Illegal streaming: Research reveals rise in piracy and desire for scrapping of 3pm blackout

Illegal streaming of football is on the rise in the UK and most fans want the Saturday 3pm blackout lifted, a new podcast released by The Athletic has revealed.

The Underground World of Illegal Streaming — a special episode of The Athletic FC podcast that looks at the culture, crime and crisis associated with illegal streaming — outlines that almost five million people in the UK consumed pirated sports coverage over the past six months.

As part of the audio documentary, The Athletic commissioned market research company YouGov Sport to poll the consumption of illegal streams, the devices people use and whether they are concerned about the risk of cybercrime and data theft. We would also like to hear specifically from subscribers to The Athletic on this topic, so have included a survey form at the bottom of this article.

Listen to this special episode of The Athletic FC podcast for free on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts

The key finding was that nine per cent of the UK’s adult population had watched sport via an illegal stream in the six months up to October 2025, equating to 4.7m people. On top of those figures, 9.7 per cent (equivalent to 5m people) said they did not know or preferred not to say. The research also does not include anyone younger than 18.

The results represent a rise of approximately 200,000 people compared to the last running of the poll two years ago, when 8.7 per cent of respondents admitted to consuming an illegal stream. The data was generated from a representative sample size of 2,000 people.

“It’s very difficult to know the full scale of illegal streaming,” says Kieron Sharp, chairman of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), one of many people to feature in the podcast. “We have an idea and we know where to look, but the actual scale of the problem in its entirety, we can never be completely certain.”

The poll focused on sport as a whole, but the vast majority (78 per cent) of respondents highlighted they had watched illegal football streams, with boxing (31 per cent) the second-most popular sport. As with the overall consumption figure, football’s share is up from 73 per cent in 2023.

Unauthorised websites remain the most common way (42 per cent) of watching sports illegally. Firesticks — which applies to Amazon Fire TV Stick devices, but is also a catchall phrase that includes other internet-based TV options — was the second-most prevalent consumption method, with 31 per cent. Social media streams (20 per cent), pubs and bars (16 per cent), and VPNs (15 per cent) were other options people chose.

“It has become very acute and that has really been a position that’s developed, mostly for the worse, over the past few years,” says Gareth Sutcliffe, from tech and media researchers Enders Analysis. “If there are better services available elsewhere and there is more innovation and more choice, then consumers are going to move in that direction, even if that includes piracy.”

The Premier League shut down or blocked a combined 660,000 social media and website live streams last season alone.

“Those who choose to consume Premier League matches through illegal streams risk more than just poor viewing quality,” a league spokesperson told The Athletic. “They expose themselves to serious threats, including malicious viruses that can steal personal data, hijack devices and lead to identity theft and financial fraud. Investigations and prosecutions have also repeatedly uncovered the links between piracy operations and wider serious criminal activity.”

Crimestoppers — an independent UK charity — says five million users experienced a virus, fraud or personal data theft as a result of watching illegal streams last year. However, two-thirds of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults said they were not concerned about the threats.

“There’s a real concern that despite the illegality and the links to organised crime, it’s been normalised in a way,” said Sky’s chief sports officer Jonathan Licht at a season launch event in August. “That’s dangerous for everyone. That’s dangerous for the industry.”

The Saturday 3pm blackout — which prevents the live UK broadcast of games between 2:45 and 5:15pm — is widely regarded as a contributory factor to illegal streaming, and 57 per cent of fans polled would like it scrapped. The majority vote is up five per cent from 2023, with only 26 per cent in support.

The blackout, first devised in the 1960s to protect lower-league crowds and enforced in the UK since the mid-1980s, means anyone who wants to watch a Saturday 3pm kick-off has to either go to the game or watch via an illegal stream. Eighteen per cent of fans say they are more likely to attend games in person because of the blackout. That figure rises to 42 per cent of regular match-going fans.

In general, 77 per cent of football fans would be interested in watching Saturday 3pm kick-offs live on TV, with 83 per cent of match-going fans in agreement.

“The Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), on behalf of match-going supporters, has long had a position that the 3pm blackout is justified,” says FSA chair Tom Greatrex. “But it is also the case that many fans are starting to adjust their views, particularly fans of larger clubs who may find it difficult to be able to get to games themselves.”

Greatrex believes many people turn to illegal streams because subscription prices have “become prohibitively expensive” and because they need more than one. In the UK, fans require subscriptions to both Sky Sports and TNT Sports to watch live Premier League action, with further Champions League matches streamed on Amazon Prime.

“You don’t see one episode of Breaking Bad on Netflix and another on Apple TV, and another again on Prime the week after,” says Greatrex. “That has a cumulative impact and there is opportunity for some rebalancing with the way that product is offered to supporters that may well actually help (the piracy issue).”

We would like to hear your views on illegal streaming. Please complete the anonymous survey below and we will publish the findings later this week.

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