Piracy Poses Biggest Threat to Sports Media Industry's Finances

Piracy poses biggest threat to sports media industry's finances By George Bevir

Friday, June 6, 2025 - 08:01

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Illicit streaming is the biggest financial threat ever faced by the sports media industry, according to Barney Francis, executive vice president of Studios at IMG, who has called for greater industry cooperation to tackle piracy.

Speaking in response to findings in a new research report by Enders Analysis, Francis called for collective action across the sector and cited the French sports market as a cautionary example, pointing to issues with piracy affecting Ligue 1 and DAZN.

The Enders Analysis research accuses Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft of ambivalence and inertia and said the issue is damaging broadcasters' revenue and puts users at risk of cyber-crime.

IMG's Barney Francis speaking at SVG Europe's Football Summit

The Enders report also cited continued depreciation of digital rights management (DRM) tools from the likes of Google and Microsoft as a factor in aiding illicit streaming, with a lack of maintenance of the tech firms' DRM systems blamed for compromised security levels.

The Amazon Fire Stick was also highlighted by the authors of the Enders research as a piracy enabler .

Speaking to the BBC's World Business Report programme, Francis said illicit streaming via modified Amazon Fire sticks had evolved from what was a bit of a nudge and a wink in a pub 15 years ago to become a more endemic problem.

Now, it has become a cultural norm, and I worry greatly that enough isn't being done. But it's going to take a collective effort from the entire industry, because this is the biggest threat to its finances that we've ever known.

We've always called it a game of Whack-a-Mole. The problem is now so big, and we can we just look across the water to France and what's happening with Ligue 1 and DAZN there, which is the result of rampant piracy that is escalating all the time.

The French league had sold Ligue 1 domestic TV rights to DAZN for 325 million per season from 2024 to 2029. However, earlier this year DAZN withheld a payment amid claims that French football governing body LFP had not done enough to tackle piracy. DAZN has since terminated its contract after one season of Ligue 1.

It is organised crime, as the report suggests, and [Enders'] conclusion is that the big tech companies around the world can be the only ones that can come up with the right sort of protection that's needed going forward.

IMG's clients sports federations and leagues seek to maximise revenue from media rights, and broadcasters invest heavily to secure these, Francis explained, but piracy erodes that value, forcing price increases to cover losses from customer churn, and ultimately impacting investment in the sport itself.

The consequence of that will be less investment into the players, athletes, performers on the field of play, which means for the fans they're going to see less quality players on the pitch, because a club won't be able to afford them because of the declining revenues that come from media, said Francis.

When asked whether direct-to-consumer streaming may offer a solution, Francis acknowledged that leagues can pursue this route but warned of the trade-offs. Using the Premier League as an example, he said that guaranteed multi-year media revenues provide financial certainty for clubs. When you go direct to the consumer, you start to put into jeopardy guarantees of your revenue, he said.

Francis is not the first industry leader to call for greater action from major technology companies. La Liga president Javier Tebas has long called for action to combat piracy from the likes of Google and Cloudflare, recently describing the latter as an accomplice in the widespread theft of intellectual property from the Spanish football league.

And in a BBC article about the Enders report, Nick Herm, chief operating officer of Sky Group, said we'd like to see faster, more joined-up action from major tech platforms and government to address the problem and help protect the UK creative industries.

LINK:	https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/piracy-poses-biggest-threat-t...
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