Illegal Streaming Hits Premier League

The Premier League has voiced a growing concern about illegal streaming of live football through the internet in the wake of its new £1.782bn three-year TV rights deal.

The Premier League has just concluded negotiations with broadcasters Sky and Setanta for a new three-year rights deal to screen live matches in the UK.

However there is a worry that viewers are increasingly watching illegally-stream matches on the internet for free rather than paying the subscription costs of signing up to the two broadcasters.

Premier League lawyer Oliver Weingarten has stated that the most popular illegal sites attract up to a quarter of a million viewers for a single game.

He confirmed that this could potentially have an effect on the price the league is able to demand for its product in future negotiations.

He said: ‘The long term consequences for the game are that it has the potential to devalue or dilute the rights value, and in turn that will dilute the product that we are able to turn out and the quality of player coming to the league.’

With so much potentially at stake, the Premier League has joined together with rights holders from other sports to take legal action in an attempt to stamp out the practice.

They are not planning to target the end user but are concentrating their efforts instead on the sites showing the games.

The organisations have successfully taken legal action against five websites in the UK so far and have a class action pending against Google and YouTube in the US.

Weingarten warned that the atmosphere at stadiums could suffer if fans stay at home and watch the action on illegal pirate sites rather than going along to the game. Gate receipts and catering sales, an important source of income, could also be affected.