How Web Pirates Steal Links From Official Football Broadcasters on TV | Could Collaborative Marketing Stop the Ambush?

 A football match broadcast on TV anywhere in the world can be pirated on the internet. In fact, 82% of football games streamed live on the web were either reconstructed or stolen from official broadcasters.

With a 3D printer, Web Pirates hack into any match on air, develop a link through sharing tools like Air Bnb or Task Rabbit and begin to stream it free online. In return they can attract millions of visitors to their website less than two hours. So official broadcasters get ambushed and may never recover from the huge amount of money lost in broadcast rights.

Crowd Companies’ recent research study shows that internet users prefer to ‘share’ than to buy anything on the World Wide Web. So they quickly jump at any links that allow them download stuff free. It’s not new, people download pirated music, videos, games., books or even stream some important events on the web free of any charge – so what’s it about live streaming of football games?

Over 1.8 million websites pirated at least one match at 2014 FIFA World cup in Brazil. It was a source of generating traffic, which sky rocketed visitors to their website in those hours.. You can be sure web Pirates will target FIFA U20 World cup in New Zealand and the women’s world cup in Canada. In 2016, they would also target the Olympic Games in Rio. It seems there’s nothing anybody can do about it. You don’t expect FIFA to go about prosecuting Web Pirates at various law Courts across the world.

Official broadcasters as well as cable companies must find a way to collaborate on this matter. There must be a way.

Jeremiah Owyang, founder of Crowd Companies, is of the opinion that collaborative marketing may be the solution. Official broadcasters and cable network could distribute football games in affordable sachets. Owayang, who focuses on how large companies can tap into the collaborative economy, somehow discouraging activities of Pirates and bringing about customers’ collaboration, said:

“Official broadcasters should liaise with cable networks to adapt this business model. Far fewer people would use unauthorized streams if the broadcasters’ official site let viewers stream a game for $5. Instead of go pay $120 a month for this cable packages full of channels fans don’t really want.”

“Most football fans don’t watch every game. They only care about their favorite teams or league. Cable networks should take advantage of this habit to offer one league package or one team package at a much cheaper price, $25 a month. Instead of allowing fans look elsewhere, because of the tons of money required to pay for a whole package that gives access to ALL GAMES – 70% of which they don’t watch.” Owyang proposed.

Web Pirates knows that fans don’t view every match broadcast on TV. No Pirate would waste his energy or resources to steal a game people would not ordinarily watch. They may also not bother if they find out that fans prefer viewing from official sites.