We’re in a Golden Age of Illegal Sports Streams

www.theatlantic.com We’re in a Golden Age of Illegal Sports Streams

But why should anyone have to break the law to watch the Mets?

66 comments

I think the reddit streams pages (RIP /r/nbastreams, /r/soccerstreams, etc) were the peak of stream accessibility and quality for me. I have some go-to sites now, but those subreddits were so convenient and easy.

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- Agreed, those subs were easily the best.
  
  A lot have moved into Discord, which makes these things even more difficult. In general discord servers are insular little clubs. They tend to have strange unique rules and require you to jump through so many hoops to get initiated.
  
  The Discord format is like plugging into a stream of consciousness, so doesn't exactly lend itself to info-seeking like the forum format does.
  
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  I fucking hate discord. I know they also created a NBA discord once the reddit crackdown happened ads and at the beginning you'd get stream links in the chat, but now even that is banned, so usually I hurt Google stream, but it's a crapshoot
  
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  any links to said discords?
  
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- /r/soccerstreams was the best of times. I mostly watch Dutch football which has way fewer streams than the big European leagues. Since /r/soccerstreams closed I haven't been able to find streams nearly as easily.
  
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  I’ve been using sportshub for a few months now, it seems decent so far.
  
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- For a couple seasons, there was a private subreddit where they had extracted the official streams of every NFL game, and you could just open it in a web browser and watch in full quality for free with no ads other than what was in the actual broadcast. And for a while, there was a promotion in a few European countries for free NFL Sunday Ticket access, and if you started the stream over a VPN connection into one of those countries, you could turn the VPN off and it'd continue working. Then some online magazine published the trick and it stopped working the next week.
  
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- I used to stream Blue Jays games and random events when these were alive. I wouldn't know where to host streams nowadays.
  
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- I've a friend who knows all the resources to watch soccer where I live (Europe), but all the sites you talk about here are blocked by my gov (for sports).
  
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- RIP Bloodzeed
  
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These posts are fucking cancer and are literally just beacons saying “HEY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OVER HERE”

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- Yes... But then again how can other people know... It kind of sucks, I would have never found some steam sites w/o others sharing... But I get what you mean.
  
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  I don’t have a problem with sharing…but when these mainstream news sites out these places, there’s usually blood in the water coming. The same thing happened with a free VR piracy repo after Bonelab came out. It was shared by a mainstream game site and then tiktok. Afterwards, they had to go dark and switch to a paid / VIP only.
  
  Same effect happens with Nintendo fan games.
  
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  The first rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club.
  
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I mean if you're going to break the law at least do it for a decent team.

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- Because I don't want to have to pay a service just to watch my entire team suck.
  
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Mark my words. It's going to come to a point where you have to subscribe to your team each season to watch them play. They will throw in some bullshit extras like exclusive player interviews but it will all be a play to make you pay each season.

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- You say this like it's a bad thing. If I could get away with just paying for my one hockey team, instead of the legit, 3 fucking services you have to have currently to watch an entire season, I would do it on a heartbeat.
  
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  3?? Lol, I only watch Hockey and look at this shit. I have to pay $250 CAD just to get NHL while I don't give no fuck about anything else. Fuck that. I used to pay for NHLTV but now they don't sell it in Canada anymore. So fuck'em.
  
  Oh, forgot, they also have blackouts on certain games/regions.
  
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- They actually would be nice, but my soccer team, all TV rights are owned by corps that want to sell you 200$/month packages, so my team can sell me access to watch their games NON LIVE. Meaning I can watch them... After they've been played which is bullshit.
  
  I wouldn't mind paying 5$/month for my teams games only, but it's not really an option, so pirating it is!
  
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  A team I support did exactly this and it was quite successful. I believe it was $60-$70 for the whole season and included ALL home games (League, cup, and Europe) with replays posted on the same day. For me, it was worth it but I watch almost all their games
  
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Interesting to have a big magazine that is The Atlantic this topic in this light. People are absolutely fed up with the fragmentation of services and then how many restrictions there are around viewing LEGAL streams.

When illegal streaming ends up being more convenient, easier to setup and have more features, it's not at all a surprise that people flock to it.

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This article really doesn't say much of anything, does it?

Either way, yeah I'd argue that for as bad as TV/movie streaming has gotten, sports have actually gotten worse. The NHL, for instance, requires ESPN+ but you can't watch your local team. If you aren't in your local teams area, you can't watch any nationally broadcasted games on ESPN, TNT, or NHL Network, which accounts to many games a year if you're a fan of a big market team.

With that in mind, finding the right stream is honestly harder than many people say. No, lots of streams out there aren't in high quality, many are choppy, and some will crash at random moments. Once you find the right stream, hold on to it close to your chest.

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- We haven't been able to watch our local NBA and NHL teams in 4 years on most major cable/satellite providers in the area because of a contract dispute (that's what happens when the same guy owns every team AND the sports network). Last season, one of our team's games was nationally televised on TNT - and you STILL couldn't watch it in our area because of blackout restrictions. It was an away game that was not airing on the local sports network...it was literally only on TNT, and you still couldn't watch it.
  
  Now even my 73-year-old dad is proficient in finding illegal sports streams.
  
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I do find it ironic that they talk about piracy and hide the piece behind a paywall.

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- Lol, paywall free https://archive.ph/05OSE
  
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Only watch NFL but the online streams were still a little hit/miss on that bitey site.

Not sure of better alternatives to that one though

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- they come and they go. first row sports used to be good. reddit for a while. now i go to soccer online dot me and click around the available sports. I can almost always get a nice HD stream of the major American sports and of course, futbol.
  
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The other question is how many people that read this actually payed for Atlantic’s subscription.

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lmao i misread the header and spent a hot moment wondering "what's an illegal sports team?"

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- What's an illegal sports team?
  
  I'll have a crack at that: it's Manchester City.
  
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  What's illigal about Manchester City?
  
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- what's an illegal sport?
  
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  Skateboarding or parkour in some places I guess.
  
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College Football and NFL are ripe for having a one stop shop for streamers and they won't do it. MNF I'll find a stream for it (a few football games is not worth me subscribing to cable). I pay for NFL Sunday Ticket and I have Amazon Prime so I get the rest of the games. Those games that fall outside of that are going to be acquired on the high seas.

As for College Football, half the games I want to watch will never be aired in my market nationally or on cable so streaming is the only option.

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Seeing these types of articles in publications like The Atlantic makes me dread a coming crackdown.

It's always better when this type of stuff is unknown in the mainstream

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Leagues like MLB make it really difficult to consume their content, with all the stupid side deals and blackout restrictions. Sometimes it's like they force you to seek alternatives. Or, just not watch at all.

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I have been able to follow all racing events I wanted for the past couple years through a few trusted restreamers that I found, sadly now, via Reddit on r/motorsportsstreams. They don't have a community in the Fediverse yet (some of them opting for very badly managed and unmoderated Discord servers) but I hope that they do, soon. Their streams are very good and often better quality than official sources.

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What stream are you guys using to watch cricket matches ?

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I wish there was an easy way to watch the non-main four sports like tennis. I would love to watch the early matches at Wimbledon but it's really difficult!

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My wife really needs to watch the Ravens game this weekend. From California, because not everyone is a fan of their regional team, and apparently if you are a fan of a faraway team, that means you are a super-fan and should be charged extra money.

I, personally, am not a sports fan, so I'm happy to watch things at later times and dates than the very moment when they're happening. But knowing what's happening RIGHT NOW is important for those who are True Believers™

Is there a fast way to surf the streemz like a gentleman of fortune, or do I need to pay my dues and do the research on my own?

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Watching sports in the US is now an exercise in frustration

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- Much the same as watching the Premiere League considering the majority of it is only on Sky.
  
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