How to combat free and illegal streaming of football matches and piracy? Here’s how things could change in the coming months
Journalist Marco Bellinazzo spoke to the microphones of calciomercato.it, broadcast on the Twitch TVPLAY channel, to discuss the phenomenon of illegal streaming that impoverishes the football system. For more than a year, Agcom has been working on a strategy to block illegal streaming of football matches in real time. Soon the blocks could become generalised.
One of the solutions to curb piracy could also be to broadcast one match, on Saturday, free to air. But Bellinazzo admits that it could be complicated to reach an agreement.
‘On piracy, things will change the moment the tools are put in place that can signal in half an hour,’ Bellinazzo explained. “Those who feed piracy will switch to legal streaming as soon as they see themselves blocked during the game. Forty per cent of adults who use piracy when faced with a signal block might subscribe. They rely on this data”.
“I also believe there is an economic problem with TV subscriptions. Undoubtedly it would be smarter to lower the prices. There is a conflict of interests. On the one hand the teams want more money, on the other hand the broadcasters the more they pay, the more they have to raise prices. Obviously this backfires on them. Football is a public good, and should be managed as such. “
“The antitrust suggests having services without more exclusives assigned to more parties so that prices can be lowered and work on the service in competition,” the interviewee continued. ‘This is a scenario that has, however, come up against an unbalanced market. DAZN, SKY and Mediaset sat at the table. Amazon or Apple, in the end, did not sit”.
‘If you have three players,’ the journalist summarised, ‘there is little to turn the bids around. I am for self-production. When you are behind, you have to try alternative channels. There are solutions that allow you to do that. The problem is financial.’
TV rights and piracy: “All the fault of the clubs’ weakness “
“The weakness of the clubs means that TV money is vital: without TV rights clubs will not survive. Then there is a problem of strategy. If you do this channel, what kind of channel do you do? Do you contract it out to Sky, DAZN, Amazon etc. at low prices? Or do you sell it to consumers? But then you have to take the business risk and create the structures, such as customer service,’ he continued.
Diletta Leotta, face of DAZN
“The League and in particular De Laurentiis would have liked the possibility of industrial partnerships. The antitrust said it couldn’t be done. It could only be done with financial partners. Six showed up, we don’t know who. I have the perception that the funds have yes made offers but not corresponding to the clubs’ expectations… It’s not that simple.”
“The Saturday free-to-air match is a possibility. Mediaset wants to replicate the bet made on the Coppa Italia. The problem is that the moment I release an important match, the one on Saturday night, free to air, I take away a valuable element from the pay-TV bids. On average for current prices a Serie A match costs between three and three and a half million, doing the serva’s accounts. Apart from Juve, Inter and Milan, who make up 70% of the audience, another 15% are Roma and Napoli. The rest of the teams make very few spectators”.