Live sports content in Spain is pirated more than 25% above the European average

Audiovisual fraud is a criminal activity that results in significant losses in value for sporting competitions around the world, with a specific value loss between €600m and €700m in the case of Spanish football, an industry which employs more than 190,000 people and which contributes around €8,400m to the Spanish economy, the equivalent of 1.44% of Spanish GDP.

A recent report has been published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), discussing the evolution of audiovisual fraud in different sectors between 2017 and 2023, and it explains that piracy of sporting events in Europe increased by 36.5% between 2021 and 2023. In the case of Spain, the average access per user to pirated sports content per month remains some 25% above the EU average.

However, this report does not cover the true prevalence of IPTV use in the sharing of live sporting events, as detailed information isn’t available on this resource used by pirates. Yet, the estimates are that there are at least 4.5m IPTV users in Europe, which EUIPO explains is a very significant figure.

It is worth highlighting that Spain ranks as one of the countries with the highest rates of sports piracy in Europe, with one in three Spaniards consuming pirated content, according to estimates from the specialised consultancy agency YouGov in May 2024, and with 59% of Spaniards specifically consuming pirated content at least once a month, according to Ampere data from the fourth quarter of 2023. Notably, according to a Grant Thornton report, up to 5.3 million live pirate streams were reported in Europe in the first half of 2024 alone.

Javier Tebas, the president of LALIGA, has stated that: “Piracy is a scourge against which the relevant measures are not being taken and, despite the hard work being carried out by the leagues and broadcasters, there is still a lot of protection from large companies such as Google, X or Cloudflare, who profit from it. We cannot mask the reality, which is that this issue affects us and impacts hundreds of thousands of people, so we have to face it and fight against it.”

Such is the concern and the damaging impact of audiovisual fraud that broadcasters and rights owners are joining forces to carry out coordinated actions to end this practice, with a recent example being an operation against IPTV users in Europe, with 22 million users and worth €3,000m per year. Another example from the past week involved France’s LFP and its efforts against pirates, and there were alarming figures that some 55% of the viewers of the recent Olympique de Marseille vs PSG match watched the game via illegal channels. And, on November 16, Spain’s Guardia Civil blocked and removed all the channels of the biggest pirate streaming channel in Spain, called Cristal Azul. More than 78,000 users were illegally accessing LALIGA football matches, fraudulent activity worth more than €42m.

The growth and the scope of this illegal activity is worrying and its incidence is very high. It is concerning because of the direct impact it has on the sports industry and because the revenue obtained through audiovisual fraud can be used to finance other criminal activities.

In July 2024, LALIGA announced that it had reached the milestone of achieving more than 1,000 convictions against HORECA establishments committing audiovisual fraud. Meanwhile, on Telegram and looking from the 2022/23 season to the beginning of the 2024/25 season, more than 8,000 groups of offenders involving more than 45 million users have been shut down. 

A global problem

Audiovisual fraud is one of the world’s most profitable illegal industries, far outstripping drug trafficking worldwide and estimated to cost €10.5bn by 2025, given the rapid adaptation of pirates and the new resources they are employing to carry out this illicit activity.

With this in mind, the first conference against audiovisual fraud in Latin America is taking place this week, organised by LALIGA in Buenos Aires. It will analyse the tremendous global impact of this issue, which has a greater incidence in Latin and South America, with the percentage of users using piracy at least once a month up to 28% higher than in Spain, as is the case in Mexico.

The event will feature big name speakers from the world of sports and audiovisual content, including representatives from major organisations such as LigaPro, LFP Media, ESPN, the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance, UEFA and LALIGA itself, along with politicians from countries such as Argentina and Brazil.