Broadcasters are facing a worldwide surge in illegal streaming of live sports that’s depriving them of tens of billions of dollars in potential revenue, and there seems to be little they can do about it.
The unauthorized broadcasts can be appealing to cash-strapped fans looking to watch big-ticket events without paying subscription fees. But a lot of that money would otherwise flow back to the leagues themselves, so the bootleg broadcasts are effectively sucking money out of the clubs those fans support.
Piracy of live sports has been around ever since the 1980s, when hackers found ways to access encrypted ...
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