La Liga President Javier Tebas Is On A Mission To End Piracy
Last week, LA LIGA President Javier Tebas was in New York City to speak at the United Nations General Assembly. Top of his agenda was the growing internet piracy issue plaguing sports. Beforehand, he sat down with me at the new LALIGA offices in Chelsea. We spoke about the Spanish soccer league's campaign against illegal streaming, and the possibility of a competitive LALIGA match in the U.S.
Tebas said that LA LIGA has been fighting illegal streaming for over 11 years. In recent weeks, he has called piracy "the biggest challenge in the world of football and the sports industry in general." In fact, in recent months it seems like illegal streaming is the outspoken LA LIGA president's favorite topic of conversation, and with good reason: he says it is costing LA LIGA roughly €700 million each season.
LA LIGA isn't the only league suffering from this phenomenon. Last year the UFC, the NBA, and the NFL issued a joint statement to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in which they calculated that due to piracy "the global sports industry is losing up to $28 billion in additional potential annual revenue." The piracy tracking firm VFT calculated that roughly 17 million fans watched the 2024 Super Bowl illegally. Moreover, a 2023 survey of over 3000 NFL fans showed that 35% of respondents illegally stream NFL games.
The LA LIGA president is unwilling to sit idly by while this problem continues. This season, LA LIGA has begun fining fans who have accessed their content illegally. Thanks to a ruling by a Spanish court, the Spanish league now has access to first and last names of certain fans (specific parameters had to be met) illegally pirating its content. It sent out thousands of fines for the amount of €450.16, which Tebas says "a large part of fans accepted to pay, and have subsequently stopped pirating."
While pirating may seem like a trivial issue to the average fan looking to save a few dollars, it is an existential threat to major sports leagues. According to Tebas, roughly €300 million of the €700 million lost annually are from illegal streamers in Spain. The other €400 million are lost in the global market. This loss means less money is brought in through TV deals and then less money is fed down to the clubs that make up the league.
It is hard to feel bad for leagues and clubs valued in the billions or hundreds of millions of dollars, but when fans stop to think about it, there is an argument to be made that they are hurting the very clubs that they profess to love. Although, it's hard to imagine they would see it that way.
If illegal streaming continues apace, Tebas fears that some TV broadcast deals could decrease the next time they are up for negotiation. He says he sees this as "a real possibility," and stated in a previous interview that "If this piracy thing doesn't change in two years, audiovisual rights will go down. Salaries may go down and some clubs may disappear."
There is light at the end of the tunnel for the LA LIGA president. In Argentina, a recent federal court ruling ordered Google to block the downloading and use of the well-known pirating platform Magis TV. The impact of the ruling in Argentina cannot be understated. Tebas says that up until this point, Google has said they could not block the Android application, but now they will be forced to.
Tebas hopes similar rulings can be applied elsewhere around the world and noted that LALIGA is involved in, and has prepared roughly 70 criminal court cases against Google as "necessary cooperator in the theft of television broadcasting rights." He added that "all the broadcasters know that Google is the principal, or one of the principal problems with piracy."
Clarifying his point, the LA LIGA president explained that most fans use two methods to find an illegal stream through which they watch a game, a url search, or an application on their smartphone. When searching for a url, fans inevitably use Google, and the search engine profits from that. Data confirms Tebas's statement that Google dominates 90% of the url/search engine market, and Android owns 70% of the smartphone apps market. With Google forced to remove the ability to download an illegal streaming application and url access, piracy can be kept somewhat in check.
When asked if one sports league is powerful enough to take on Google, Tebas responded saying, Google es fuerte, pero nosotros somos pesados ("Google is strong, but we are difficult [to deal with].")
With so much value at stake it would make sense for sports leagues around the world to team up and tackle this problem. As of now, that has not happened. Tebas is happy to continue leading from the front, and is unafraid of taking on Google, X, Telegram and other platforms that host illegal streamers or spread the message about how to find their content. However, he would welcome help from governing bodies and sovereign nations, which is why he planned to plead with world leaders at the UN General Assembly to enact the measures necessary to adequately fight back against a trend that is leaving their sports leagues and economies poorer.
Despite having his mind fixed on piracy issues, Tebas was also happy to discuss the controversial possibility of a competitive LA LIGA match coming to the U.S. He was unwilling to confirm when this would happen — some reports have indicated it could be as early as this December, others say it will be during the 2025-26 season — but he did say "LA LIGA is always thinking about it."
Tebas did however confirm that the first competitive LA LIGA game played outside Spain will be in Miami. This is to repay the city's show of faith at previous attempts to bring competitive games to the U.S. It does raise questions, though, about security, which created huge issues at the 2024 Copa America final, and about climate in a city that consistently floods, is in the hurricane pathway, and has an average annual temperature and humidity of 86.7°F and 82%.
The Spanish league president also made clear that no teams will be forced to play on foreign soil, they must agree to come voluntarily.
Tebas was also bullish that there is no negative repercussion for local Spanish markets losing one home game a season. In fact, he said bringing games to the U.S. is a show of respect to the hundreds of thousands of LA LIGA fans in America. It's hard to imagine local Spanish fans will see things the same way.
Competitive games in the U.S. have become a common topic of discussion for the Premier League as well as LA LIGA, and the Spaniards will not want to be beaten to the biggest sports market in the world by a league that already dwarfs their annual TV revenue. If the U.S. is to be soccer's final frontier, LA LIGA needs to conquer it before its biggest competitor.
