit like an onion.
So, you know, in terms of what we wanted to do is, you know, I
suppose this almost sounds a bitsurface, but just engage, engage
in the market itself. And we obviously did some sort
(05:30):
of undercover reporting and, youknow, going to the point of
engaging with the purchase of illegal streaming services.
And, you know, in, in the past, you know, if you look over the
last sort of 25 years, as it started to develop, people
might, you know, have to go to the pub and, and meet, you know,
dodgy Dave who would have some fire sticks.
(05:51):
And then you could actually haveto go out and have a, you know,
a physical interaction with someone or, or go to a market
and find the, the dodgy electronics stall, for example.
But now it's very much just a case of going online, going to,
you know, very sort of big famous marketplace sites and
searching for fire sticks, you know, finding a WhatsApp number
(06:15):
and engaging with it and gettinga code through.
Then you can basically set yourself up with your own
streaming service which will give you everything that you you
need and for a fraction of the price.
So I was able to find out about that.
I also then, you know, through speaking to sources who work in
anti piracy in particular, they were also basically saying,
(06:36):
look, these platforms are almostset up like proper broadcasters
and they'll even have like affiliate schemes and reseller
programmes and things like that.And you think, well, hang on a
minute, that's that doesn't sound like a sort of an
organised crime side of things. It sounds more like a, you know,
a proper, proper set up. But it is organised crime.
(06:57):
There is no sort of debate aboutthat.
And I was able to sort of dig into that side of things as well
and almost see how easy it is for this industry to to grow and
to almost become a reseller and to find out how much money can
be made and the margins that people are making.
But you know, ultimately when you, when you look at the whole
(07:18):
thing, yes, you know, piracy is growing and people might think,
oh, well, it's, you know, it's a, it's a growing business and
things like that. But they don't have to take on
any of the expenses, you know, and that's where that's why
there is such a huge frustrationof, of, you know, rights
holders, rights owners that they're being, they're having
(07:38):
their content stolen and that's why they're so aggressively
going after it and trying to stop it as best as possible.
But that in itself is a is a whack A mole game.
Absolutely. You spoke to people from Amazon
and Premier League and fans and anti anti piracy expert supplies
a few, a few of them, which I'm,I'm very familiar with it.
(08:02):
I, I sort of you talked a lot about the fire stick aspect of
piracy, which does seem to be the one that's really rampant,
has this whole layer of organised crime around it.
Did you find any other examples of piracy that came up in
conversation or was that really the one that is, let's say, the
bread and butter of piracy? This fire stick type approach?
Because I've heard of there are others that exist that are
(08:24):
purely digital but without the fire stick as aspect of it.
Yeah, I think that, you know, that it's long been a
frustration of, of broadcasters and leagues that the Fire Stick
and, and I must point out because, you know, it's
important to do this, that the Fire Stick has become a sort of
a catch all phrase for any, any device.
(08:45):
So obviously it stems from from Amazon having a Fire TV Stick
initially. And I think, yeah, lots of, lots
of those people who are trying to protect their rights have
been frustrated that people wereable to sideload piracy apps
very easily via the developer mode on these Fire Sticks to
(09:05):
enable piracy and to enable these IPTV services to to sit on
them. And it was interesting with Fire
Sticks. I'll come onto these a couple of
the other sort of main methods that are used in a moment.
But we did go on a bit of a journey with with the Amazon
Fire Stick and, and I engaged with, you know, people at Amazon
(09:26):
because I was, you know, gettinginformation that they were
really now facing a bit of pressure to to really clamp down
on it. Now this is this is quite a long
standing issue, but it just seemed that it had sort of
reached a bit of a head over thesummer and that there were
things that were starting to happen in the background.
(09:47):
And then obviously, and this would be longer in the planning
than just six months, but they obviously launched their new
fire stick 4K select. It's called on a new operating
system. And in amongst that they were
also saying that look, we're going to be blocking the piracy
apps on the new device. It's not as open there is, you
know, the developer mode isn't, isn't there anymore and it will
(10:07):
only be available via the App Store and things like that.
But also that over the summer and from now on, they are going
to be more aggressively blockingthe apps that people attempt to
put on there if they do still have an old version of a of a
fire Stick. And there are millions of those.
So this, this issue isn't just going to stop.
It's not going to be a line in the sand.
(10:29):
But yeah, I mean, one of the other big things which we we
discuss and sort of analyse in the in the documentary, and this
is where it's sort of in a bit of a grey area is, is VPNs.
Because, you know, we've seen brands like Nord VPN who we
engage with as well. And we, we spoke to them, you
know, they're, they're quite aggressively sort of in the
football market sponsors with Leeds and, and Sunderland and a
(10:53):
couple of football podcasts as well.
And you just think, are they sort of plonking themselves into
this environment because they know how prevalent people trying
to circumnavigate the Geo restrictions are.
And I found it interesting to sort of speak to both sides of
the divide in that and learn a bit more about actually using
AVPN. Yes, it's good for your own
(11:15):
online security, but yes, it does also provide, you know,
masking. So you can, you can be somewhere
else where and and that then helps access, you know, a
foreign subscription or, or whatever.
But also then when you are usingAVPN, sometimes in the terms and
conditions, it's what you're actually giving away.
And you know, people actually trying to, or people now able to
(11:38):
access your, obviously your, your IP address, but also your
bandwidth and, and how that can create sort of links with bot,
bot Nets and all this sort of stuff.
It's, it's very complicated, butit's, and that's where it's
another piece of the jigsaw of, of piracy.
And that's that's known as Geo piracy in in the documentary
rather than just sort of your bog standard piracy.
(12:01):
I thought that was interesting both those both those aspects.
I wasn't really familiar with the fact that the pirates were
actually using fans computers tocreate this network of access
across the world with with that and I think the VPN side of it
is a very interesting topic. Your point about how VPNs, I've
seen the marketing and sponsoring a whole host of asset
(12:22):
sport and non sport related and yet when I speak to people about
their use of VPNs, it really comes down to something to do
with the subscription access or accessing content.
They shouldn't be in some way orshape or form.
So it's not that they have a story there, but I feel that it
is a bit difficult to see how it's worth their time marketing
(12:42):
so long sports unless it is linked with something that is is
a needle mover, because it's notnot cheap to to sponsor sports
like they do on one of the things you you did was a fan fan
survey with with you Gov Tell mea bit about some of the findings
that stood out for you in that survey, which I thought was
quite interesting. Yeah, so that and I'll tell you
(13:03):
another, another thing, which isjust, you know, come out on the
on the athletic as a as a followup to the documentary.
So the you Gov data, we commissioned a, a report from
from them and they're UK research group and they found
that 9% of the UK population hadillegally streamed over the last
(13:23):
six months and that equates to 4.7 million people.
And then on top of that, 9% moresaid that they were either
unsure or preferred not to say so.
And that's fair enough. And that, and that does also
reflect that, that there is, youknow, there is amongst some
people, albeit the people I spoke to outside Wembley were
(13:44):
very forthcoming. There will be some people that
go, I'm not quite sure whether Ishould be doing this.
And I'm not comfortable even conceding to someone, even
anonymously, whether I'm doing it or not, which is which is
fair play. But in terms of what they found,
you know, they, they highlightedobviously the main reasons being
cost and, and convenience and, and sometimes a little bit of a,
(14:04):
as, as you mentioned before, youknow, sort of sticking it to the
man and, and not wanting to comply.
I think that that's, that's partof the reasons why not being
able to in particular, because this was AUK survey, not being
able to access 3:00 PM kick offsis a, is a big thing because of
the blackout. And that's another sort of
element that we do analyse. And I think that that's, you
(14:26):
know, that's worth further discussion as well, But it just
showed that there is such a, a huge amount of people doing it
now as a follow up to the, the documentary.
And in some of the articles thatwe ran sort of running alongside
the, the release of the documentary, we, we asked people
if they wanted to take part in asurvey from athletic
(14:49):
subscribers. And despite one of the first
comments on, on one of the articles saying, Oh, we're not
going to fall for that trap. And you know, we don't, we don't
want to take part in any survey.It was completely anonymous.
I just want to point out it, it was completely anonymous.
Over 5000 people took the survey, which is actually a
really, you know, it's a good sample size, strong sample size.
(15:12):
Exactly. And it gives it quite a lot of
heft actually. And the the results are even
more overwhelming than the you Gov poll.
Now look, we did actually feature in the initial
documentary that there was another data set that we used
from a global research firm called Brand Finance.
(15:32):
And they'd highlighted that 44% of users had considered or of
the respondents had considered using illegal streams now.
So we obviously asked the directquestion to our subscribers and
they came back with 47% used illegal streams.
(15:54):
And that's, that's a huge amount.
Now I'll try and be balanced in this, but it was overwhelmingly
towards illegal streaming. The, the main reason why people
didn't was it was a moral position that they had taken.
So I think that's worth considering.
But 57% of respondents, and thisis over 5000 people said that
(16:15):
they had been doing it for five years or more.
So it does show that it's a relatively long standing thing.
The methods, again, the majoritywere using websites, which is
40%, Fire Sticks was 33%. And the main reasons, again,
cost, ability to watch the 3:00 PM kick offs and the
convenience, not having to have multiple subscriptions, just
(16:37):
having one place that they can go.
And you know, it does in the grand scheme of things, it does
make a lot of sense. Let's let's be brutally honest
about this. And one of the things that the
industry obviously do and there is obviously a lot of law
enforcement information and a lot of research done behind this
is what they try and do is just warn people of the dangers and
(17:00):
the potential dangers out there.However, that message from, you
know, what we learnt in the, in the documentary, we, we
highlighted some of the messaging that they have, but we
also highlighted the other side,some of the messaging it doesn't
seem to be landing with, with audiences.
So I mean, we asked, are you concerned about the risks of
cybercrime? No 73%.
(17:23):
Are you worried about links withorganised crime?
No 70%. So it's it, it just shows how
difficult it is for this tanker tanker to turn, you know, and
for anything apart from changingthe price point, making it more
accessible isn't going to changethings.
(17:44):
You know, that's, that's the long and short of it.
And then that leads you into thefuture and the the the coming
crisis, I suppose. Absolutely.
I mean, those those facts, thosethose results are, you know,
fairly damning for the state of this of the situation really.
And you've seen what happened inthe French Football League,
which has got a lot of coverage and a lot of that was linked
(18:04):
with a wider zone had to pull out of that.
That agreement was that the state of piracy was much, much
worse than they expected. And therefore, at that price
point was, well, we're just going to go to find it other in
other ways. And they've now then Lagoon has
launched a direct to consumer product, which is a much lower
price point, which I do think isat a price point that probably
makes people go, you know what, that's probably that's
(18:27):
palatable. I will.
I can probably do that versus taking it and fighting through
other means. Yeah, but on that point.
Just interestingly on that pointand before you go go on, because
I think it's interesting to to sort of analyse all those
different elements of it. But I was out recently at Web
Summit. I was speaking at we did a live
podcast out there and the guy from France responded to that
(18:50):
point about Liga and said, yes, it is an attractive price point.
Yes. However, still within that,
yeah, you get your Liga action, but if you support Paris Saint
Germain, you then have to get another subscription to watch
Champions League, etcetera, etcetera.
So the fragmentation argument isstill there even if you do find
a a solid price point for one ofthe for one of the competitions.
(19:11):
Sorry, I'm sorry to. No, but that's that is a great
point because I hadn't really thought about the Champions
League connection. You know, that's with Amazon
Prime or or a Canal Plus or a like that.
You need to have that, that, that as well.
And I don't think the LFP approach solves everything.
I think it just shows that therecan be an uptake.
But let's also look at the fact that I think the revenue number
that they're expecting this yearin terms of revenue generated
(19:34):
from those media rights might belike 20% of what they were
making a few years ago. And the outlook to get to where
they were from a revenue generation perspective.
See, it's very speculative at best.
So that means that, and that's because of you can look at the,
the pay TV model and what this means in particular in the UK
with, with Sky especially, probably the most impacted by
(19:55):
this, given their, their the dominant force in of owning
those rights in the Premier League.
I does feel like a huge revolution would need to happen
for this to be ultimately resolved.
However, then you look at it at the moment as things stand
today. Sky wouldn't have a lot of
interest in, but they don't necessarily want to have the
(20:16):
more rights made available. So let's go to the 3:00 PM
blackout conversation a little bit.
They don't necessarily want thatremoved because that means it's
going to be more games available.
More games being made available makes the rights that they've
been buying less valuable ultimately because it'd be more
more saturation of games to the market and they dominate the
market that they have a mature subscriber base that they'll get
(20:38):
limited value from having more games as part of their offering.
I would I would theorise. So they probably aren't that
excited about it. And then Premier League, they
know this is happening, but theyalso know the most dominant
investor in a single sports property in the world in Sky,
probably doesn't really want to see much movement happening
(21:00):
there either because of the reasons I just shared.
So I think Premier, Premier League's a bit of a rock and a
hard place. They know this stuff's going on,
but they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.
Yeah, I, I agree. And you know, that it's sort of
a codependent relationship between the, the Premier League
and Sky. And, and you know, I, I was at
Sky for a long time. I worked there for 16 years.
And you know, it, it was very much the case that you would,
(21:24):
you know, be be aware of, right,OK, when's the next right cycle
coming up? What, what's going to happen?
How is it changing? And, and, and it's been very
interesting to see how the dynamic has changed.
Obviously competition came, BT were there, they then got
Champions League and you thought, wow, is this really
going to, really going to change?
There's always been the sort of the looming threat of a big gun
(21:44):
coming in. Obviously Amazon sneaked in,
popped their head in for a bit, popped out again, and now Sky
have got a lot more games and they've been given a lot more
games, you know, so and Richard Masters recently speaking at
leaders were saying, look, thereare no more games that that we
can feasibly put outside of the of the 3:00 PM blackout, 3:00 PM
(22:05):
kick off time. And what interested me is just
to sort of take a moment and go back to not only when the when
the blackout was first brought in, back in the 60s, then
subsequently only really needed in the mid 80s, but when the
Premier League started in 9293, there were 66% of games on
Saturday at 3:00 PM. And then last season that
(22:28):
dropped down to 33%. So it just shows that they've
moved as many of the games outside of that as possible to
make it more commercially viable.
And going back to the point thatyou were saying about France and
the the sort of the financial redesign that has that has
subsequently happened from ultimately a broadcast
partnership crash is, yeah, you see the reality of what life is
(22:50):
like without those huge swathes of money coming in.
Now, look, the the Premier League and both, you know, and
Sky and any other broadcaster will be seeing what's on the
other side. And it almost feels as if it
doesn't have to be like France, because that was almost a Cliff
(23:11):
edge, you know, right, what we're going to do from one month
to the next. They can plan ahead far more
prudently, I think, and just come up with maybe a better sort
of partnership plan potentially.But where, you know, Sky could
work with the Premier League more in AB to B rather than, you
know, Sky being the the B to C arm.
(23:33):
You know, if the Premier League were to be the the the front of
it all and have their own, you know, Prem flicks platform as,
as is often coined, you know, they would have to basically
take on a lot of the additional stuff that people don't see.
You know, all the trucks, the cables, the broadcast side of
(23:53):
things. And, and even which I found
interesting just in discussions that, you know, the Premier
League, they don't have to provide any customer service to
anyone at the moment, you know, and that is all done by the
broadcaster. So that's quite a big
consideration and you know, that's what sky have have done
for years and years and years. You know, they've they've been
the people sending out trucks topeople's houses to put up
(24:15):
satellite dishes. Obviously now that's moved on
to, you know, streaming servicesand and stuff like that.
So I just think there seems to be quite a long runway to the
point that we get to a moment where consumers go, Oh, that's
that's actually a really nice proposition.
But any more delay and if it keep, if it goes beyond 2029 and
if we get another right cycle that takes us into the mid
(24:37):
twenty 30s. You just think, well, hang on a
minute. The the we know that the horse
has bolted already. You need to grab hold of a rein
or his hoof or something to stopit getting even further away.
Otherwise it's going to go and it's going to be a very similar
situation to, you know, the music industry.
But they yes, that was a slow burn initially, but they did act
(24:59):
and they did change the environment and that's what's
that's what has to happen. It has to happen because, you
know, people are getting now viaillegal streams.
What I would have thought if youoffered, you know, a normal
consumer the opportunity to havea, a nice platform where you
could access everything at any time, they would go well, I, I
(25:19):
think that's really cool. And yes, I will pay a, a slight
premium for that. It might be, it might not be as
high as what people are paying per month now, but at the very
least they would go, well, our, our sort of wishes have been
granted. And yeah, I, I will now actually
start to engage in that. And I think that something like
(25:41):
that has to happen because everyone's, so, you know,
consumers are so much more nimble now.
They, they, they want what they want when they want it.
And if you don't get it, then they'll find it.
So, you know, that's why, that'swhy it's grown so much.
Yeah, 100%. And I think one thing for us to
really think about is we've seenfor those following what's
happening across media rights investment across the world,
there's been huge revenue growthin the US.
(26:02):
But one of the main traits of those US rights holders is most
of their content is available through very mature or free to
wear providers, accessible at noextra cost to established
services. And whereas obviously in the UK
and in Europe, there's still a very much a pay TV legacy there
(26:23):
that the economics of that are still still holding, holding it
all together. But it is getting further and
further strained. And you couple that with what's
happened with the Premier Leagueand other football leagues as
well. With all the investment that's
come in financially, there's more pressure than ever on every
every single team to be driving more revenue, more revenue to
buy players, etcetera, etcetera.And that creates even more
(26:46):
difficulties for a sport to change and evolve when there's
so much riding on next year's paycheck and the state of the
league and, and, and French football is in tatters and will
be in tatters for some time for all these investors that have
bought in at the peak of its media rights revenue.
And there's no, there's no law at the end of the tunnel where
that returns ever going to come back to the fore.
(27:08):
So I, I, I don't the only, I don't think there's a real
solution here unless it is a real revolution in the way the
broadcaster's operating. And there's 3:00 PM blackout has
to go in the UK especially. And when I was actually living
in Jamaica for the listeners, the regular, the podcast, I was
there last year for a period andI was asking, how do I get
(27:28):
access to all the games that I want to be watching?
And people like, oh, the only way you can do it is get it off
an illegal stream somewhere. You can't get the bulk of it
because the local broadcaster didn't want to fork out the
rights for all the games and they thought just, no one was
able to watch it. So there's almost with that
happening as well in this sort of legacy of only selling, only
(27:51):
giving access to the rights thatare being bought, which is a,
you know, prudent business approach until now.
And you couple that with the lowcost point to access content
through social and YouTube and everything going on.
I just think it's the only one way.
And that has to be a complete revolution.
And I'm not even sure a Prem flicks model where people can
buy access at a low price point is still going to solve
everything. No, I agree.
(28:11):
I think it's, I think you know, as we were discussing before
with, with Liga offering it, butthen someone will always have a
problem with it because they can't access to something else.
You need to at least have a starting point that starts to
claw back some of those who havegone to illegal streams.
So anyone that is accessing illegal streams because of the
(28:33):
3:00 PM blackout, you offer themthe alternative and you give
them those games. Then you go, well, OK, well,
what more what more do you want?And then yes, OK, then it's
made. How do you actually join the
forces of of different governingbodies to offer one, you know,
United product, for example, like everyone wants to yeah, the
World Cup is is free to air. But if you wanted to watch
(28:54):
Champions League games or EuropaLeague games or, or whatever it
is, that would need adjoining forces between, you know, UEFA
in the Premier League or La Ligaor whoever it whoever it would
be depending on where you lived.But what I think is really
important is that, you know, you've mentioned a couple of
times a revolution is needed. It needs someone in power in
football to to make a bold decision that is going to be for
(29:20):
the benefit of the consumer rather than for the benefit of
the shareholders or the interested parties within that
league. And look, I'm not pointing the
finger directly at, you know, Richard Masters or, you know,
any, you know, Alexander Shefferin, you know, for, for
UEFA or whoever it would be. It's just about having to make
(29:43):
that big call where you can be the guy that delivers something
that you know full well is goingto put smiles on people's faces.
At least you have at least you have made that step forward to
say, you know what, we have to do something now.
And I think until someone actually is proactive in, you
(30:06):
know, picking up the can rather than kicking it down the road,
then it's just going to lead to to more and more drift away and
disconnection and and dissatisfaction at
disenchantment. All the disses they are dissing
the model at the moment. You know, it's so it's, I just
think it's, it needs that it needs that moment.
(30:29):
But the problem is the especially, you know, with the
Premier League in particular, it's different with US, you
know, leagues for, you know, NFL, for example, or even MLS.
When you have a model where teams are fighting for their
lives to stay in the division tosecure the finances that come
from the central central payments.
(30:52):
You know, it's never going to happen that that turkeys are
going to vote for Christmas. You know, it's just it's just
not that it's not going to happen of that analogy.
And yeah, I just think it's, it's just one that it's so
difficult to unpick and there isno, there's no time to stop and
go. You know what, we're just going
to pause for a couple of seasonsand we're going to sort all of
(31:13):
this out. We're going to be able to
recalibrate all our finances. You're going to be able to start
to, you know, work out how much your wages are going to have to
drop and etcetera, etcetera, allthat sort of stuff.
Just it, it's so difficult to dothat.
So I think that that's why the can is kicked down the road
rather than someone picking it up and going, look, come on, we
need to sort this out. I mean, that's also a challenge
(31:33):
with such a global proposition that the Premier League would
not want and it's stakeholders would not want to risk losing a
bit of its dominance in the market, which it clearly has.
And you've seen the result of what's happening in not only in
the French league, but Spanish. The Spanish league's in in a bit
of trouble. The CEO Javier Tabas has talked
about the fact that meteorites are a challenge and talked about
(31:56):
piracy as a as a major issue. And they've they've been
investing a lot of time in left to try and fight some of that as
well. Did you get Adam talking to to
fans and to the survey? Any sense of if there's a
difference between younger or older fan groups in terms of
their adoption of this? Is there, for example, younger
fans being more prevalent because they're more tech savvy?
(32:16):
Or is are younger fans being perhaps driven away from the
football, from football altogether, because basically
they can't access it as easily as they should?
It's interesting, it's, I haven't got the hard data on it
because the, the you Gov poll, for example, was of a
representative sample of UK adults.
So 18 plus the survey that we did from, from the Athletic was
(32:42):
anonymous and we didn't, you know, we didn't sort of dig into
any more of the, of the data on,on our subscribers.
But anecdotally, and this is sort of twofold.
I'll come into my own sort of like personal experiences with
my, my family and things like that.
But from speaking to people who illegally stream, it was very
(33:04):
much the case that, well, a couple of a couple of the guys
said, no one my age will pay, pay for a, a normal monthly
subscription. And I said, well, how old are
you? He was 23.
There was another guy who was 32.
So it's like, I'm 46 now and youknow, so it's like it's the, it
(33:27):
is the younger, younger generation that have disposable
income or, or may not have. And that's the whole point of
this as well, which we haven't really mentioned.
You know, everything's going up in in costs for for everyone,
cost of living crisis for for a lot of people all around the
world. So you do your little audit of
your monthly expenditure and youI can't afford Sky anymore.
(33:49):
I can't afford TNTI, can't afford Netflix, Apple TV.
Are we still paying for that? You know, like all these things
sort of rack up and you do, excuse me, you do your sort of
your audit. So I think it's clearly more
skewed towards a younger age group.
However, one of the first peopleactually that we spoke to
outside Wembley, it was a father, an older father, I think
(34:13):
he was probably in his 50s or so, 50s, maybe 60s and his
younger son who was in his 30s. So yeah, he's probably about 60
ish. He was, he was, you know, part
of the part of the equation as well.
So it's, it's people making decisions that might be LED
with, you know, old dad or mum. I'll find out from their, from
(34:35):
their, you know, from their kids.
Why are you still paying for that dad or mum or whatever, you
know, why don't you just get oneof these?
So I think it's obviously bleeding through from the
younger generation. And then that is obviously
having an influence on on peoplewho are older who are also going
well, I can't afford this, but Istill want to watch my team in,
in terms of, you know, what younger people are doing and
(34:57):
what they want to do. I think that that's also a big
battle, isn't it? It's, you know, if, if people
are growing up now in an on demand world, which has been,
you know, for, for a number of years now, but you know, it's
just that sort of drip, drip of,well, I want to access what I
want. How do I get it?
Well, why can't I get it? Why can't I have that?
(35:20):
So there's, there's almost an entitlement that, yeah, I, I
deserve to see that now. And, you know, things like the
3:00 PM blackout and whether that's going to have an impact
on lower league crowds and, you know, is it going to damage the
the trickle down of money into the football pyramid and stuff
that doesn't come into people's,you know, minds when they're
actually going. No, no, no, I want to watch
(35:40):
Arsenal against Manchester United now, right.
I'm on my laptop. Got it Bang, I don't care.
So I think that that's where, you know, the the game is sort
of sleepwalking a little bit into into the the situation.
And yes, you can have that whackA mole approach where you have
anti piracy measures and you do as much as you can and you you
try and shut them down, but you're you're pushing against
(36:03):
the tide ultimately. And I look at, you know, my son,
for example, but my daughter as well both into football.
But still the attention span is is not necessarily there always
to watch everything that's served up by by sky on or on
TNT. They want to they'll be their
(36:25):
mind and their attention will bepeaked by oh, oh, Real Madrid,
Liverpool. Oh yeah, cool.
That's that's pretty cool. Or, you know, then I mean all
that. I do say that however I do, you
know, I was going to mention someone like Bournemouth and and
Fulham, but I do remember sitting there on a Friday night
very recently watching with my son Bournemouth against Fulham
and it turned out to be a reallyentertaining game.
(36:46):
So it's going to differ for a lot of people, but I think that
ultimately the, the attention span and the attractiveness of
the product as well is a, is a big consideration.
And also, as we've seen and you'll, you'll know, you know
far more than I do about this, that when a, a big tech company,
you know, an Amazon or a Netflixor an Apple or whatever, step
(37:08):
into it, as is mentioned in the documentary, they want that big
interesting stuff that they can hook into other big consumer
moments, be it, you know, Black Friday or Christmas or, or, or
whatever. And that does then have an
impact If they only want to showthat stuff and that is the only
stuff that really has a worth. What does that then due to the
(37:32):
rest of sort of footballing structures and leagues?
And that's where you really needto worry about lower, lower
league football. It's not necessarily the 3:00 PM
blackout, it's the funding that's then going to trickle
down. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, there's a couple of things that jump out to me
before we move. I'll move on to my next
question, which is going to be about a little bit about what
you learn about some of the international destinations.
(37:54):
You saw where some of this piracy was coming from.
But the points I made before about the fact that generally
like for people's entertainment,people that are not paying for
the bulk of that now you know, whether it's an existing legacy
subscription at a £1015.00 a month of Netflix, which is just
kind of part and parcel of theirlives today.
Or YouTube and social media, which in YouTube in many
(38:16):
countries is the number one platform for consumption and
being used as TV this day and age.
And therefore the people that they trust and consume content
from, typically, I'm not asking their audiences to pay them a
surplus and fee because they usedifferent means and scale of
global audiences to drive opportunity to sell other things
(38:38):
to them. If you think about all the big
creators in the world and I think you've got that happening
and people are genuinely entertained advocates of that
content or create, perhaps they're following on these
channels and then they're being asked to pay a massive premium
for something that is a lot of it.
What they're being demanded to pay for in this case is like,
say a Sky who has the whole sports and entertainment
(38:59):
portfolio of content they have access to.
Well, a lot of it actually I don't really care about.
And sometimes I think if you actually throw the kitchen
sinker people that legacy of thebundle, I think for me, it hits
me the wrong almost like has a counterbalance.
So if you tell me, OK, it's going to cost you a lot of
money, but you're going to get non-stop full access to the
Premier League here, I'm I'm allears.
(39:21):
But if you're telling me that I then I'm paying for thousands of
titles of extra content that I'mnot interested in at all.
I think sometimes, not always, but sometimes we might have a
bit of a stigma against that. They're not already actively
interested in that content as well.
So I think there's a real tension about the cost cost
point, but also just the fact that sitting in these sports and
(39:42):
entertainment environments that aren't really fit for purpose
for for the modern, modern consumer.
Yeah, so, but let's, let's move the conversation so we can as
we'll wrap up shortly. But I want to hear a little bit
more about what you learned about more like the
globalisation of where these like hotspots were, I suppose,
or where piracy was being manifested or managed from.
(40:02):
Because obviously there's been different stories that have been
released about piracy rings being founded and and shut down.
But you were talking about SaudiArabia and I think China and
other other countries in there. What did you find about that?
Global cooperation, I suppose. Yeah, I think you know, the the,
the best sort of bellwether for this is the fact that the the
(40:24):
Premier League Singapore office was set up not solely but
predominantly to deal with piracy issues.
And then that obviously then bleeds into the whole Asia
Pacific region. And when we were looking into
Amazon in particular, there was multiple sources that said that
some of the malware that was being loaded onto or or coming
(40:51):
as a package of these pirating apps, which was being loaded
onto to Fire Sticks was due to aa national security risk
emanating from the AIPAC region.Now I have to be clear that
Amazon did push back against that specific accusation, but
they did over the process of theinvestigation also concede that
(41:15):
some of the apps that were beingblocked, there was 4 in
particular, they were blocked because they were exhibiting
malicious behaviour. So that's the sort of that's
coming from intelligence from multiple sources and also
focused on, on the APEC region. Now, what I found interesting
was in the the brand finance information was yes, Saudi
(41:40):
Arabia, for example, was was 1 country that was had a very,
very high prevalence of of illegal streaming.
And obviously that's you know, they have their own historic
links with with piracy and they sure do.
You know, they were involved with the whole B out QB in
sports losing a billion dollars and a billion pounds or probably
(42:03):
even more. And you can almost feel that and
it was something that I'd sort of wondered about maybe even
advance in advance of doing this, this documentary that you
know how how much of AA key lever piracy can be if you do
(42:23):
want to change the landscape. And I think that, you know, the,
the exact purpose across the board of, of piracy, yes, it's
it, it benefits the consumer, but but who is running some of
these bigger operations, I find really, really interesting.
And, and one that we dug into, which you know, is not a million
(42:46):
miles away from from Saudi Arabia was was run out of Egypt.
And it just showed the sort of broad nature of, of operations.
And that was hinged into stream E, which was which is a very
sort of infamous popular piracy brand as a, as a sort of alluded
(43:06):
to in the OR mentioned as in thein the documentary in the
States. And you know, this operation was
run by the Alliance of Creativity and entertainment,
which is basically an arm of theMotion Picture Association.
And they're, you know, they've waged A decades long war on
piracy and you know, they've almost at times in the olden
days around piracy Bay and stufflike that.
(43:29):
Pirate Bay, sorry, I should say from Sweden, you know, they were
almost being bullied by the pirates and sort of, you know,
it was like a Tom and Jerry sortof thing.
And which I found sort of, I found a bit of sympathy for the
Motion Picture Association. But back in the day when it was
sort of freedom of expression and, you know, freedom of
movement, decentralised Internetand all that sort of stuff, you
did sort of see, I, I understoodthe Robin Hood side of things.
(43:52):
But but now it's sort of, it haschanged a bit now in terms of
that Egyptian operation. You know, it showed how
diversified the, the revenue streams are for these
operations. And then it starts to bleed
into, you know, real estate and shell companies and, you know,
(44:14):
large sums of advertising revenue.
And I think that, you know, obviously the aim of the anti
piracy organisations is to discover right where where are
all these threads going? And I don't necessarily know
that they they do get to some ofthe big stuff, but I'm not sure
whether they get to the really, really big stuff enough to
(44:34):
really change things. And obviously the Saudi Arabian
B out Q situation was almost piracy being used as a, as a
sort of a, a weapon against a a fellow nation.
And that was that. It just showed how how strategic
piracy can be as well. Now, I mean, I've gone round the
houses in in all sorts of different places there, but I
(44:56):
just it, it just does highlight the fact that it is a, a global
issue. And what I did also find
interesting is that when you highlight, you know, something
like a stream E brand being run out of Egypt, there will also,
there will almost be a dismissiveness to it from a
loyal audience in, you know, in the UK or the US and basically
(45:17):
saying, Oh, no, no, no, that's not the real 1.
You know, we, we're watching thereal 1 and you can't shut that
down. So there's a sort of a defiance
to the, to the consumer base as well that they don't want this
to, to ever end. And the longer it come, the the
longer the gap goes between a a proper and you're right in what
(45:37):
you said before about it's so difficult to manage globally
because there are so many different rights agreements
between different countries. Until one of the big nations
does something that really, really changes the environment
where, you know, Auki say big nation, we're a small nation,
(45:58):
but in terms of having the Premier League, the most
lucrative Football League, etcetera, unless someone does
it, that can actually really lead to a systematic change.
It's it they're never going to really grasp it properly because
also consumer habits and and cultural differences around the
world as well. You know, it's, you know, people
(46:19):
just think it's normal now it's and people forget that they're
actually, you know, contributingto a sort of a criminal
operation or they're actually committing a crime themselves.
Because it's very, it's very rare that an individual consumer
would would be punished. And that's why the anti piracy
groups, they always try and target the higher the higher
ups, so they can at least have alittle bit of an impact on a on
(46:43):
a market below those individual hubs basically.
Yeah, I mean, I've seen some presentations over the years
where they talk about the fact that basically a teenager can
also set up a pirate, a pirated,pirated service through to you
have these huge organised organisations, organised crime
organisations running these things from right across the
(47:03):
world. So it's like, where do you,
where do you, where do you startand how do you get there?
And obviously the big fish is where you can have major impact.
But at the same time, you turn the lights off on one thing,
they'll just turn them on in another room, which is I think
one of the similar line that wasraised in the podcast.
So look, given everything you'vecovered and the documentary item
(47:24):
that you've produced and all theconversations you've had, is
there any light at the at the end of the tunnel here?
I mean, we've sort of alluded torevolution being needed and so
forth. But do you have any or do you
have any predictions perhaps of where the future will take us in
the in the near future anyway? Yeah, I, I think and we sort of
discussed this at the end of thepodcast as we were sort of doing
(47:45):
the same, you know, considering what could happen in the future
and and a bit of a sort of a positive element I suppose for
for all concerned, the broadcasters, the consumers, the
the, the rights holders, etcetera.
I think it's clear, as we've mentioned, something big needs
to happen and although there arecomplications with it and you
(48:08):
know, I've, we've done a, a separate documentary about Saudi
Arabia and soccer and at what cost it was called and, and
things like that. I did find it interesting when,
and there are complications to, to to Saudi Arabia's
relationship with FIFA and Dazone and and things like that
which people will know about. But the fact that they were able
(48:29):
to, although it was a new competition, there are lots of
caveats in this. Although it's a new competition,
being able to offer something like the Club World Cup for free
around the world. Although the Super League never
got off the ground and was widely criticised, it does show
(48:55):
that globally football, footballteams, football organisations,
broadcasters, heads of governingbodies and things like that
separate all the criticism, the ethical stuff.
Put that to side, It does show big things and big changes can
happen. Whether the motivations are
(49:19):
purely focused on the consumer, that's another, that's another
thing. But all these organisations that
that will say, Oh no, it's too complex or there's too much risk
or there's too much this or too much that things can happen and
they need to happen. So these things, although they,
you know, the Super leagues, forexample, is seen as like, you
(49:39):
know, a pariah sort of proposition.
It does show that that all theseclubs can actually come to A to
some sort of agreement to move in a different direction.
And that's the sort of massive shift that's needed to try and
(50:00):
sort of quell piracy. And I would be the last person
to stand up and advocate for Jenny Infantino.
We've done our our own documentary about him.
And there are, you know, there are lots of different views on,
on, on Jenny Infantino and how he runs FIFA.
(50:20):
But he does sort of bulldoze hisway into situations, quite
literally bulldoze his way into different nations who
completely, you know, transformed themselves from, you
know, Qatar to Saudi Arabia and,and giving opportunity to new
places and things like that. I wouldn't say we need to be
(50:40):
like Jenny Infantino, but someone or a, a team of people
or a team of leaders need to make bold decisions and need to
realise if they keep on professing that this, you know,
democratisation of football and making it available to the world
and making it all for the, the, the fans.
And that's what it's all about. And that's what makes the the
(51:02):
game go round and the ball roll and blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, will do something big and do it for the fans.
And yes, if that means that a football player earns 100 grand
or 50 grand rather than 250 or 500 grand, fine, fine.
The redesign needs to happen. Otherwise, those financial
(51:25):
guarantees that everyone loves and is sort of thriving off and
building, you know, their life'swealth at the top of the game,
people might just fall out of love with it.
And that disconnect may well just have a a bleed through into
other areas. You know, we might see even more
of a exponential growth in esports where people can
(51:47):
actually go, you know what, thatdoesn't cost me anything.
I'm going to, I'm going to go and enjoy that.
People have got a lot more choice nowadays and football
can't just rest on its laurels and think we'll be here forever
and we'll always be the biggest show in town.
If that is not the case. And, you know, the movement
towards piracy is a sign that people do move away from the way
things have been done. And they can always move away
(52:10):
from football and they can always, you know, things things
can maybe go back to how they used to be, which I don't
necessarily know if if people would, that would stop people
engaging in the game. I'm not sure because people do
love football, but maybe the fans would swallow a little bit
less razzmatazz if it was a little bit more affordable for
people to to watch around the world, I guess.
(52:32):
Absolutely. Well, I mean the you couple all
of that and what you articulate there and then this growth of
highlight, the value of highlights and non live content
to grow audiences to keep peopleclose to the game.
I think there's even more question marks about the whole
economic model that is underpinning it, not least what
we just talked about today around piracies impact directly.
(52:53):
But look, that is all we've got time for today.
The podcast is the Athletic FC Podcast and podcast title is the
Underground world of illegal streaming.
Go check it out if you haven't already.
Adam, thank you so much for joining us.
It's been a great conversation. Yeah, no worries.
I really appreciate you coming on and it's good to sort of,
yeah, pull on those threads. I think we did that enough,
didn't we? Well done.
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