Anti-piracy tech can drive $28BN goldmine for sports
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 15 March 2021
In what is said to be the first calculation of the true cost of sports piracy, a report from Synamedia has revealed that service providers and rights holders can unlock up to $28.3 billion in new revenue each year by reducing the phenomenon.
Synamedia 15March2021
The online quantitative study of over 6,000 sports fans aged 18-64 in Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US was undertaken by data and analytics firm Ampere Analysis, the third in a series carrried out on behalf of Synamedia. Consumers were pre-filtered and chosen based on their experience of watching sport on TV.

The report, Pricing Piracy: The Value Of Action, identified the demographics and characteristics of those illegal users most likely to convert to legal services, including their reaction when illegal viewing is disrupted. As service providers address the triggers that lead consumers to seek out illegal services, the research evaluated how different illegal viewers respond to anti-piracy measures and how they have the power to transform piracy from a cost centre into a revenue opportunity with measurable ROI. It observed that OTT sports streaming services stood to gain $5.4 billion, or 19% of the total, with the balance up for grabs by other pay-TV providers.

With an understanding about pirate users’ motivations and behaviour, Synamedia said that service providers can target interventions - such as disrupting streams and incentives – at those viewers most likely to switch to legitimate services: the ‘converter cohort’. It found that nearly three quarters of sports fans were willing to switch from illegal streams if a legitimate alternative is available and if the illegal streams become unreliable.

The study also discovered that the converter cohort tended to be younger and are often families with young children. They are avid sports viewers with many watching ten or more different sports using connected devices. Two-fifths of the converter cohort said they would subscribe to OTT streaming sports services, including single-sport services run by rights owners, with the balance opting for traditional pay-TV services, particularly those that offer exclusive sports rights. Almost three-fifths (57%) of the converter cohort already paid for legitimate services and just over half (52%) paid for pirate services.

Yet despite the opportunity, Synamedia cautioned that converting pirate customers to legitimate ones required service providers to address the triggers that encourage consumers to seek out illegal services in the first place. These include a flexible access without complex installations or long contracts, ease of use, and availability on every device in any location, coupled with a price point that is often much lower than a traditional pay-TV service with premium sports tiers included.

“After years of growth, a recent downturn in rights fees has been exacerbated by the pandemic, hitting sports rights hard. But just as the value of rights is being eroded, there is now the prospect of creating new revenues by converting illegal viewers into paid subscribers,” said Yael Fainaro, senior vice president of security at Synamedia commenting on the Pricing Piracy: The Value Of Action report. “While previous attempts to value the revenue leakage from sports streaming piracy took a crude approach, we now have the detail to develop targeted approaches and the tools to deliver quantifiable results, ensuring every investment hits the jackpot.”