A new report looking at attitudes towards sports piracy has found that over 51 per cent of viewers admit to watching content from pirate services at least once a month.
The Charting Global Sports Piracy report, commissioned by Synamedia and compiled by Ampere Analysis, draws on results from a 10-country study of over 6,000 sports fans.
Other findings include just 16 per cent of fans say they have never watched sport content illegally.
But, the majority of fans are still willing to pay for the content they want, with 89 per cent saying they subscribe to pay-TV or an OTT service to watch sport.
Simon Brydon, senior director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy at Synamedia, said, “Global spend on TV sports rights is set to total almost $50 billion in 2020. Protecting these revenues and keeping sports on screens requires a deeper understanding of the evolving piracy landscape and a cogent response. This initial research into what motivates sports fans to access illegal streams establishes a baseline for a more nuanced and targeted approach to combatting piracy. Our ambition is to help sports rights holders and operators apply a more forensic approach that drives up legitimate revenues, reduces sports’ fans reliance on illegal streams and takes the wind out of the pirates’ sails.”
The full report can be downloaded here.
