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First Streameast Gets Sniped, Now RedZone Will Have Full Commercials
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
This is an unbelievably tough day for many right before football season starts. Streameast, the most popular illegal streaming site, has been shut down and the two guys running it in Egypt were captured, according to Chris Cwik at Yahoo! Sports, citing The Athletic’s Adam Leventhal:
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) said it worked with Egyptian law enforcement officials to disrupt the service Aug. 24, per the Athletic. ACE is an anti-piracy coalition comprised of multiple media organizations, including Amazon and Netflix, among other companies.
Streameast reportedly generated 1.6 billion visits over the past year, per the Athletic. The service offered illegal streams of Premier League and Champions League games, as well as NFL, MLB and NBA contests. It also provided pirated access to pay-per-view events, like certain MMA fights. Streameast reportedly drew 136 million average monthly visits.
Two men were arrested in Egypt as part of the operation. Authorities reportedly seized laptops and smartphones that allegedly helped operate the site. The raid also uncovered a shell company, in which it’s believed $6.2 million in ad revenue was laundered. Roughly $200,000 in cryptocurrency was also uncovered. It’s believed multiple real estate properties in Egypt were purchased with the illicit funds, per The Athletic.
Speaking of ad revenue, Scott Hanson announced on The Pat McAfee Show he has a new catch phrase because NFL RedZone will have full commercials this season:
We all knew this is inevitable. We didn’t want to believe it, but even if the ESPN and RedZone partnership technically doesn’t start until next year it was always going to be a thing. This was inevitable once the term “shareholder value” was introduced. The NFL is the most-watched sport in the entire country. ESPN is going to squeeze out as much profit for The Mouse as they can and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a sweetener in the deal for either side so they can test it out for a year. Still, it doesn’t feel right. It was the last of a dying a breed. It still made you hold out hope that there was something out there that was still pure and not a corporate bean counter trying to sell you soda or chips. A guy who would refuse to piss calling seven hours of commercial free football because he had passion and loved ball. Sure, there was an occasional ad here and there, but football rarely ever left the screen. Now we have to hope the producers pick the right moment to go to commercial so you don’t miss your parlay hitting or your fantasy team getting some points.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com