A Grant Thornton study found more than 10.8 million unauthorized rebroadcasts of live events in 2024, and more than 81% of those were never suspended. Now LaLiga, the Spanish football league that hosts the most watched club matches in the world, is installing artificial intelligence to close that gap in real time.
Piracy is estimated to cost LaLiga around $700 million to $800 million per year, and this includes subscription losses, reduced broadcast revenues and impact on revenues used for transfers, payroll and investments.
Clubs include LaLiga Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid, some of the most watched football clubs in the world. It is this huge fan base that has led to the existence of such illegal streams, as there is high demand and recovery from pirates is rapid after the sites are closed.
For years, IP blocking was the standard remedy against illegal streams. The method is blunt: restrict access to known offensive addresses. But pirate services adapt quickly, running under new addresses within minutes and often returning before a major match ends.
Research from Grant Thornton found that by 2024, only 2.7% of unauthorized streams would be removed within the first 30 minutes of detection. That period is crucial; Most viewing peaks occur in the opening stages of a match, meaning delayed removal does little to protect the broadcast value of the event.
How do LaLiga and Fastly use AI differently?
LaLiga has been working with infrastructure company Fastly on a system that focuses on content signals rather than IP ranges. Instead of broad network blocks, the technology identifies patterns in the stream itself that relate to copyrighted broadcast material, allowing faster and more accurate flagging.
“Unlike alternative approaches based on regional blocking, our strategy focuses on precision, allowing fans to enjoy the game while protecting content from misuse by criminals,” said Kelly Shortridge, Fastly Chief Product Officer.
The idea is to greatly reduce the period between detection and removal. The faster piracy is detected, the less time the stream will take to generate an audience, which in turn will reduce advertising revenue for the pirates and mitigate the damage to legal broadcasters.
According to LaLiga president Javier Tebas, the league has managed to reduce piracy of its Spanish streams by 60% during the 2024/25 season due to the combination of legal, educational and technical activities, including entering into a partnership with Fastly.
However, LaLiga is far from the only club that has recently decided to combat online piracy of sporting events. Rights holders across Europe are rethinking their approaches as a result of changing viewing patterns and the availability of new technologies. In Britain alone, around four million people use unauthorized means to watch live broadcasts.
