There's a crackdown on sports piracy - but is it already out of control?

A significant story is unfolding on the international scene. There's a crackdown on sports piracy - but is it already out of control? Published1 hour agoImage source, Getty ImagesByTheo Leggett International Business Correspondent"Football's Gone Round the Spend! " screamed The People newspaper one Sunday in July 1995.

It reported breathlessly that three clubs between them were set to pay out more than £20m on new players. The highlight that summer was the transfer of Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool for a British record fee of £8. That number might not seem too impressive today, in an age when £100m transfers are almost commonplace.

The Details

But at the time it was seismic stuff, and it symbolised the conversion of football from sport into big business. All of this had been made possible in the early 1990s by the creation of the Premier League, and its initial TV deal with the broadcaster Sky, which paid more than £300m for five years of rights. The agreement put live top-tier football behind a TV paywall for the first time.

It was a lucrative model, one that other leading championships in motorsport, rugby, golf and cricket would later seek to replicate. But now, that model is coming under pressure. Piracy has become endemic in British sports: around half of sports fans now admit to using what they might euphemistically call "alternative" means to watch paywalled material, according to the consultancy Ampere Analysis.

Image source, Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty ImagesImage caption, This year's Champions League final - won by Paris Saint-Germain - sparked an argument about TV viewing rightsAnd this summer saw signs of a clampdown. In August, a man in Lancashire was jailed for six and a half years for running an illegal streaming service that police said had generated almost £1m in illicit profits. In June, a postman from Pembrokeshire was jailed for over three years for selling illegal subscriptions and supplying pirate software to nearly 2,000 people.

What Experts Say

A third man, from Merseyside, received a suspended 32-month sentence in August for similar offences. Several pubs have been fined thousands of pounds for screening matches illegally. TV companies that have paid huge sums for exclusive rights to high-profile sports are having to work harder than ever to protect their investments.

To some extent, broadcasters used to see copyright theft as a cost of doing business: irritating and expensive, but not an existential threat. But now, as advertising revenues fall, and viewers move away from long-term subscription services like Sky or TNT Sports, the industry is getting seriously worried. The end of TV sport's golden era?

There is a great deal at stake. The Premier League alone is a sporting monster. In its most recent deal, it sold its viewing rights to domestic audiences for £6.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.