It was back in November that a Liverpool man appeared in court charged with selling devices that allowed illegal streaming of Premier League games. His defence argued that he was altruistically, if profitably, providing a service for those who could not afford a Sky subscription.
“The people he would have been dealing with in the Merseyside area have limited income, they would hardly be the same as toffs in London who would have money coming in from the city,” said his barrister. His client was, he suggested, a kind of “Robin Hood”.
That characterisation would have had smoke coming from the ears of those running companies severely impacted by illegal streaming. Robbin’, not Robin, they’d argue. But the judge in the case evidently wasn’t persuaded by the kindly portrayal of the man in the dock. He sentenced him to three years and four months in jail.
“I said it before, it’s no different to going in to your local shop, picking up a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk and just walking out the door without paying,” says Jimmy Doyle, the founder of Clubber, the subscription platform that streams GAA club games. “It’s theft, at the end of the day.”
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Noel Quinn, the head of GAA+, the association’s streaming service, agrees. “It is criminality, but it’s just not seen in the same way, it’s not seen as stealing. I think it’s a cultural thing in Ireland. We all love to beat ‘The Man’, it’s something people have a little bit of a giggle about.”
But Doyle and Quinn aren’t laughing. Their guess is that Clubber and GAA+ are both suffering an annual loss of 40 per cent in revenue due to illegal streaming, with an estimated 400,000 Irish homes possessing a dodgy box or fire stick that allows users watch subscription services for free.
Mark Scanlon, the League of Ireland director, reckons the figure is worse again for LOITV, the League’s streaming service which it runs in partnership with Premier Sports. When he appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Sport earlier this summer, he cited a 2023 survey that found that 54 per cent of the respondents admitted to illegally tuning in to LOITV.
LOITV’s revenue in 2024 was just €835,000, as opposed to GAA+’s €5.5 million. If that 54 per cent were paying customers, it would have made a heck of a difference to their balance sheet.
“It’s much like the impact Napster had on the music industry,” says Quinn, “it’s an evolution from that. GAA+ is no different to Netflix or Amazon Prime or any of the subscription services, we’re all impacted. But, no doubt, the global conglomerates can absorb a little bit more pain than ourselves, even though they are suffering huge losses as well. Add to that, we don’t have an international arm, like Fifa or World Rugby, to support us.”
For a company such as Clubber, which was only established in 2020, that “leakage” of revenue, as Doyle describes it, is potentially crippling. Worst-case scenario: it reaches a point where the business is no longer commercially viable, so the streaming of games ends. They’d be some loss, too, to followers of the club game – they aim to broadcast up to 2,000 matches this season.
“There’s an acceptance that this is okay, but it’s not,” says Doyle. “Maybe people think it’s okay to take from the likes of Sky, but it’s a huge threat, not just to us but to the more established players too.
“We’re a small company trying to get off the ground, the commentary guys, the videographers, it’s all local people who are involved in broadcasting these games, their neighbours are the ones who are illegally streaming them. They’re the people they’re hitting, so ultimately I just hope everyone sees that, that they understand this is theft.”
Quinn echoes that point. “A continuation of the piracy puts Irish jobs at risk. GAA+ employs 70 to 80 people over the course of a year, so that figure would need to be revised if this was to carry on.
“We’re not sitting in ivory towers in Croke Park, in a cost-of-living crisis we are steadfast in trying to take down financial barriers, we have empathy for people who want to access our games. But this year it worked out at less than €2 for each of the 40 we covered, so it’s not cost prohibitive, it’s a value-for-money product.
“For every euro that is earned, 82 per cent goes back in to the grassroots of our games. So for every euro that is stolen by a dodgy box, that’s 82 per cent less that we can invest in floodlights, coaching, bibs, balls, cones, 3G pitches and so on. So every dodgy-box owner is dipping into the GAA as a whole and limiting how we can achieve our goal of fostering participation in Gaelic games.”
The recent enough proliferation in court cases, both here and in the UK, against the dodgy-box and fire-stick sellers marks a renewed attempt to crack down on the trade. Large fines and, in some cases, jail sentences have been dished out.
But is it all a case of Whac-A-Mole? Eliminate a few of them, and 10 more pop up? No more than dopers in sport, are they always a step or more ahead of those hunting them, especially when it comes to technological advances that might help thwart the hunters?
“Yeah, there are a lot of very sophisticated people in the background involved in this and so you’re kind of one step away all the time,” says Doyle. “You need action on many different fronts to try to help curb something like this. There’s obviously an effort to tackle the big criminal masterminds who are behind it all, and then there are the smaller level criminals who are being tackled too. Which will be helpful.
“I certainly hope over time that more and more will be done. The ISPs [internet service providers] can probably help in this regard, they can quite easily curb it. It’s like any major crime that happens out in the world, once there’s a realisation that it’s a genuine problem, that it matters, then you’ll see it improve.”
Thus far, it’s largely been the big guns in the trade who have been pursued, but what about the end users? Snare a few of them and put the frighteners on the rest?
“That could well be the case,” says Quinn. “Suddenly it’s your neighbours, who teach your kids, serve you over the counter in the morning. They’re people you would not like anything to happen to, but ultimately they’re the people who are availing of dodgy boxes. And they go into it with eyes wide open, they know they shouldn’t be doing this. They’re looking over their shoulders now, and it’s right that they should. I can see that net closing in due course.”
The ever-escalating cost of multiple subscriptions to watch the English Premier League has, no doubt, been a major driver behind people turning to dodgy boxes. And if going down that route makes it marginally harder for, say, Manchester City to pay Erling Haaland €600,000 a week, there won’t be too many sleepless nights.
But the likes of Clubber, GAA+ and LOITV, and other smaller platforms, have been collateral damage in the effort to bypass the behemoths’ charges. Plug in your dodgy box or fire stick and it’s not just Sky and TNT Sports that pop up free of charge, but Clubber, GAA+ and LOITV too.
Most of those platforms, big and small, are now collaborating in their effort to fight the illegal operators, but Doyle, conceding there might be an innocence about his optimism, is hopeful there will be a realisation that if you don’t pay for services such as Clubber, it is likely to disappear.
“I do think there’s a perception among the consumers that it’s not the right thing to do. We’re starting to get a sense that people enjoy the service, value it and understand that a lot of people are putting in hard work, providing a professional service that needs to be paid for if it is to keep running. If that doesn’t happen, it could ruin it for everybody.
“It’s an up-and-down game, but I feel like we’re slowly but surely making that little bit of progress. That gives me some solace and confidence.”
Quinn is equally hopeful. “I’m glass half-full. I’m extremely proud of the gains the GAA has made in this streaming space in the last 10 years, the platform is performing beyond my own expectations. We’re very thankful for the members who are doing this legitimately and we’re relying on goodwill for people to do that. I’d be hopeful in due course that people will realise the benefit of going legit.”
