http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/e...rem/7902769.stm

The Premier League has admitted that illegal streaming of live football on the internet could have a dramatic impact on the professional game's finances.

A new deal worth almost two billion pounds over three years has just been reached between the Premier League, and broadcasters Sky and Setanta, who will show live matches in the UK.

But could it be the last big money deal that the game attracts?

Millions of fans are circumventing subscription channels by watching illegally-streamed matches on the internet for free.

Premier League lawyer Oliver Weingarten told the BBC that the most popular illegal sites attract up to a quarter of a million viewers for a single game.

Oh dear, looks like the Premier League are going to have to use their heads to think about this little problem that they've got. The attempts to try and stifle the web-football users look to be quite heavy handed, and the fact that 250,000 tune in over a weekend (bare in mind that are a decent amount of international viewers here) is not going to bring down people's willing to watch their team.

The Premier League have to accept they have created a global brand, with fans everywhere, who want to watch their team every week, as some of the best players in the world are in our league, and to see them, fans have to resort to watching online.

Personally, as an online viewer for games I cannot see on television (or afford to go to at the grounds) I do not detract any money from the EPL coffers, nor clubs. I pay my hefty subscription for Sky Sports and Setanta to watch football matches, I pay my £50 for a ticket to see games at the Bridge I can afford to, combined with some away matches, and I watch games on the internet at weekends, otherwise my only football fill from my team would be a 10 minute segment on the BBC or hope that the Sky Sports 'game of the day' happens to be ours.

Perhaps the FA should be looking at other systems, such as the NFL's blackout system, where games that are sold out 72 hours prior to the game, are televised on television locally (obviously it would have to be nationwide here, as in America they are basing that rule on the size of states. Perhaps the FA should be asking Commissioner Goodell about his thoughts on this when talking about a proposed 39th game next.

Thoughts anyone?

If it were easier for me to get matches on television I would. I get Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV which show england/italy and spain/germany respectively, but I only get about 5 Chelsea matches on TV - plus champions league on ESPN. In orderr for me to get sky or setanta I would have to change providers and order the channels specially. It would be great if you could order the games you want before the season starts, but I'm sure thats impossible.

I looked in to the mobile sky thing for your laptop, but its only available in the UK. If i could get TV quality streams on my laptop I would definitely do it, especially if I could pick which games to watch. Unfortunately my compatriots are not getting behind football enough to warrant too much interest from sky.

Agree 100% blueday. If they are so mad, then make it more readily available worldwide. Those of us outside the UK are screwed, and rely on one or two channels that show many European leagues. I.e. the chances of seeing the teams we want are slim.

They are never going to fully eradicate it. They should open viewership to those outside the UK through official providers, and charge. I dont know the legal details preventing it, but it seems like an obvious answer to me.

Agree 100% blueday. If they are so mad, then make it more readily available worldwide. Those of us outside the UK are screwed, and rely on one or two channels that show many European leagues. I.e. the chances of seeing the teams we want are slim.

They are never going to fully eradicate it. They should open viewership to those outside the UK through official providers, and charge. I dont know the legal details preventing it, but it seems like an obvious answer to me.

Here in New Zealand you can subscribe to Sky sports (seperate company, same name) and you can see most of the matches at around 3am. I'm away from home most of the time, so i watch streams. So the premier league is still getting money from me, even though i watch streams.

They had the idea of charging, but then they realised no one would pay money to watch Florent Malouda every week ¬___¬

It's funny because if they try to break down the stream system, they lose a good percentage of viewers in North America and Asia, and aren't most of the Premiership teams looking to expand the brands in those regions. During the year, I can catch 8 Chelsea games on TV and vastly rely on streams to see the rest. My provider has Setanta as a channel but for 10$ extra, and even there most of the games are not live when it comes to CFC (mind you Liverpool and Manure games are, go figure). So, how to they want the fans to follow the teams worldwide if not with stream. I would really not mind paying 10$ a month for Chelsea TV or something, as long as I can catch each game.

pirates? aaarrrrr you sure its not bluebeard?

Here in New Zealand you can subscribe to Sky sports (seperate company, same name) and you can see most of the matches at around 3am. I'm away from home most of the time, so i watch streams. So the premier league is still getting money from me, even though i watch streams.

you and I are in a very similar boat, then. For cable and internet I pay almost 100 dollars a month, which includes hefty add ons to get a digital package, simply to pay more for mediocre channels we have here like Fox Soccer (not bad) and Gol TV (substandard) of which, only the former show English games, and at that only 3 a week. Seeing Chelsea is a rare occasion, and there is no access to setanta at all.

Add to that sharing a tv (albeit a beauty) with a roomate and a girlfriend (shes not bad either ) and having to watch games on sat/sun morning, and it basically means I watch most of them on my laptop. Which makes me believe I could just go without paying all that money for sports bells and whistles on cable when i dont even get to enjoy it.

Still, I dont envy having to watch them at 3 am, though.

Yes, this is all silly talk. They need to be more like the NFL. I believe overseas fans can buy a package that allows them to stream all the games off the internet. I would do this for the EPL if it were available as I don't really relish watching my games off a grainy Korean feed or whatever is available. As it stands, I have no way to watch the Premier League besides streams.

My ISP carries ESPN360 which covers some lower league English stuff, the Carling Cup, Serie A, and Champions League but not the Premier League.

It was nice watching Inter-Man U on a high quality stream with English commentary today...