The Pirate Edition; Spotify spikes, TalkSPORT and that FT piece; Ripple effects and rumours; Pirate Nostalgia; Are you going to Sportel?
Overthinking the sports business, for money
Richard’s away, so it’s Matt at the controls.
Sports Piracy Takeover
It’s been a week now since the last episode of The Pirates vs The Premier League dropped.
If you’ve still not listened, WTF have you been doing?
Listen on Apple
Listen on Spotify
That Spotify spike explained
The podcast broke in to Spotify’s UK top 50 sports podcasts.
That’s a big moment for Unofficial Partner, which has a mainly b2b audience.
For reference, that puts us above BBC Radio5 Live’s Fantasy 606 podcast and just below some of the big dogs of consumer sport pods, such as Football Ramble and Tifo Football, The Athletic’s explainer series, which is a personal favourite.
The Apple numbers tell a similar story, putting us a slot below Bill Simmons. Again, nice company to keep.
Yesterday, we saw a big spike in listener numbers, which were attributed to Spotify promoting us to its general audience.
This fact and the PR we did around the podcast meant we got some momentum for the story and the issues it raises.
I was asked on Hawksbee and Jacobs on TalkSport earlier in the week.
This exposure to football Twitter has in turn led to us receiving new tips and angles, which we’ll use to create more content around this issue.
Ripple Effects
The feedback we’ve had from sports fans, journalists, and the sports industry – and importantly the number of downloads – has exceeded expectations.
This review in TorrentFreak by the incredibly ITK Andy Maxwell was a particular favourite.
TorrentFreak is B2B media for the copyright and IP industries, “bringing topics to the forefront that aren't highlighted in the mainstream media, with a balanced perspective.”
AKA they don’t take kindly to bulls**t from PR people and advertisers.
Making The Pirates balanced and giving all stakeholders a voice was paramount from the beginning, so this endorsement was heartening:
The delicacy of the Premier League’s position
We dedicate episode three of The Pirates to Operation Flawless, which this May saw five men sentenced to 30 years for illegally broadcasting sport.
It’s believed to be the world's largest-ever illegal streaming prosecution, and was bankrolled by the Premier League.
That’s important.
Because as we discussed on the documentary, the Premier League has a comms challenge - it’s commercial partners (the broadcasters that buy the rights) - want something done.
But it’s hard to get politicians, and police, to take the issue seriously - there are no votes in putting fans in jail for picking Todd Boehly’s pocket.
As mentioned on the podcast, Operation Flawless had the feel of a show trial.
The message to fans (aka the people who pay the broadcasters): pirate sport and you’re going to jail.
This tweet, which followed the TalkSport spot, was typical:
Then the FT ran a piece, quoting our YouGov Sport research numbers that are significantly higher than those put out by the League.
The other voice in the article, by the excellent Sam Agini, was Premier League general counsel Kevin Plumb:
TorrentFreak weren’t quite as sold about the messaging:
Having briefed us extensively off the record (not Kevin Plumb btw), the Premier League didn’t want to be part of our series.
The invitation to talk to us remains very much open.
More on that soon.
The Story That Keeps On Giving
Let’s talk about Zak Smith.
He’s received very little UK media coverage.
Smith was the sixth defendant in the Flawless case.
He failed to appear at the sentencing and a warrant was put out for his re-arrest.
Smith entered a guilty plea in the Flawless case so if/when he is back in court, he’ll likely face a jail term.
The Thai media has reported Smith was arrested in Koh Samui for overstaying his visa, with suggestions he was still selling illegal Premier League IPTV packages.
That means The Flawless story is far from over.
Which could be both a good thing and a bad thing for the Premier League.
Good – more media coverage = more deterrent messaging.
Bad – more media coverage brings more dissenting voices from the general public and football fans specifically, many of whom view the Flawless group as more freedom fighters than terrorists.
The political football that is 3pm
Last week, we were sent some information about the Flawless case that adds weight to the argument that ending the 3pm broadcast blackout for football in the UK could decimate piracy.
An individual close to the case said that during the searches on the defendants, the prosecution found chats indicating that 80% of Flawless users subscribed only to watch Premier League, and that the 3pm blackout was the single biggest thing that made Flawless attractive and ultimately fuelled its business.
Pirate Nostalgia
A listener, whose identity we will not reveal, got in touch this week because the documentary “brought back memories” of hijacking football broadcasts in the late-1980s using one of the first household satellite systems.
They even sent in a picture:
“The Football League distributed their live Saturday afternoon match around the world by unencrypted satellite feeds at that time.
“ITV also showed live First Division football on some Sunday afternoons, so it meant we were often able to see two live games over a weekend. When the Premier League and Sky took over we could see three games, including Sky’s Monday night match.
“We had friends and neighbours who would contact us to find out what the match was and then decide whether they would join us to watch.
“Sadly our enjoyment came to an end one weekend in the mid-90s when there was an on-screen message telling television companies that they should switch to D2-MAC encrypted receivers for future broadcasts.”
Can you top that?
If you have any stories about your experience of the world of illegal streaming - funny or sad, good or bad - drop me a line:
Live Streams
• Germany’s castLabs claims new breakthrough in watermarking tech(Techspot)
• Ineffective start for Italy’s new measures to tackle Serie A piracy (TorrentFreak)
• DVD piracy is still a thing – and Amazon aren’t happy (PC Mag)
• NFL, NBA and NFL pressurising US government to change copyright law (SportsPro)
Are you going to Sportel?
UP is going to Monaco for the sports media’s annual shindig.
We’ll be talking about piracy with anyone who’ll listen.
If that’s you, give us a shout.
