LaLiga warns that piracy is winning the battle

LaLiga has once again raised the alarm about the detrimental effects of piracy on the sustainability of the sports industry as we know it. According to a recent report by Grant Thornton in collaboration with the Live Content Coalition, 81% of takedown requests related to live event broadcasts sent to digital intermediaries throughout 2024 did not result in the removal of content by broadcasters who had no rights to distribute them.

The situation doesn't end there. Only 2.7% of notifications sent resulted in the suspension of the broadcast in question within the first 30 minutes after the claim, while 20% took more than 120 minutes to be processed.

The association representing the 20 First Division and 22 Second Division clubs uses this report to highlight that "live sports event piracy faces a unique situation," where the measures requested by the European Commission "are not only not applied but are ignored in many cases," posing a "significant risk to live event rights holders," as is the case with LaLiga.

The organisation led by Javier Tebas recalls that despite the recommendation issued by the European Commission in May 2023 to combat the unauthorised broadcasting of live events, the 2024 data reflects "a worrying landscape" with more than 10.8 million illegal broadcasts detected last year. Only 2.7% of these infringements were addressed within the first 30 minutes, while 20% took more than 120 minutes to be processed, and approximately 81% continued, which, the association points out, "demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the European Commission's Recommendation and the limited cooperation of digital intermediaries."

LaLiga highlights that piracy directly strikes at the core of all organisations that rely on revenue generated from live event broadcasts, such as an organisation that sees its "ability to protect its intellectual property and sustain its business model" threatened.

The association also points out that while online platforms "only ignored 2% of notifications," specialised server providers (DSP), which received 52% of those notices, did not tackle 89% of illegal broadcasts, a figure described as "alarming." It also emphasises that "the recurrence rate of online platforms retransmitting pirated content on the same day is over 90%," another percentage that is extremely concerning.

LaLiga believes that all these data show that piracy "not only persists but efforts to curb it are not achieving a significant impact," putting the sports industry "at risk."