Fastly & LALIGA target pirate live football streams
Fastly and LALIGA have launched a joint project to detect and remove pirated live football streams. Focused on LALIGA competitions, the effort aims to reduce losses linked to illegal broadcasts.
The organisations have been working together since last year on technical measures to identify unauthorised streams in real time. Fastly has developed a detection system that uses artificial intelligence and content signals to spot illegal feeds, allowing platforms to remove infringing material more quickly and accurately.
Illegal streaming has become a major problem for sports rights holders and broadcasters. LALIGA estimates piracy costs its clubs between $700 million and $800 million a year by eroding the value of media rights deals and diverting audiences from authorised services.
A broader market study suggests the problem extends well beyond Spain. Research by Grant Thornton found at least 10.8 million unauthorised retransmissions of live events in 2024. More than 81% were never suspended, and only 2.7% were addressed within the first 30 minutes of an event.
These figures matter because live sport derives much of its value from exclusivity and immediacy. If viewers can easily access free illegal streams, rights holders face weaker bargaining power in future television negotiations and lower returns for clubs that depend on broadcast income.
Precision Focus
The project is designed to avoid broad countermeasures that can disrupt legitimate users. Rather than relying on regional or blanket IP blocking, it aims to isolate specific infringing streams while leaving other traffic unaffected.
This issue has drawn greater scrutiny as anti-piracy efforts raise concerns about lawful users or unrelated websites being caught up in enforcement. Fastly and LALIGA are developing software and operating practices that allow media groups and publishers to flag confirmed pirated content and disable those streams without wider collateral damage.
LALIGA said the work forms part of a broader anti-piracy campaign that combines legal, educational, institutional and technical measures. According to the league, that strategy helped cut piracy of its streams in Spain by 60% during the 2024/25 season.
"At LALIGA, we have succeeded in reducing piracy of our streams in Spain by 60% during the 2024/25 season through a comprehensive, end-to-end strategy focused on legal, educational, institutional, and technological measures," said Javier Tebas, President, LALIGA.
"This success is due in large part to our ecosystem of partners like Fastly, enabling us to continue exploring new and more effective ways to tackle piracy at its root. LALIGA remains firmly committed to putting an end to piracy, and achieving this goal requires the collaboration of all stakeholders working together."
Industry Pressure
The partnership reflects a broader push across media, technology and sport to respond to a fast-moving piracy market. Illegal streaming sites often appear and disappear rapidly around match days, making enforcement difficult when takedowns come after much of the audience has already watched the event.
For content owners, the challenge is both technical and commercial. Football leagues, clubs and broadcasters have invested heavily in rights structures built on paid access, and those revenues support team operations, player spending and wider competition finances.
Fastly said the project aligns with its work for platform customers that need to identify and remove unlawful content quickly. It is also collaborating with other technology groups, publishers and regulators on software tools and best practices for detecting and disabling unauthorised streams.
Kelly Shortridge, Chief Product Officer at Fastly, said the method differs from broader blocking tactics that can affect legitimate viewers.
"Unlike alternative approaches based on regional blocking, our strategy focuses on precision, letting fans enjoy the game while protecting content from abuse by criminals," said Shortridge.
"At Fastly, we love co-innovating with customers to solve their thorniest challenges, and we look forward to continuing our work with LALIGA to help protect content owners around the world."