Sports Piracy in Central America

By Mayora IP

TV operators, service providers, right holders and sports associations discussed the growing problem of the illegal retransmission of contents in Central America, both on television and on internet, during an event organized by the Guatemalan-American Chamber of Commerce and APRODICA, a non-profit association formed by international TV operators and programmers.

“Live broadcasts of sporting events are the most valuable content differentiator that TV channels and cable operators have to offer to consumers. On the other hand, this also causes that sports are the most desired product from pirate companies and by those who profit by appropriating rights that do not correspond,” said Rodolfo Mendoza, Executive Director of APRODICA Guatemala.

In Central America 36% of the sports content market share is viewed through piracy platforms and 50% of Internet users access sports content illegally, figures that create huge annual losses to governments and all the parties involved in the legal transmission of sports events.

The countries with the highest percentage of piracy are Honduras (49%) and Nicaragua (47%), followed by Guatemala (39%), Panama (33%) and El Salvador (29%). Costa Rica has the lowest piracy market share of the region, estimated at 21%.

“Piracy is a global problem, and this must be solved legally with tools that provide information, evidence and infrastructure to request a blockade, in addition to having legal protection,” stated Emilio Fernández, Operations Director at Spain’s soccer competition LaLiga.

Fernández was among several authorities from top international sports competitions. Rodrigo Fernández, from the United States Major League Baseball (MLB) also admitted its association troubles with piracy, specially online. “We publish a large amount of content on social networks that is stolen daily by pirate platforms. We have several obstacles in protecting our copyright and we must work together between all of us,” he said.

A 2020 report by Synamedia, commissioned to discover about the motivations of those who consume live sports piracy globally, stated that almost a third of sports pirate service users claim their motivation is due to the lack of a legitimate supplier in their market. The online report studied data and analytics based on 6,000 sports fans aged 18-64.

Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote, President of AmCham argued that “piracy is a cultural issue that has become normalized mainly among young people who seek to be able to make sports content visible at any cost” so the challenge “is also about raising awareness in the population about the importance of being able to access these transmissions legally”.