The sports streaming sector is undergoing rapid changes and growth in Australia. A $35 a month Kayo subscription gives users access to premium NRL, AFL games, all Formula One and Supercar races, as well as a host of other sports, in 4K – which is nearly half the price that subscribers in the US pay for a similar sports package.
Also, last month, Hubbl announced that Optus Sport is now available on the platform in Australia, significantly expanding its sports offering. The all-up $79 Hubbl which was launched earlier this year is proving very popular at JB Hi-Fi and has been described as the box that “Is transforming TV viewing in Australia”.
However, a global surge in illegal streaming of live sports is depriving broadcasters of tens of billions of dollars in potential revenue.
Data from the Australian government in the 2023 edition of its Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement showed that four-in-ten Aussies (39 per cent) said they’d watched live sports on the internet, up from 34 per cent in 2022 and 26 per cent in 2021.
Piracy of live sports is not a new phenomena – what is though is how widespread and easily accessible it has become, and also how sophisticated some of the illegal operations have become. A Google search will easily identify several examples of illegal streaming sites, and some of them boldly advertise their services too. A few of the higher-quality illegal services even have their own customer support operations.
The result is that broadcasters are losing as much as $28 billion (A$40.65 billion) in potential annual revenue, according to a study from Synamedia, and media research firm Ampere Analysis, reports Bloomberg.
Sports piracy typically works by capturing a legitimate stream and rebroadcasting it on another website without the permission of the broadcast rights holder.
Some pirates offer modified versions of small devices known as dongles, which plug into a TV to allow access to a variety of streaming services.
The pirates make money either by selling advertising or charging subscription fees that are lower than those of legitimate providers.
Around a decade ago, one of the issues which would prevent consumers from opting for illegal sports streaming was its inferior quality and content that was constantly buffering.
But the quality of illegal sports streaming feeds have increased tremendously over the last years. That fact, coupled with increasing subscription costs for regular streaming services, are tempting some consumers with the idea of opting for cheaper pirated content.
It is much tougher to detect and crack down on live sports streaming compared to pre-recorded content. Pre-recorded content can be detected automatically using digital matching technology, either by an online platform at the point when someone is trying to upload it or by the copyright holder using tools to scan the web. Therefore, platforms such as YouTube can block the upload before it happens, or enable the copyright holder to find the pirated content.
This type of matching technology doesn’t work with a live streaming — unless that event is already being streamed through a broadcaster’s legitimate channel on a social media platform — because there isn’t a pre-recorded show to compare and match it too. Also, the process to legally takedown the content from the streaming site can take a minimum of several hours, by which time the event is over.
Platforms such as X, Google’s YouTube, Meta and ByteDance remove unauthorised live-streams of sports when they become aware of them. But with illegal streaming operations becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, broadcasters are demanding that more is done to stomp out the illegal practice.
