 As one of the world’s most popular football leagues, broadcast rights to the (English) Premier League are sold to 207 countries and widely distributed in Asia where the Premier League has a significant following. Content is commonly made available on television but is increasingly available online and through other platforms. Many countries have the games on subscription television channels – indeed, live Premier League football is currently shown only on such channels in the United Kingdom. Internet based methods of viewing games are therefore often sought by fans who are looking to circumvent pay-TV services.
During the 2007-2008 Premier League season, 177 different sites were located which contained or were connected to unauthorised streaming of matches. Of these, 122 (63%) used P2P methods to distribute the content with the remaining 37% streaming direct through Unicast means. Of the P2P streaming sites, 70 embedded streams into a web page on a site while 38 provided direct links to streams found on P2P streaming services or clients such as SopCast.
Compared to the other three leagues in the comparison table in 5.1 above, the Premier League has a much greater problem with paid sites: 27% of sites were accessible only after payment was made. This likely reflects the high level of demand for Premier League games as some site owners realise that a section of viewers are prepared to pay for guaranteed access to Premier League games.
NetResult also monitored the two largest streams for an important match between the top two clubs in the Premier League in April 2008. The match was broadcast on the subscription channel Sky Sports in the UK and offered through various other broadcast means in other countries. In total, 238,000 viewers are estimated to have watched the game on the two SopCast streams. A regional analysis of a sample of unauthorised viewers of each stream was conducted. The results are shown in the chart below.
 Clearly, Chinese viewers dominated the two streams, with just under half of all viewers located in the country (together with another 10% in Hong Kong). This shows both a high level of interest in the game in China (where one of the teams are particularly popular) but also the high level of usage of P2P streaming services in the country. The UK, home of the Premier League, contributed a total of 13% of viewers, the vast majority of which likely were not willing to pay for a subscription to the sports channel showing the game. After these three countries, the USA contributed 5% and Australia 2% (both of which are English speaking).
 5.4 Example: Bundesliga
During the 2007-08 season, NetResult located 85 sites or servers providing unauthorised live streams of Bundesliga games. The proportion of P2P-based streams was much higher than for the Premier League: 96% of infringing sites were using P2P technologies to provide streams or otherwise linking to or embedding a P2P stream. Only three sites were located providing a Unicast stream and eight sites were found which required a subscription to access live streams. The influence of China is again reflected in the country base of the infringing sites: 73% were based in the country with only 27% outside China.
It is also possible to stream many games from the German Bundesliga through the Bwin online betting service: potential viewers register with Bwin who are able to offer authorised streams to their members through established agreements with sporting leagues. Yet there are restrictions involved: for instance, viewers in Germany cannot watch Bundesliga games through Bwin and all viewers must deposit money in their Bwin account to be able to access the streams, limiting the popularity of this method. (Similarly, Bet365 are able to provide links to many non-football sports such as tennis to registered users). There is significantly less interest in the Bundesliga outside Germany than for the Premier League, La Liga, or Serie A outside their host countries.
5.5 Example: La Liga
 Over the course of a single weekend of monitoring in April 2008, 49 sites were located which offered access to unauthorised streams of La Liga matches. 80% of these sites provided links to streams P2P-based with a further 5% being sites of P2P developers. Only a single Unicast server was located. 14% of the located sites required a subscription to access the content.
A high proportion of viewers of streams for two monitored matches were located in the league’s home country, Spain, while China and the UK represented the second and third most popular regions for viewers. Both matches were on subscription television channels in Span.
 5.6 Example: Serie A
Over the course of a weekend of monitoring of Serie A matches, 53 infringing sites were located, a similar figure to that for La Liga. Of these, 88% were related to P2P streaming – 75% of all located sites were distributors offering links or embedding streams.
Subscriptions were necessary to access nine sites (17%). Of all 53 infringing sites, 57% were based in China.
A SopCast stream of a match between Inter Milan v Cagliari was monitored in late April 2008. The stream was of the Guangdong Sports Chinese television channel and had Chinese language commentary. The stream had 169,000 viewers, 45% of which were located in China with 17% in Italy itself.
5.7 Other Leagues and tournaments
Football content is available through live streaming services for a wide range of leagues and tournaments. For instance, many matches in the Romanian Liga I Bürger are available through direct unicast streams offering Telesport.ru and RO Sports channels, though SopCast streams are also usually available for these more specialised events. Scottish Premier League and English Football League matches can usually be found where they are being broadcast on live television.
Matches in tournaments like the UEFA Champions League are always well represented on live streams given the level of interest in the major European clubs which play in the competition.
Monitoring of the 2008 FA Cup Final on May 17th 2008 found 46 sites or servers streaming the event. 34 of these were P2P-related (74%). Of the 46 infringers found, 46% (21) were based in China; 25 were not (54%). Two SopCast streams of the match were viewed by a total of 139,000 users. On one of the streams, 68% of viewers were based in Hong Kong. An earlier FA Cup 5th Round match in February 2008 between Manchester United and Arsenal was also monitored and two Sopcast streams showed nearly 300,000 viewers. The lower figures for the final compared to the earlier match likely reflect the lesser-known teams that made it to the final.
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