“We are talking about a business of 400 million euros annually”: the cost of IPTV piracy estimated by a survey

DAZN still does not seem to have recovered from its failure to broadcast Ligue 1 football in France. While Ligue 1+ has now taken over and that in this month of November Canal+ should be determined whether or not it will lose the broadcast rights to the Champions League to YouTube, Netflix and others, DAZN has decided to commission an investigation into IPTV piracy.

In addition to prohibitive prices and poor communication, the failure of DAZN can be attributed according to the company to this practice, which it decided to study to “understand, qualify and quantify the extent of IPTV piracy to see how it affected their results and especially the possibility of them achieving their objectives.“

IPTV piracy is on the rise

According to the specialists commissioned for this three-month investigation on French territory from November 2024, no less than 8 million illegal IPTV boxes are in circulation. The 9 million could be exceeded by the end of 2025, while previous ARCOM figures spoke of 5 to 6 million of these boxes allowing you to watch sports, but also to illegally access SVoD services.

Still according to this survey, with a subscription of €50 per year to enjoy content on these boxes that you simply plug into your television, this therefore represents a business of 400 million euros per year. That is, approximately, what DAZN had to pay to acquire the broadcasting rights for Ligue 1.

The DAZN report finally indicates that the distribution of such boxes, very active throughout the country, is managed by several very well-funded groups.who traffic in all kinds, particularly narcotics.“Which could possibly slow down future buyers, especially since the telephone number to be provided during a purchase can end up on the Dark Web and thus be the target of scams.