Illegal sports streaming – accessing the inaccessible

They have priced people out of watching sports and created a huge market for illegal streaming services.

To keep up with Rangers you need Sky Sports, BT Sports, Premier Sports, then multiple games have been PPV only on RTV.

ISPs like Sky do traffic analysis. They look at where traffic spikes are at 15:00 and 17:30 on a Saturday for example to identify servers hosting illegal streams.
 
Music on CD wasn’t easily accessible and usually had to buy an expensive album instead of just the songs you wanted. Outcome: Napster/Limewire pirating.

Along came Spotify/Apple music which made it easier to listen to what you want, and cheaper, and pirating of music has nearly died out.

Movies were so expensive to rent or go to the cinema. Outcome: The Pirate Bay and torrent pirating.

Along came Netflix which made it cheaper and more accessible. Movie pirating was less common. Now though there are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+… and more. So it’s becoming more expensive and less accessible. No wonder pirating is coming back.

Sports used to be on Sky. Now it’s on Sky, BT, Amazon, Premier Sports and god knows what else. Outcome; pirating.

The trend is obvious and has been happening for decades; make it affordable and accessible and folk will pay. Take the piss and folk will pirate.
Music on CD wasn’t inaccessible or particularly expensive.

The reason for Napster and Limewire being popular was because you get music for free.
 
Likewise. I pay £70 to Virgin for their Oomph package and get Sky Sports and BT included. Considering how much sport i watch i reckon it's a good deal
Is that a "new customer" type deal that expires after a set amount of time? They should bring in regulations like we will see with car insurance that existing customers have to get the same deals as new customers.
 
Is that a "new customer" type deal that expires after a set amount of time? They should bring in regulations like we will see with car insurance that existing customers have to get the same deals as new customers.

Yeah poster on here got me it. It's up in November so i'll be shopping around then but would still hope to keep watching through genuine means, unless it got too expensive.
 
The answer is some sort of Sport Hub where fans can pick say:

3 options for £10 - SPL, Serie A and NFL
5 options for £13 - add Formula 1 and La Liga

etc....the providers get a share and the consumer gets a one stop shop.

Or price by market price....i.e. if I don't choose EPL or Formula 1 then I get it for less?
 
Music on CD wasn’t easily accessible and usually had to buy an expensive album instead of just the songs you wanted. Outcome: Napster/Limewire pirating.

Along came Spotify/Apple music which made it easier to listen to what you want, and cheaper, and pirating of music has nearly died out.

Movies were so expensive to rent or go to the cinema. Outcome: The Pirate Bay and torrent pirating.

Along came Netflix which made it cheaper and more accessible. Movie pirating was less common. Now though there are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+… and more. So it’s becoming more expensive and less accessible. No wonder pirating is coming back.

Sports used to be on Sky. Now it’s on Sky, BT, Amazon, Premier Sports and god knows what else. Outcome; pirating.

The trend is obvious and has been happening for decades; make it affordable and accessible and folk will pay. Take the piss and folk will pirate.
Sums it up well
 
Music on CD wasn’t inaccessible or particularly expensive.

The reason for Napster and Limewire being popular was because you get music for free.
Say you want to listen to a song. Options are:

Go down to the local shop (pay petrol, bus fare whatever) buy a physical CD. Maybe £8 for the album. Can only listen to the song on the CD - you’re not allowed to rip it from the CD.

Or

Download it from Napster. Free. Have the mp3 file you can put into a playlist.

Now, especially if you are only interested in one song from the album, how is buying a CD accessible?

Napster being free was one of the biggest reasons for its success but it’s not the only reason. If it was then Spotify and Apple Music wouldn’t be anywhere as big as they are now.
 
I can see why people would use alternative viewing sources.

Online broadcasting has changed the landscape so drastically that now TV companies in your home country cannot get rights to any of the games, and they are instead sold to piggy back sources that are broadcasting the game from China or Qatar and the likes.

Mind you used to get cup games on "cooncil telly", Italian football on Channel 4, English games on ITV and you'd get fixtures from the league sold to someone like sky or Setanta, and they'd be easily accessible platforms.

The way it has all changed these days, taking away those options for more cash from other countries instead, has created this whole mess.

To stop illegal streaming, they need to bring local broadcasting back, which probably isn't going to happen.

Whatever your reasons, please don't steal from Rangers FC. It's not the clubs fault this mess has been created, subscribe to RangersTV, Rangers even promote something you can use to watch our games in the UK! NordVPN.
 
More & more people will turn to "illegal" means of watching sport over the next few years - with fuel, energy bills, broadband, council tax, etc all due to increase at roughly the same time. You can only push people so far before they start looking for shortcuts - it's ridiculous that we need to subscribe to three different services to watch (some) of our teams games.

We've been getting fleeced in this country for years. It's our sport, yet Johnny Redneck in Alabama can watch out 3pm kick offs live on TV but we can't.
 
I pay for bt for the European games and sky for the league. I can’t afford premier sports for the cups.
I sure with the money sky have they could outbid premier sports.
And the should for the subscription they charge.
 
If you went to Sky the day this is the prices currently -

SkySports & BT Sports - £65
Premier Sports & Box nation - £12.99
Netflix £9.99
Amazon Prime £7.99
DAZN Sports £7.99

£104 odd a month for the above which doesn't include any PPV Boxing or UFC or even Broadband.

Anybody that pays these prices are off their head.
 
Music on CD wasn’t easily accessible and usually had to buy an expensive album instead of just the songs you wanted. Outcome: Napster/Limewire pirating.

Along came Spotify/Apple music which made it easier to listen to what you want, and cheaper, and pirating of music has nearly died out.

Movies were so expensive to rent or go to the cinema. Outcome: The Pirate Bay and torrent pirating.

Along came Netflix which made it cheaper and more accessible. Movie pirating was less common. Now though there are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+… and more. So it’s becoming more expensive and less accessible. No wonder pirating is coming back.

Sports used to be on Sky. Now it’s on Sky, BT, Amazon, Premier Sports and god knows what else. Outcome; pirating.

The trend is obvious and has been happening for decades; make it affordable and accessible and folk will pay. Take the piss and folk will pirate.

Could not agree more.
 
I suspect the figures are a bit imaginary, I just can’t see 2 million people taking part in a survey about tv and then admitted that they broke the law.

“According to a survey from Finder, at least 5.8 million Brits watched content illegally in 2020, of which almost 2 million people admitted to using an illegal stream to watch a Premier League match.”
 
If you want to watch Scottish football you have to subscribe to Sky, BT, and Premier. It’s ridiculous.

A monopoly would be a good thing for once.
This was the biggest issue for me. No way could I afford all those & nor would I be ok with it when I barely watch TV otherwise. I tried to get BT just via the internet but they said I needed to sign up with the likes of Sky first. Bollox to that. Now I live abroad & things are much easier. B-D
 
I pay for Sky, BT mobile, Rangers TV and one other. I have stopped Premier as they catch you at the start for a friendly and then nearly once a month for a cup game.

By the time you throw on Netflix, Music and Amazon I am at £200 a month. TV / broadband is my biggest bill.
 
I suspect the figures are a bit imaginary, I just can’t see 2 million people taking part in a survey about tv and then admitted that they broke the law.

“According to a survey from Finder, at least 5.8 million Brits watched content illegally in 2020, of which almost 2 million people admitted to using an illegal stream to watch a Premier League match.”
Most people who do the surveys will just go through ticking what applies without thinking about it. The back door won’t be smashed in because you ticked a box in an anonymous survey.
 
Music on CD wasn’t easily accessible and usually had to buy an expensive album instead of just the songs you wanted. Outcome: Napster/Limewire pirating.

Along came Spotify/Apple music which made it easier to listen to what you want, and cheaper, and pirating of music has nearly died out.

Movies were so expensive to rent or go to the cinema. Outcome: The Pirate Bay and torrent pirating.

Along came Netflix which made it cheaper and more accessible. Movie pirating was less common. Now though there are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+… and more. So it’s becoming more expensive and less accessible. No wonder pirating is coming back.

Sports used to be on Sky. Now it’s on Sky, BT, Amazon, Premier Sports and god knows what else. Outcome; pirating.

The trend is obvious and has been happening for decades; make it affordable and accessible and folk will pay. Take the piss and folk will pirate.
Can I like twice
 
Ouch!

According to Crimestoppers data, approximately 3.4 million illegal streamers across all markets are infected with computer viruses per year, while 1.5 million had personal details harvested, 1.3 million were hacked and 0.9 million had money stolen online. According to research commissioned by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), nearly half of all respondents said they would be willing to share their personal email address in order to gain access to an illicit stream.

Cybersecurity firm Webroot recently found that 92% of illegal streaming sites over a single weekend were promoting a range of Bitcoin and mobile app scams, as well as containing malware threats. Some recorded examples crimes carried out by hosts of illicit streams include using a viewer’s device to mine cryptocurrency, stealing personal information leading to fraud and hijacking webcams by tricking users into downloading fake video players.
Paid for illegal streams contain none of that, and for what it would cost for a month of Sky and BT sports, amounting to about half of Rangers games. I can have 2 annual subscriptions that fail once a year between them, covering all Rangers games in HD and all the TV I could care to watch worldwide.

I'd happily pay double what I do, if a one stop shop existed to watch Rangers legally and the darts.
But at the moment it would cost me about 20 times as much.

Or I'd need to pay 5 or 6 times as much plus aditional costs to watch RTV as an illegal stream.
It's funny I can't promote the stream I use for the football on here, yet somehow illegal use of RTV seems to be fair play. (*It's counted in the illegal figures, watching content illegally in the UK is an illegal stream)
 
The SPFL bringing their own streaming website / app for all games is surely missing a beat at some £ per month?

If you take the average attendance of all Scottish grounds and maybe half that and round it down slightly x £10 or £15 a month for home / away and cup games? Not counting overseas subscriptions etc. (although appreciate that might clash with RTV's subscription. Not sure if other clubs have packages for all games to outside the UK).

Having to pay £30 for Sky, £26 for BT & £12 for Premier is an absolute pisstake considering the state of our game gets slated constantly and why we get the derisory amount that we do.

Invest in the streaming app, and in turn, reap the benefits of the income.
 
More & more people will turn to "illegal" means of watching sport over the next few years - with fuel, energy bills, broadband, council tax, etc all due to increase at roughly the same time. You can only push people so far before they start looking for shortcuts - it's ridiculous that we need to subscribe to three different services to watch (some) of our teams games.

We've been getting fleeced in this country for years. It's our sport, yet Johnny Redneck in Alabama can watch out 3pm kick offs live on TV but we can't.
That's a good point...post covid everything has gone up, food fuel, energy bills, broadband etc...sports subscription will be well down the list for most of us.
 
Ah, so they do exist. The people who click the "BEAUTIFUL WOMEN ARE LOOKING FOR YOU IN *Insert wee nearby town*" ads are actually real!
Do what I do. Don't risk downloading a load of viruses by clicking on the link. Instead, I just travel to the town in question and drive around looking for the advertised females.

I've yet to find the Russian quarter of Bathgate where all these young hotties hang out, but I'll keep trying.
 
The EPL's never ending insatiable greed for broadcasting money is ridiculous. Used to be able to get every game on Sky and now if you want all the broadcast league games you need Sky, BT and Amazon Prime.
 
The TV channels will die out sooner rather than later.

The SPL could make a lot more money on a self-run streaming service where live games are broadcast, all past games and other Scottish football related media are put on for around £20 per month. A bit like how WWE runs their streaming network.

Of course you'd expect the powers that be at Hampden to make a rip roaring arse out of it. But imagine how many people would pay to watch back every game of our 9 in a row era and even that lot?
 
Lock them all up !
Apart from the ones who stream boxing or ufc pay per views because they have an interest but not a £20 interest in the outcome :))
 
Blah, blah, blah a lot of words for nothing. Wont stop anyone watching illegal streams that's for sure.
 
It’s greed that has caused this and to be honest it serves them right

The average punter having to pay through the nose at every turn is unacceptable

Look at all the content you get on Netflix. It’s what? £10 a month? And it is constantly updated with new content.

Why should I pay x a month for sky sports to watch Soccer AM on 3 different channels on a Saturday morning? Then the football on sometimes 3 channels at the same time?

And then need to have a BT subscription for the other games plus European games

Then Amazon prime for whenever they show premier league games

Then premier for our cup games

That’s only sports. Still need other channels plus broadband.

It’s lunacy.

I don’t blame anyone for using illegal streams or services.
 
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