Days removed from the start of the NFL regular season the world’s largest illegal streaming site is gone — kind of. Streameast, the worldwide leader in illegal sports streaming went offline over the weekend, and is already pivoting its operation.
A year-long investigation into the company led to Streameast going offline over the weekend with assistance from Egyptian law enforcement. The site itself wasn’t so much a direct streaming platform, but a hub which allowed users to illegally stream the NFL, NBA, MLB, Premier League, and Champion’s League (among others) by funneling traffic to 80 domains operating out of a wide array of countries to make it difficult to stop the sport-streaming hydra.
In a report from The Athletic it’s estimated that Streameast garnered over 136M monthly views, primarily originating from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Philippines, and Germany. Since it’s inception Streameast has been the market leader in illegal streaming, and along with shutting the site down law enforcement in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt discovered a shell company belonging to Streameast owners that allegedly earned $6.2M in revenue from the network, as well as more funds stashed in cryptocurrency, and real estate purchases.
The original URL now redirects to a Chinese equivalent of Temu, while users on Reddit are hinting at the operation already moving and operating once more under different web extensions.
While rights holders are claiming this is a massive victory over illegal streaming and piracy, in reality it’s a continuing game of whack-a-mole, with law enforcement often unable to move as quickly as pirates are to establish new sites and ways to illegally stream content. This was by design, knowing that cooperation between U.S. officials and various international governments would take far longer to organize than the streamers to find various ways to establish new links.
I can confirm that as of time of writing Streameast mirrors are up and running, with the daily schedule already set to illegally air MLB games this afternoon, with Cowboys vs. Eagles already set for Thursday night.
