New Study Points Out What A Boon Sports Streaming Piracy Could Be To Leagues
from the making-use dept
When it comes to cable cord-cutting and the set box vs. streaming revolutions, I have always argued that professional and college sports plays an outsized role. In fact, sports programming is one of the few threads by which the cable television industry is currently hanging. Some leagues have made better use of these trends than others, with Major League Baseball still representing the gold standard in sports streaming, with the other major sports leagues riding along in its wake. And, yet, one of the most common complaints about streaming copyright infringement one can find out there is that of live-streaming professional sports. While much of this comes from the broadcast partners of these leagues, the leagues themselves still make a significant amount of noise about pirated sports streaming.
It's never made sense to me. Sports league revenues generally are dominated by two categories: merchandise and advertising revenue. The former gets boosted with the maximum number of eyeballs on the product while the latter becomes something of a complicated mess, given that ad revenues have traditionally gone to broadcast partners, which translate into large contracts with revenue going from the broadcasters to the leagues. Despite that complication, the interest here is in advertising revenue. I wrote the following paragraph way back in 2012:
Here's my question: why is any of this necessary? With that same smart phone, I could have gone to one of dozens of websites (evil, evil websites) that would simply stream the games I wanted directly to my device for free. More to the point, they'd stream the local broadcast that I wanted, complete with commercials. Why wouldn't the major sports leagues do the same thing? If advertising is still the major money-maker for professional sports (and, along with merchandise, it is), why wouldn't they want to increase their reach by offering their own free advertisement-laden stream? Coupled with location identifiers, I'd think the leagues could partner with local broadcasters to make sure that people were getting the same geographical broadcast they'd get watching at home. Again, the same commercials can be in place, so what's lost? Why charge me $50 a season to watch the game on my phone or tablet, but not levy that same charge for watching on my television? It's the ads that matter, isn't it?
The ads, and the eyeballs, of course. Pirate streams increase reach, full stop. Why wouldn't leagues and broadcasters see that reach as a good thing? Well, according to a recent MUSO study, they absolutely should.
In their study, the companies looked at eight matches of the previous Premier League season. They found that these matches had an average pirate audience of 7.1 million viewers across as many as 149 countries. Most of these unauthorized viewers came from China, where nearly a million people tuned in per match, followed by Vietnam, Kenya, India and Nigeria. The U.S. and the U.K. took 10th and 11th places among the piracy audience.
These numbers were complemented with GumGum’s marketing and sponsorship insights. After factoring in the exposure of different brands in various regions, they came to the conclusion that there is £1 million in uncaptured sponsorship media value per match. The majority of value is linked to field-side LED advertising and the sponsorship placements on the front of the players’ jerseys. While pirates may not pay, they definitely see these sponsored messages.
Based on the study, it seems that even a lack of localized advertising still leaves an enormous amount of money on the table in the form of on-the-field sponsorships. I would add that, at least for large global brands, there is value in the commercials as well in pirated streaming. Per the study, the retort from broadcasters and leagues thus far appears to be complaints that, because they cannot control or directly count the streams in question, those viewers aren't represented in advertising or sponsorship contracts.
But all that tells me is that that's the problem. Not the pirated streams themselves, but the failure to capture the boon of those streams in the contracts with sponsors and advertisers. Given that, and considering the laughable game of whac-a-mole that is blocking pirate streams, how is it not the better solution to put these pirate stream numbers in front of sponsors and increase contract costs for sponsorships as a result? When MUSO, an antipiracy outfit, states the following, it's probably time for rightsholders to listen.
MUSO co-founder and CEO Andy Chatterley hopes that the findings will change the perception of pirates. He emphasizes that this audience should certainly not be disregarded.
“Piracy audiences have too long been disregarded as offering no real value to rights holders and distributors, but the reality is that these huge audiences still see the same shirt sponsors and commercials as people watching the game via a licensed channel,” Chatterley says.
In other words, these streams are not an enemy, but an opportunity, if only the leagues would finally take notice.
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Filed Under: opportunity, piracy, promotion, sports, streaming
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Why go after 35 US cents per illegal viewer? When DON'T WANT!
This is an academic "study". Encouraging piracy has NEVER been shown to work in reality. They're persons whose only identity is FREE-LOADERS: the least rich and most difficult sell of all. Not going to get a cent out of them.
Figures given are 7.1 million criminals would -- supposedly -- net 1 million pounds (per game). Rounding off to $2 a pound, that's 35 US cents versus HOW MUCH do non-criminals pay (per game)? That's the real comparison to be made, IN CONTEXT.
This is like hunting acorns at sparse trees on the prairie, not just scooping money off the table.
Nobody looks at LEDs on sidelines or names on clothing. No matter how much MORE is thrown up, it doesn't equate to proportionally more sales. That's just the key LYING assertion by pro-pirate academic and pro-pirate re-writer.
To believe otherwise is to state that all executives and marketing droids are just stupid. It's more difficult than you claim, kids.
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Nobody looks at names on clothing?
You have no idea how sports merchandising works, do you?
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Why do you keep running away bro?
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Re: Why go after 35 US cents per illegal viewer? When DON'T WANT
If sideline & clothing advertising does not work, then why do sponsors pay for it then?
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No stats, no control over distribution. Distribution network gets boned on revenue. Pirated streams can swap out the ads.
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but not the clothes or field.
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its even worse than that ,some sports are just on sky sports in the uk.
Most rugby matchs and cricket matchs are on sky sports , a subscriber only pay tv service.
This has resulted in a fall in the no of cricket fans and young people playing cricket.
Before sky sports was set up alot more young people played cricket,
it was shown on over the air tv like bbc and itv.
Anyone who had a tv could watch it free .
IF you people do not see the sport on tv when they are young they wont play the game or buy
merch when they grow up.
Not all sports are shown on tv in some countrys the only way to watch
is by using a pirate stream.
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Re: Why go after 35 US cents per illegal viewer? When DON'T WANT
"This is an academic "study". Encouraging piracy has NEVER been shown to work in reality. They're persons whose only identity is FREE-LOADERS: the least rich and most difficult sell of all. Not going to get a cent out of them."
Let's say I agreed with you, which I don't: if what you say above is true......why worry about them at all?!?!?
"Nobody looks at LEDs on sidelines or names on clothing. No matter how much MORE is thrown up, it doesn't equate to proportionally more sales. That's just the key LYING assertion by pro-pirate academic and pro-pirate re-writer."
This must be why current major sports leagues are bucking tradition in a way that is a PR hit just to put up more ads and LEDs, signage, etc. Surely those people are all idiots and you're the smart one. Surely Adam Silver is fighting hard to put logos on NBA jerseys for no reason, since you say it's of no value. Surely the fight the Ricketts' had to put up more signage on iconic Wrigley Field, for which they were lambasted by baseball purists, was pure masochism since there's no value there.
Or you're just wrong. It's definitely one of those two things....
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agree but the main thing would still be lost to them and that is the most important thing of all, CONTROL!
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As the AC alludes, the article cites the paper's conclusion that the big uncaptured ad spaces in premier league piracy are the LED banners around the field and Sponsored branding on jerseys whose contracts do not account for pirates that will also be seeing them. The paper specifically did not suggest value was in the ad breaks.
Reading comprehension is your friend when you plan to criticize an article.
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Re: Why go after 35 US cents per illegal viewer? When DON'T WANT
So, regardless of your claims, brands believe there is value in banner ads and jersey sponsorship deals. By not capturing the pirate audience, the premier league fails to convert eyes on those ads into revenue.
And, while not directly stated in the article, it leads to questions of if a free or radically discounted streaming product might be a better financial move - merchandise and advertising being the primary revenue sources, more eyes on the sport means more of both. The paper lays the groundwork to assess if perhaps it is best to beat the pirates by providing a cheap (or even free), convenient, and reliable service than pirate streams, and make up the difference my increases in revenue streams that already have proven to be the best return.
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from the copy-editing department
role
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They can change all the players to Nicholas Coppola.
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Anyone remember?>
The Broadcast Olympics?? from a major corp?
Twice??
NBC/CBS/SYFY/CC/... many others have learned the lesson of Server, broadcast, and how many people you can send to at 1 time.
ESPN and other seems to Not look at what others have done or gone threw..
Every time they Try to do something Spectacular..It Fails.
Olympics, with Hundreds of events, trying to be broadcast, and failing because they didnt have the idea of How much Bandwidth, lag, and the Equipment Support they needed.
Not using Existing services that Already know the problems and concerns..Youtube/Amazon/Hulu/and about 20 others around the world that have been fighting NOT to be Sue's for Piracy,,
YOU WOULD THINK...that a corp would Really look into a project Before they Jumped into it. NOT think that this would be easy, Slap it all together and fall FLAT..
The First Olympics was funny, as the Corp failed, but the Pirates kept up their side. Probably the Adverts needing to be Inserted, failed and Kinda Crashed the system.. As the pirates were Still connected and sending the direct transmission.
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Re: Re: Why go after 35 US cents per illegal viewer? When DON'T
While it's dumb to say no one looks, companies seem to take advertising benefits on faith to some degree. Ads appear to work overall but it's difficult to tie increased profits to any specific advertisement. Is there any evidence that the naming rights to Wrigley Field for example have increased chewing-gum sales?
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Go to to
They should change all the players to Nicholas Coppola.
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