{"id":16328,"date":"2025-08-22T14:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T14:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/16328\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T14:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T14:48:09","slug":"its-local-people-theyre-hitting-i-hope-everyone-sees-that-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/16328\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s local people they\u2019re hitting, I hope everyone sees that\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was back in November that a Liverpool man appeared in court charged with selling devices that allowed illegal streaming of Premier League<\/a> games. His defence argued that he was altruistically, if profitably, providing a service for those who could not afford a Sky subscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d said his barrister. His client was, he suggested, a kind of \u201cRobin Hood\u201d. <\/p>\n

That characterisation would have had smoke coming from the ears of those running companies severely impacted by illegal streaming. Robbin\u2019, not Robin, they\u2019d argue. But the judge in the case evidently wasn\u2019t persuaded by the kindly portrayal of the man in the dock. He sentenced him to three years and four months in jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said it before, it\u2019s 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,\u201d says Jimmy Doyle, the founder of Clubber, the subscription platform that streams GAA<\/a> club games. \u201cIt\u2019s theft, at the end of the day.\u201d <\/p>\n

Noel Quinn, the head of GAA+, the association\u2019s streaming service, agrees. \u201cIt is criminality, but it\u2019s just not seen in the same way, it\u2019s not seen as stealing. I think it\u2019s a cultural thing in Ireland. We all love to beat \u2018The Man\u2019, it\u2019s something people have a little bit of a giggle about.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Doyle and Quinn aren\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n

Mark Scanlon, the League of Ireland<\/a> director, reckons the figure is worse again for LOITV, the League\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

LOITV\u2019s revenue in 2024 was just \u20ac835,000, as opposed to GAA+\u2019s \u20ac5.5 million. If that 54 per cent were paying customers, it would have made a heck of a difference to their balance sheet. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s much like the impact Napster had on the music industry,\u201d says Quinn, \u201cit\u2019s an evolution from that. GAA+ is no different to Netflix or Amazon Prime or any of the subscription services, we\u2019re 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\u2019t have an international arm, like Fifa or World Rugby, to support us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a company such as Clubber, which was only established in 2020, that \u201cleakage\u201d 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\u2019d be some loss, too, to followers of the club game \u2013 they aim to broadcast up to 2,000 matches this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an acceptance that this is okay, but it\u2019s not,\u201d says Doyle. \u201cMaybe people think it\u2019s okay to take from the likes of Sky, but it\u2019s a huge threat, not just to us but to the more established players too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a small company trying to get off the ground, the commentary guys, the videographers, it\u2019s all local people who are involved in broadcasting these games, their neighbours are the ones who are illegally streaming them. They\u2019re the people they\u2019re hitting, so ultimately I just hope everyone sees that, that they understand this is theft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CorkCork City manager Ger Nash speaks to LOITV before a match against Waterford in August. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Quinn echoes that point. \u201cA 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re 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 \u20ac2 for each of the 40 we covered, so it\u2019s not cost prohibitive, it\u2019s a value-for-money product.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

\"GAAGOGAAGO presenter Gr\u00e1inne McElwain with pundits S\u00e9amus Hickey and Eoin Cadogan before a Waterford-Clare match in Thurles in 2023. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, there are a lot of very sophisticated people in the background involved in this and so you\u2019re kind of one step away all the time,\u201d says Doyle. \u201cYou need action on many different fronts to try to help curb something like this. There\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s like any major crime that happens out in the world, once there\u2019s a realisation that it\u2019s a genuine problem, that it matters, then you\u2019ll see it improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus far, it\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could well be the case,\u201d says Quinn. \u201cSuddenly it\u2019s your neighbours, who teach your kids, serve you over the counter in the morning. They\u2019re people you would not like anything to happen to, but ultimately they\u2019re the people who are availing of dodgy boxes. And they go into it with eyes wide open, they know they shouldn\u2019t be doing this. They\u2019re looking over their shoulders now, and it\u2019s right that they should. I can see that net closing in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u20ac600,000 a week, there won\u2019t be too many sleepless nights. <\/p>\n

\"WaterfordWaterford manager Peter Queally being interviewed by Clubber before a match against Cork. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\n

But the likes of Clubber, GAA+ and LOITV, and other smaller platforms, have been collateral damage in the effort to bypass the behemoths\u2019 charges. Plug in your dodgy box or fire stick and it\u2019s not just Sky and TNT Sports that pop up free of charge, but Clubber, GAA+ and LOITV too. <\/p>\n

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\u2019t pay for services such as Clubber, it is likely to disappear. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do think there\u2019s a perception among the consumers that it\u2019s not the right thing to do. We\u2019re 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\u2019t happen, it could ruin it for everybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an up-and-down game, but I feel like we\u2019re slowly but surely making that little bit of progress. That gives me some solace and confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinn is equally hopeful. \u201cI\u2019m glass half-full. I\u2019m 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\u2019re very thankful for the members who are doing this legitimately and we\u2019re relying on goodwill for people to do that. I\u2019d be hopeful in due course that people will realise the benefit of going legit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was back in November that a Liverpool man appeared in court charged with selling devices that allowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,5286,14724,19,17,6435,4657,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-16328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-gaa","10":"tag-gaa-plus","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-league-of-ireland","14":"tag-sky","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}