Sports streaming piracy is booming. Rightsholders are repeatedly sounding the alarm bell, calling for tougher legislation, website blocking, and instant takedowns to prevent further losses. In Greece, two of the largest streaming platforms are trying to battle the piracy issue with a highly experimental approach; cheap bundles, to lower the costs for legitimate viewers.
In recent years, rightsholders of major sports events have repeatedly complained that piracy of live sports is getting out of hand.

Ideally, they would like to see updates to the current legislative frameworks, so the problem can be targeted more efficiently.

Most of the discussion is focused on tighter enforcement and more restrictions, including site blocking and automated takedowns. However, there are other roads that lead to Rome, or Athens for that matter.

Affordable Access to Beat Piracy?

In Greece, two of the larger sports streaming services came up with an experimental idea. Rather than using sticks to tackle online pirates, they’re trying carrots instead. While most rightsholders wouldn’t immediately consider this option, on paper it makes sense.

This week, Cosmote TV and Nova signed a new deal designed to provide customers with access to more sports for less money. Starting on August 23, subscribers of one service can get content from the other, for a minimal extra charge.

Under the new agreement, Cosmote TV subscribers will pay just three euros extra for access to Nova’s content. At the same time, Nova subscribers can view Cosmote’s sports offerings for just one extra euro. In both cases, the price for the total package starts at less than 20 euros (USD$22).

While the services may have some overlap in their regular programming, both have several unique sports licensing deals in place that can soon be accessed for a fraction of the costs.

Nova has content from the Premier League and various other football leagues, the Grand Slams for tennis fans, Masters golf tournaments, and the European basketball league. Cosmote TV, meanwhile, has the UEFA Champions League, NBA, MotoGP, NFL and UFC, among others.

Fighting Pirates with Pricing
The sports streaming services are not secretive about the reason for this unique partnership. They’re explicitly advertising it as a way to compete with pirate streaming services, hoping to take back market share.

“This agreement is a decisive step both for dealing with piracy that is constantly spreading, and for the development of the pay-TV market,” Cosmote’s announcement reads.

“By offering all premium sports content at competitive prices and on a single platform, Nova is taking an important step in the fight against content piracy,” Nova adds, in a separate press release.

Other streaming platforms are interested in joining the action too, with Vodafone TV and ANT1+ being mentioned as potential candidates in local news reports.

A New Trend?
The partnership doesn’t mean that Greece will abandon its traditional enforcement options, which include site blocking. But, a more affordable subscription will certainly make legal alternatives more appealing than ‘unreliable’ pirate streams.

Euro2day reports that Greece has an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 illegal IPTV subscriptions, for a total population of just over 10 million, so it should be possible to convert some pirates into paying customers.

Many existing pirates are avid sports fans who already pay for legitimate subscriptions, but pirate on the side. If they only have to pay a euro extra to access everything hassle-free, that might be an offer too good to refuse.

Whether this ‘revolutionary’ idea will pay off has yet to be seen, but it’s not difficult to imagine that it could work elsewhere too. Perhaps Netflix, Disney, Max, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Apple TV, Fubo, plus Peacock and friends, can give it a try, some day.

Finally, someone made some sense. I hope every sports group follows their lead.