9 ms·

One of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product (f

One of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product (football essentially features two of the greatest players to play the game in last 10 years, only one now) but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. Sample this: The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. They host 10 rounds every week, most in different slots to get more eyeballs. They have acted in bad faith in a sense too. Spanish law requires one of those 10 games to be free to air. They made sure that game is one held on Friday or Monday at 11 PM (teams' fans call it graveyard shift) and nothing on f2a tv on weekend.The ones listed are the ideas which made through while others like having one random game in US thankfully did not. Though, given their ineptitude, its a sure wonder how they managed to execute this so well. Bars should not be streaming the games illegally either. But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. There is no official streaming service - albeit not bundled with cable tv subscription - that people in these countries can make use of to watch games. The path forward maybe what Formula1 did by introducing a streaming service which is not geo blocked. This way, I can watch a race at reasonable subscription from anywhere in the world. They also allow me a racer only feed, or the global feed, or a feed from a particular stand. I will definitely buy it if any official football league offers that too.

airstrike 7y ago
> But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.
- CtrlAltT5wpm 7y ago
  Take this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars, at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches. How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive demand, but it would be interesting to find out.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - kevinmchugh 7y ago
    For pay-per-view events there's usually a commercial PPV sales channel as well. Joe Hand Promotions handled it for the UFC up until this year (now it's all under ESPN+). JHP has some formula for determining cost, it's at least partially determined by venue capacity, hence the use of a cover charge.
    - Fripplebubby 7y ago
      I believe UFC still sells with a commercial formula for bars, I don't know if it's through JHP or not, but my understanding is that ESPN+ is for private consumers only
      - kevinmchugh 7y ago
        oh, I thought ESPN+ also was doing the commercial licenses. They might handle the delivery now, but yeah, it's Joe Hand still that does the negotiation.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  $200 is not that far off from what an individual would pay. Surely the rebroadcast rights that a bar would need are much, much higher than that, no?
  - teej 7y ago
    I know pay-per-view typically works that way. I remember seeing the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight costed bars something like $30 x bar capacity to air.
    - scrooched_moose 7y ago
      Commercial licenses for standard cable are surprisingly reasonable per receiver (when compared to consumer) at $87.99 a month for DirecTV. Keep in mind many bars have 10+ receivers so they can show multiple events. If you scroll down, it gets ugly on specific sports packages. NFL Sunday Ticket tops out at $2680/year, compared to about $300 for consumer. https://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv-for-business/restaurants-and-bars-tv-solutions https://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv-for-business/...
- MAGZine 7y ago
  Illegal in this case may not mean streaming from some random website, it may mean buying a regular cable subscription and rebroadcasting it to your bar. You need special permission (and may need to pay extra) to "perform," copyrighted works for a larger audience, in the same way you can play music over a speaker for yourself, but not for a large group of people.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I was under the impression that a business would need to pay a screening fee for showing the game - I'd assume that illegally in this case doesn't mean via bitorrent but instead means playing content from a residential cable subscription to an audience. I tend to side strongly with bars in most of these cases as broadcasters absolutely must be aware that bars frequently want to show sports games and they have failed to make licensing for this sort of showing reasonable from a logistical standpoint (sometimes wanting to charge a royalty based on how many distinct people watched any part of the game) that might actually be a reasonable fee in the end - but the cost of calculating the proper fee to pay outsizes the fee itself.
  - monksy 7y ago
    HBO has gone after bars showing GOT as well. In Chicago, I've seen bars charge $30 a person for entry to see a PPV fight.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      I, personally, have even less pity for HBO since, up here in Canada, you really have to pay serious cash to legally watch any exclusive shows - and two years ago you were just out of luck if you didn't have a cable package, unless you were getting your interwebs through Bell IIRC. I feel no pity for content producers that disallow a reasonably priced (or any) access to their content and then cry foul at pirating. I similarly feel no pity for people who pirate old games that haven't been abandon-ware'd if they're available for a pittance on GOG. I value my time highly and trying to circumvent obstacles in my effort to give a content producer money is something I refuse to put any serious effort into.
    - cco 7y ago
      Last time I looked a UFC PPV fight was around 3,000 for a bar to show.
- iagooar 7y ago
  Spanish bars truly are a perfect example of a race to the bottom, when it comes to prices. Sure, the financial crisis hit the country really hard, but trying to attract customers by lowering prices is not the best strategy in the long term. This is when 200 € / month hurt - because you already run on a very tiny profit margin. Soccer / football is such a huge thing in Spain, people would understand if they need to pay a little extra for their drinks or food in bars that have decent infrastructure to broadcast the games. Yet somehow most bar owners are afraid to take the risk. I know this, because I used to live there for many years, and keep going there to visit relatives many times a year.
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  We're talking about Spain. They recently emerged from a gruelling recession, their shadow economy makes up an estimated 20% of real GDP, and competition ran their profits into the ground. Even if small businesses have the cash, there's no incentive for them to spend it, and they're probably still in hoarding-cash mode.
  - anthk 7y ago
    This is Spain. No matter what, bars are always full here, and there is over 8 bars per streets at avarage. Also, Soccer is the true religion here, not Christianity. Add Soccer and bars and you get basically what truly the average Spaniard does love from the Pyrenees to the Gibraltar Strait.
- grahamel 7y ago
  they pay a lot more than that, couldn't find a Spain cost but examples for the UK they pay on average £20,000 per year[1] - the cost varies on the rateable value of the pub [1] https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2017/jul/13/football-watch-pub-sky-bt-cost-rise-tv-premier-league https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/201...
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Businesses can't simply pay for a residential subscription. They need to get a special subscription and often pay screening charges per event, it can often run as high as hundreds or thousands per event as it's based off your maximum capacity and not your actual attendance.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  Don't know about Spain in particular, but usually the fees in European countries are calculated for each individual bar, based on size and location. E.g. in Germany for a package of the top two major German leagues and UEFA (and some international ones), you can expect EUR 100-200 for tiny pubs in rural areas and small towns, EUR 500 for mid-sized bars and pubs in mid-sized cities, and up to EUR 2000 for big bars in big cities, per month.
guiomie 7y ago
My key take away from your comment is F1 has non geo-fenced service. I just went on their website, and I'm blown away. You can select a cockpit to stream, you have a bunch of geeky data, all while you can watch the GP in it's traditional way. I might get back into F1 just for this.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  This could be done with football too (albeit a little more limited, but still). That would actually be cool. If only they spent all the money they used to identify the games on actual customer-beneficial things ...
- dabeeeenster 7y ago
  It is still geo-fenced - its not available in the UK.
  - justin66 7y ago
    Is that a condition of Sky Sports' broadcast deal with F1?
    - dan1234 7y ago
      Yes, Sky have exclusive live coverage (apart from the British GP) in the UK until 2024.
- johnnycab 7y ago
  >I might get back into F1 just for this. I wouldn't be so hasty, as the service has had some blackouts. https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/38904/f1-tv-offering-compensation-again-after-baku-meltdown/ https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/38904/f1-tv-offering-comp...
  - egeozcan 7y ago
    Yes and they actually refunded some percentage of the subscription fee for that, and sent a long email apologizing. I mean, I take it over many other services which just ignore the problems. Disclaimer: Happy subscriber and an F1 fan.
shusson 7y ago
> La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. What are you talking about, La Liga is making billions of dollars [1][2] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/07/report-claims-that-spains-la-liga-is-responsible-for-generating-an-astonishing-17-9b-in-income/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/07/report-... [2] https://www.laliga.es/en/news/laliga-grows-20-6-and-posts-revenue-of-e4-479-billion https://www.laliga.es/en/news/laliga-grows-20-6-and-posts-re...
- parthdesai 7y ago
  Compared to PL, it absolutely is. Specially when you factor in the fact that Ronaldo and Messi both played in the league till last season.
  - pbalau 7y ago
    Compared to PL everyone strugles. But you can't possibly suggest LaLiga are strugling... PL is also a far superior product, the a/v is better, there is considerably more drama and the lower league, The Championship is almost on par. Football wise, there is a big debate. Entertainment wise, the PL is far better.
- briandear 7y ago
  It doesn’t matter how much they make, there is no justifiable reason to suggest that stealing their content is acceptable. It isn’t a social service or some essential like food or medicine where they are gouging people. Content too expensive? Don’t buy it.
  - sgift 7y ago
    Good thing no one steals their content then. Or do they not have it anymore when a private viewing license is used? This is simple greed. And greed may be good from a business perspective, but morally wrong. Society doesn't have to help them with it.
zouhair 7y ago
I don't follow the Formula1 but my father does, I would like to get him a subscription but all I can find on their website is a subscription for replays 7 days after a Grand Prix and nothing live besides stats.
- narag 7y ago
  Movistar+ has a F1 channel
- pedrocr 7y ago
  This is the service: https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/ https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/ It's not available in every country and it's been comically bad so far. Most races the streaming just fails and when it's not failing it routinely drops down to an incredibly low resolution for a few seconds. The replays usually work once the race is over though.
ankalagon 7y ago
> The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. No adult does "siesta" in Spain. Please, let's stop spreading this stereotype. Soccer games usually start at 22:00 or 23:00 hours.
- ugqtq 7y ago
  Funny how your comment got downvoted. Imagine if someone alleged that all citizens of [African country] went to sleep at the same time during daytime [instead of working, etc]. GP would be flagged and banned already. But since it's Spain then it's fair game.
  - anthk 7y ago
    Every American must be either a cowboy, a NY cop, or a hunter in the rural Midwest according to HN. That's how ridiculous they look.
anthk 7y ago
>(Spanish siesta is at 4PM) That's ridiculous.
- vibragiel 7y ago
  As a 40 year old Spaniard, I have never heard of this 4 PM siesta time.
  - anthk 7y ago
    32 yo here. People think, wrongly, all of Spain is like Andalucia with Flamenco and Sun everywhere. Head to the North in the Atlantic, or better, I dare all of HN to head Burgos in Winter, you'll see how "sunny" will you feel. Hint: it will chill-screw you all below 0 ºC.
    - vibragiel 7y ago
      It's funny how these thinking patterns repeat at all levels. I am from sunny Andalucia, and this flamenco and siesta stereotypes still sound like total rubbish.
      - anthk 7y ago
        They think Spain is under GMT, and not. Dear Americans/Europeans: At 2PM we aren't under a siesta. We are just having lunch, that's why every shop is closed.

airstrike 7y ago

> But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.

CtrlAltT5wpm 7y ago
Take this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars, at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches. How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive demand, but it would be interesting to find out.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kevinmchugh 7y ago
  For pay-per-view events there's usually a commercial PPV sales channel as well. Joe Hand Promotions handled it for the UFC up until this year (now it's all under ESPN+). JHP has some formula for determining cost, it's at least partially determined by venue capacity, hence the use of a cover charge.
  - Fripplebubby 7y ago
    I believe UFC still sells with a commercial formula for bars, I don't know if it's through JHP or not, but my understanding is that ESPN+ is for private consumers only
    - kevinmchugh 7y ago
      oh, I thought ESPN+ also was doing the commercial licenses. They might handle the delivery now, but yeah, it's Joe Hand still that does the negotiation.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
$200 is not that far off from what an individual would pay. Surely the rebroadcast rights that a bar would need are much, much higher than that, no?
- teej 7y ago
  I know pay-per-view typically works that way. I remember seeing the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight costed bars something like $30 x bar capacity to air.
  - scrooched_moose 7y ago
    Commercial licenses for standard cable are surprisingly reasonable per receiver (when compared to consumer) at $87.99 a month for DirecTV. Keep in mind many bars have 10+ receivers so they can show multiple events. If you scroll down, it gets ugly on specific sports packages. NFL Sunday Ticket tops out at $2680/year, compared to about $300 for consumer. https://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv-for-business/restaurants-and-bars-tv-solutions https://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv-for-business/...
MAGZine 7y ago
Illegal in this case may not mean streaming from some random website, it may mean buying a regular cable subscription and rebroadcasting it to your bar. You need special permission (and may need to pay extra) to "perform," copyrighted works for a larger audience, in the same way you can play music over a speaker for yourself, but not for a large group of people.
munk-a 7y ago
I was under the impression that a business would need to pay a screening fee for showing the game - I'd assume that illegally in this case doesn't mean via bitorrent but instead means playing content from a residential cable subscription to an audience. I tend to side strongly with bars in most of these cases as broadcasters absolutely must be aware that bars frequently want to show sports games and they have failed to make licensing for this sort of showing reasonable from a logistical standpoint (sometimes wanting to charge a royalty based on how many distinct people watched any part of the game) that might actually be a reasonable fee in the end - but the cost of calculating the proper fee to pay outsizes the fee itself.
- monksy 7y ago
  HBO has gone after bars showing GOT as well. In Chicago, I've seen bars charge $30 a person for entry to see a PPV fight.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I, personally, have even less pity for HBO since, up here in Canada, you really have to pay serious cash to legally watch any exclusive shows - and two years ago you were just out of luck if you didn't have a cable package, unless you were getting your interwebs through Bell IIRC. I feel no pity for content producers that disallow a reasonably priced (or any) access to their content and then cry foul at pirating. I similarly feel no pity for people who pirate old games that haven't been abandon-ware'd if they're available for a pittance on GOG. I value my time highly and trying to circumvent obstacles in my effort to give a content producer money is something I refuse to put any serious effort into.
  - cco 7y ago
    Last time I looked a UFC PPV fight was around 3,000 for a bar to show.
iagooar 7y ago
Spanish bars truly are a perfect example of a race to the bottom, when it comes to prices. Sure, the financial crisis hit the country really hard, but trying to attract customers by lowering prices is not the best strategy in the long term. This is when 200 € / month hurt - because you already run on a very tiny profit margin. Soccer / football is such a huge thing in Spain, people would understand if they need to pay a little extra for their drinks or food in bars that have decent infrastructure to broadcast the games. Yet somehow most bar owners are afraid to take the risk. I know this, because I used to live there for many years, and keep going there to visit relatives many times a year.
peterwwillis 7y ago
We're talking about Spain. They recently emerged from a gruelling recession, their shadow economy makes up an estimated 20% of real GDP, and competition ran their profits into the ground. Even if small businesses have the cash, there's no incentive for them to spend it, and they're probably still in hoarding-cash mode.
- anthk 7y ago
  This is Spain. No matter what, bars are always full here, and there is over 8 bars per streets at avarage. Also, Soccer is the true religion here, not Christianity. Add Soccer and bars and you get basically what truly the average Spaniard does love from the Pyrenees to the Gibraltar Strait.
grahamel 7y ago
they pay a lot more than that, couldn't find a Spain cost but examples for the UK they pay on average £20,000 per year[1] - the cost varies on the rateable value of the pub [1] https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2017/jul/13/football-watch-pub-sky-bt-cost-rise-tv-premier-league https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/201...
Mikeb85 7y ago
Businesses can't simply pay for a residential subscription. They need to get a special subscription and often pay screening charges per event, it can often run as high as hundreds or thousands per event as it's based off your maximum capacity and not your actual attendance.
rndgermandude 7y ago
Don't know about Spain in particular, but usually the fees in European countries are calculated for each individual bar, based on size and location. E.g. in Germany for a package of the top two major German leagues and UEFA (and some international ones), you can expect EUR 100-200 for tiny pubs in rural areas and small towns, EUR 500 for mid-sized bars and pubs in mid-sized cities, and up to EUR 2000 for big bars in big cities, per month.

guiomie 7y ago

My key take away from your comment is F1 has non geo-fenced service. I just went on their website, and I'm blown away. You can select a cockpit to stream, you have a bunch of geeky data, all while you can watch the GP in it's traditional way. I might get back into F1 just for this.

solarkraft 7y ago
This could be done with football too (albeit a little more limited, but still). That would actually be cool. If only they spent all the money they used to identify the games on actual customer-beneficial things ...
dabeeeenster 7y ago
It is still geo-fenced - its not available in the UK.
- justin66 7y ago
  Is that a condition of Sky Sports' broadcast deal with F1?
  - dan1234 7y ago
    Yes, Sky have exclusive live coverage (apart from the British GP) in the UK until 2024.
johnnycab 7y ago
>I might get back into F1 just for this. I wouldn't be so hasty, as the service has had some blackouts. https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/38904/f1-tv-offering-compensation-again-after-baku-meltdown/ https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/38904/f1-tv-offering-comp...
- egeozcan 7y ago
  Yes and they actually refunded some percentage of the subscription fee for that, and sent a long email apologizing. I mean, I take it over many other services which just ignore the problems. Disclaimer: Happy subscriber and an F1 fan.

shusson 7y ago

> La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. What are you talking about, La Liga is making billions of dollars [1][2] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/07/report-claims-that-spains-la-liga-is-responsible-for-generating-an-astonishing-17-9b-in-income/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/07/report-... [2] https://www.laliga.es/en/news/laliga-grows-20-6-and-posts-revenue-of-e4-479-billion https://www.laliga.es/en/news/laliga-grows-20-6-and-posts-re...

parthdesai 7y ago
Compared to PL, it absolutely is. Specially when you factor in the fact that Ronaldo and Messi both played in the league till last season.
- pbalau 7y ago
  Compared to PL everyone strugles. But you can't possibly suggest LaLiga are strugling... PL is also a far superior product, the a/v is better, there is considerably more drama and the lower league, The Championship is almost on par. Football wise, there is a big debate. Entertainment wise, the PL is far better.
briandear 7y ago
It doesn’t matter how much they make, there is no justifiable reason to suggest that stealing their content is acceptable. It isn’t a social service or some essential like food or medicine where they are gouging people. Content too expensive? Don’t buy it.
- sgift 7y ago
  Good thing no one steals their content then. Or do they not have it anymore when a private viewing license is used? This is simple greed. And greed may be good from a business perspective, but morally wrong. Society doesn't have to help them with it.

zouhair 7y ago

I don't follow the Formula1 but my father does, I would like to get him a subscription but all I can find on their website is a subscription for replays 7 days after a Grand Prix and nothing live besides stats.

narag 7y ago
Movistar+ has a F1 channel
pedrocr 7y ago
This is the service: https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/ https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/ It's not available in every country and it's been comically bad so far. Most races the streaming just fails and when it's not failing it routinely drops down to an incredibly low resolution for a few seconds. The replays usually work once the race is over though.

ankalagon 7y ago

> The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. No adult does "siesta" in Spain. Please, let's stop spreading this stereotype. Soccer games usually start at 22:00 or 23:00 hours.

ugqtq 7y ago
Funny how your comment got downvoted. Imagine if someone alleged that all citizens of [African country] went to sleep at the same time during daytime [instead of working, etc]. GP would be flagged and banned already. But since it's Spain then it's fair game.
- anthk 7y ago
  Every American must be either a cowboy, a NY cop, or a hunter in the rural Midwest according to HN. That's how ridiculous they look.

anthk 7y ago

>(Spanish siesta is at 4PM) That's ridiculous.

vibragiel 7y ago
As a 40 year old Spaniard, I have never heard of this 4 PM siesta time.
- anthk 7y ago
  32 yo here. People think, wrongly, all of Spain is like Andalucia with Flamenco and Sun everywhere. Head to the North in the Atlantic, or better, I dare all of HN to head Burgos in Winter, you'll see how "sunny" will you feel. Hint: it will chill-screw you all below 0 ºC.
  - vibragiel 7y ago
    It's funny how these thinking patterns repeat at all levels. I am from sunny Andalucia, and this flamenco and siesta stereotypes still sound like total rubbish.
    - anthk 7y ago
      They think Spain is under GMT, and not. Dear Americans/Europeans: At 2PM we aren't under a siesta. We are just having lunch, that's why every shop is closed.