LaLiga has strengthened its anti-piracy strategy through a new collaboration with Fastly, aimed at improving the detection and disruption of illegal live sports streams.
The initiative focuses on combating unauthorized broadcasts of live football matches, a persistent issue that LaLiga says costs Spanish clubs between €600 million and €700 million annually.
AI-driven detection at the core
As part of the partnership, Fastly has developed an advanced monitoring system that uses artificial intelligence and content-based signals from rights holders to identify illegal streams in near real time.
The system is designed to detect and flag unauthorized broadcasts while minimizing disruption to legitimate online traffic — a key challenge in large-scale content protection.
Scale of the piracy problem
Recent industry data highlights the magnitude of the issue. A 2025 study by Grant Thornton estimated that more than 10.8 million unauthorized broadcasts were detected in 2024 alone.
However, enforcement remains uneven: over 81% of detected cases did not result in immediate takedown, and only a small fraction were addressed within 30 minutes of detection.
Long-term enforcement strategy
The collaboration between LaLiga and Fastly is part of a broader, multi-layered strategy that includes legal action, institutional cooperation, education campaigns and technical enforcement.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas has previously stated that the league reduced piracy in Spain by around 60% during the 2024–25 season through this integrated approach.
Industry-wide cooperation
Beyond Fastly, the project also involves coordination with technology companies, content providers and regulators to accelerate the identification and shutdown of illegal streams while preserving legitimate internet traffic.
The broader goal is to create a more scalable and automated enforcement ecosystem — one capable of responding to piracy at the speed of live sports consumption.
Bigger picture
As digital broadcasting continues to expand, sports leagues are increasingly shifting from reactive takedowns to real-time, AI-powered prevention systems.
For LaLiga, the Fastly partnership represents another step in turning anti-piracy enforcement into a core pillar of its media rights protection strategy — where milliseconds, not hours, determine success.