International Business Correspondent

"Football's Gone Round the Spend!" declared The People newspaper one Sunday back in July 1995. It excitedly noted that three clubs together planned to spend more than £20m on fresh signings.

The standout deal that summer saw Stan Collymore move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool for a UK record £8.5m.

That figure looks modest now, when £100m moves occur often. Yet back then it marked a huge shift, turning football from pastime into major enterprise.

The Premier League launch in the early 1990s and its first Sky contract, worth over £300m for five years, made it possible. Live top-flight matches went behind a paywall for the first time.

The approach proved profitable, and other sports such as motorsport, rugby, golf and cricket later copied it.

Today the model faces strain. Piracy now runs widespread across UK sport, with roughly half of fans saying they use so-called alternative routes to view paid content, per Ampere Analysis.

This summer brought clear signs of stronger enforcement.

In August a Lancashire man received six and a half years in prison for operating an illegal stream service that police linked to nearly £1m in unlawful gains. In June a Pembrokeshire postman got over three years for selling pirate subscriptions and software to almost 2,000 customers.

A Merseyside man drew a suspended 32-month term in August for comparable acts. Several pubs paid large fines for showing matches without permission.

Broadcasters that spent heavily on exclusive rights must now defend those investments more actively. They once treated copyright theft as a routine expense, bothersome yet not fatal. With ad income dropping and viewers leaving long-term packages such as Sky or TNT Sports, worry has grown sharply.

Is TV sport's golden period ending?

Much hangs in the balance. The Premier League stands as a giant. Its latest UK rights sale reached £6.7bn across four years, with nearly equal sums from overseas. Clubs used the cash to sign top global talent, boosting the league's worldwide profile.

Football gained most from paid TV in Britain, yet Formula One, Six Nations rugby and Wimbledon also secured large fees for exclusive coverage. Live sport on free channels has grown scarce.

That wealth now risks erosion from rising piracy and illegal viewing. Younger digital users show the highest rates, and they form an ever-larger share of fans. Many older viewers also accept the practice.

"Among 18 to 34-year-olds the figure exceeds 70 percent who say they do this often," notes Daniel Monaghan of Ampere Analysis. "Over half of 35 to 44-year-olds admit it, and around a third of those aged 45 to 64."

This year's Champions League final moved behind a paywall in the UK for the first time in over 30 years. Viewers faced a minimum £4.99 charge, sparking criticism even from then-prime minister and Arsenal supporter Sir Keir Starmer.

"Working people should not need a subscription to see this match," he posted on X.

Many skipped payment: 3.7 million UK IP addresses hit illegal streams, per Gaming Compliance International research for the Guardian. That contrasted with roughly seven million legal UK viewers.

One regular user, tech worker "Kiran" in his 30s who keeps his name private, follows Arsenal and watches Premier League, Champions League and La Liga games. He holds a TNT Sports subscription yet turns to streams for unavailable matches.

"It boils down to cost, the main factor, plus simple access," he says. "Full coverage can run into hundreds of pounds yearly."

The streams he uses cost nothing and appear easily via social media.

Another factor is the long-standing blackout. Matches between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays stay off UK screens to protect lower-league gates. Overseas broadcasters air them, feeding pirate feeds.

"I started with streams because of the blackout," Kiran adds, "and I used them more as subscriptions rose in price."

Fire sticks, pirate streams and VPNs

Those hunting pirate material have many choices. Links and tips on avoiding issues circulate in online forums. The feeds Kiran and others use often suffer buffering, low quality or sudden shutdowns. Some bombard users with explicit ads.

Many turn to devices such as Amazon Fire Sticks. These are legal but can be loaded with unauthorised apps that let pirates offer channel packages mimicking official services.

A further route uses a VPN to make a device appear in another country where sport coverage costs less or nothing.

The Sports Industry Group found earlier this year that 58 percent of fans view illegal streaming as acceptable.

Viewers often resent the high prices demanded.

The Intellectual Property Office states that "a main driver of illegal access is the sense of unfair or high pricing for legal options".

A UK fan seeking all live Premier League games needs Sky Sports and TNT Sports. Adding La Liga or rugby requires Premier Sports. Boxing and NFL often sit on DAZN. A dedicated follower can face £80 to £100 monthly.

Until recently broadcasters did not treat piracy as urgent. They focused on growth, viewing infringement as an ordinary expense.

Some even saw benefit. In 2013 Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes praised Game of Thrones as the most pirated series, calling the attention "better than an Emmy" for building interest and later subscribers.

The tone has changed. Traditional TV faces falling ad revenue and viewers shifting to flexible platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV. Both Sky and TNT Sports have posted losses.

WPI Economics estimates illegal sports streaming costs broadcasters around £700m yearly.

Risk to lower levels

Piracy already affects play on the pitch.

At a conference last year DAZN global rights head Tom Burrows called piracy a "huge problem" and "almost a crisis for the sports rights industry".

Months later DAZN ended its French league deal after disputes over piracy controls and subscriber numbers. Though DAZN paid €100m (£85m) plus €140m in fees to exit, French top-flight income dropped from roughly €700m to €412m this season.

Paris St Germain can absorb the hit, yet smaller clubs suffer. Angers SCO reported a €30m loss over two seasons and had to sell striker Estéban Lepaul.

A Premier League-scale competition is unlikely to lose its broadcaster, yet piracy may cap future rights fees.

"Broadcasters are losing money," says Kieran Maguire of Liverpool University. "Piracy takes a growing share of expected subscription income. It is a real concern."

Ampere's Monaghan sees piracy as "at least a major limit on the sports rights models that paid off for 30 years". Unchecked, it will hinder returns on investment.

At best growth slows. At worst revenues fall, hurting sports that relied most on TV cash.

For the Premier League this could mean fewer big transfers and less funding for grassroots, which received £1.6bn over three years to 2025.

Education or penalties

What steps can help?

The Federation Against Copyright Theft stresses changing viewer attitudes.

Investigations manager Nick Sumner stresses piracy is not victimless. "Organised crime runs it and seeks profit any way it can," he says.

Users also risk fraud. "They gather personal data and sell it for criminal use."

Broadcasters and bodies remove hundreds of thousands of illegal streams yearly. Yet Monaghan compares it to whack-a-mole: "Some vanish, others appear, often elsewhere."

Another path exists.

UK law can treat downloading or streaming pirated material as criminal. Prosecution of individual viewers remains rare.

Sumner says education on risks is the current focus, yet he leaves open stricter measures later.

"Crimes are occurring," he notes.

Viewers of illegal streams could one day face costly legal consequences.