Let’s revisit a topic that we addressed several months ago: illicit online streaming of television broadcasts, namely sports. This is different from going to the Pirate Bay a few hours after a show airs and downloading a file. We’re talking about, hey, the big game’s on, let’s go to justin.tv or ustream to watch it.
The Guardian brings this up today in a quick little piece on justin.tv. It seems the Barclays Premier League (England’s top professional football league) doesn’t like it when Little Tommy streams games online for all to see for free. This is a violation of copyright, the League claim, which it is, but no one really seems to care. Every day games are streamed on these sites (check justin.tv and ustream today around 2:45 EST for plenty of UEFA Champions League streams) and people from all around the world—the accompanying chat rooms are filled with different languages—watch, apparently not concerned that they’re doing so illegally.
People watch these streams for any number of reasons. One is that the game they want to see isn’t broadcast in your their market. That happens to me all the time—I watched a stream of the Real Madrid-BATE game yesterday because ESPN2 decided to carry the Manchester United-Villrreal match despite the fact that their group had all but been decided, ensuring that both teams play kick-about for 90 minutes. (Random fact: Villarreal is pronounced “vila real” and not “veeya real,” as the town officially changed the pronunciation a few years ago.) Another reason is that, um, people no longer have the luxury of shelling out money for premium cable or a trip to the pub to watch a game. Eating is more important than watching Zlatan Ibrahimović scuff another shot.
The leagues would be wise not to sue the pants of their fans, though, following the music industry into an early grave. Nor should they bother playing whack-a-stream since these streams pop up every second. When one goes away, another replaces it, just like the Vietcong.
That said, never bet on Soho Square to do the right, or smart thing, Fabio Capello’s appointment aside.
The best opportunity for the delivery of sports to move online is BitGravity multi-camera, user-directed online video stream.
This was showcased in the latest Diggnation episode over at revision3 - http://revision3.com/remix
This technology would offer the multiple camera angles that Digital TV promised and never delivered.
Bandwidth requirements for this are obviously pretty steep, so adoption would be dependent on companies and countries investing in increased network speeds.
The future looks bright.
Of course this will change the way we watch sports, we won’t have to pay those high satellite and cable fees and we can watch sports on the go on any smartphone that supports the technology.
Now when you go to the bathroom at your favorite sporting event, you can still sit on the toilet and not miss a beat!
I love technology!
it already has. i watch Champions league games on streams. it’s better to get torrents sometimes because the quality is better but in many places the internet is the ONLY ways to see a game because it’s not shown on television.
Imagine how many people would watch it if the “athletes” learned to tackle, throw, and catch.
Well you really didn’t have to point fingers directly to the source, but yeah I think it’s something they just have to learn to deal with. But of course instead of embracing it and offering their own better quality service to get people to turn to them instead, they’ll take the vigilante option and start sending out C&D to everyone.
Another reason why people use streaming video services is because they like to share the experience in real time with their clique. That’s something you can’t do at home when watching standard TV can.
I pay £35/month for Sky with Sky Sports and another £12/month to Setanta to fill in the gaps and how many of the 9 matches on this weekend will I actually get? 2. I feed incredibly ripped off but I like my footy too much to cancel. And the quality of the streams just doesn’t come anywhere close to a TV broadcast.