Is this the end of free football?

Looks that way, only time will tell…But as we know there’s always a way round it…

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/football/premier-league-set-to-increase-crackdown-on-illegal-streaming-following-high-court-order/ar-AAo3tY7?li=AA572I&ocid=spartandhp

THESES COMPUTER BUFFS WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY AROUND IT

2 Likes

The streams I occasionally watch whenever forced to are so laggy or skippy anyway, I wouldn’t miss them anyway tbh

1 Like

Try navix sports. Just as good as watching on tv and no lag. @Persona :+1:

2 Likes

I rarely watch streams anyway. They’re unreliable and you can’t even chat live about the game on MDC because they lag so much.

1 Like

Yeah i agree streams are shit and a lot of times have so many fucked up pop up ads, computer aids galore.

My kodi ones are ok even if a bit behind, but it seems they are going after them aswell…

1 Like

They’ll just stream it from other sources. I wouldn’t really expect this to have any immediate impact. It sounds similar to what the music industry was trying for ages and never really succeeded.

All the major film streaming sites are blocked by major British ISPs, and all the major film streaming sites are still available on major British ISPs.

You might have to spend more than 10 seconds to find a stream but they’ll still be there and they’ll still be easy enough.

I still get my music, films from the same places i always have, just via a different route…

Clubs have been gorging themselves on ever increasing sky (and more recently BT) subscription fees for decades with no thought about what would happen if it all stopped. The whole model is fucked and in this day and age when we’re used to legitimately streaming free content (spotify, youtube etc), its not a great leap to stream a football match. Sky is absolutely shitting itself and the clubs should be too. Its becoming increasingly obvious that its a fucking rip off for customers who are primarily interested only in football.

I’d happily shell out a few quid for PPV on a match by match basis but I seriously resent having to pay £30 every month in the hope of them scheduling Arsenal (in fairness we do alright here- imagine supporting a smaller club- you’d only get to watch them when they get battered by top 4 teams!) It’s not my fault if they put the wrong match on and I have to get a stream. And that’s the light-bulb moment!

IMO cubs should be allowed to handle their own match streaming. What better way to encourage exciting football?

3 Likes

That’s in interesting thought in principle but in practice I think it would just lead to the rich getting much, much richer, and the poor getting much, much poorer in comparison, no?

I’m not a big fan of streaming online. I always find it hard to get a good quality stream (probably my fault), but it’s usually always behind real time and I get notification/pop ups telling there’s been a goal way before I see it.

I’m in a lucky position where I currently have Sky Go and BT sports, but in the past I use to prefer going out to a bar to watch a game if I wasn’t able to watch it at home. Failing that, and I do this for 3pm kick offs, I just listen to it on the radio. I think k the commentary on the radio adds so much more excitement to the game.

Possibly, but what if matchday streaming revenue from both clubs was thrown into a pot and split 50/50? Every time a smaller club played a bigger one they get a bigger payday.

Or maybe all revenue from every match could be compiled and shared across each club equally. A strange mix of free market at the front and communist at the back!

If I could be arsed I’d run a quick simulation. Might get round to it one day.

Not that any of this will ever happen because the PL like to blindly peddle their TV packages to people in nice little clearly defined regions across the world, expertly tailored to what the market will tolerate in varying degrees of value/ fairness. And these are very regions that the internet doesn’t give two shits about so global market transparency is basically killing the TV subscription model singlehandedly. Of course TV companies and the PL are still clinging to it because it still makes them good money. But for how long? And what then happens to the clubs which are so heavily reliant upon TV money when the bubble bursts? When the TV rights bids come round next time it’ll be like a mini sub prime crisis waiting to happen.

1 Like

I don’t think clubs would really make that much out of streaming their games themselves. They’d have a lot of additional costs from production, marketing, server, staff, etc while only really attracting viewership from actual fans or when there is a top game coming up from neutrals. Otherwise I can’t see many really paying on a PPV or subscription basis for a team they don’t support.

It’s just restricting to the normal fan and too much of a hustle for clubs. It would still need some kind of platform but then we’re back to having all rights with one company.

If they ever found a way to successfully block all illegal online football streams, can you imagine how many people would just stop watching live football? Probably a lot more than the number of people that would subscribe to Sky Sports and BT Sport as a result of the block. For so many these are just unaffordable subscriptions for a lot less coverage than for those abroad. They’ve always been happy to price people out so streaming will continue to be rampant.

1 Like

Agreed. Clubs couldn’t do it on an individual basis. I’m suprised the PL as an organisation hasn’t had a crack at it though. I guess for the same reasons and it being easier to take the wads of cash from sky and bt.

TV rights are in the billions now. No way are they letting clubs come in with their own streaming services. Fantasy stuff.

Fear not though, illegal streaming will never vanish. The internet cant be policed.

Baby vaginas coming up on google images and Trion’s ‘Confessions of a Stalker’ say that this is true.