With more than 1.6 billion global visits across its 80 domain names over the last year, Streameast was easily the world’s most popular illegal sports streaming platform.
On Wednesday, however — just in time for the NFL season — Streameast suddenly shut down, just as the anti-piracy group Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced that Streameast was no more.
“Today, ACE scored a resounding victory in its fight to detect, deter, and dismantle criminal perpetrators of digital piracy: by taking down the largest illegal live sports platform anywhere,” ACE Chairman Charles Rivki said in a statement. “With this landmark action, we have put more points on the board for sports leagues, entertainment companies, and fans worldwide—and our global alliance will stay on the field as long as it takes to identify and target the biggest piracy rings across the globe.”
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According to ACE, the group worked in tandem with Egyptian authorities to take down the piracy network. Two men were linked to more than $6 million in illicit revenue from the illegal pirating and were arrested on related copyright infringement charges.
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Streameast was a popular sports streaming network of sites that provided visitors with free streaming access to live games, which are often paywalled behind a legal subscription service. The piracy network was an especially popular destination for professional soccer matches around the world, ranging from Europe’s biggest leagues, like England’s Premier League and Spain’s La Liga, to FIFA World Cup qualifiers and UEFA club competitions.
Streameast also provided streams to popular U.S. sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and more. Pay-per-views events like boxing and MMA events were also streamed on the platform.
While Streameast is no longer running on its main domain names, mirror websites and copycats were quickly deployed, and the sports piracy network appears to be running on alternative domains for the time being.
However, Mashable readers can find out how to watch sports online (including college football and out-of-market NFL games) on legal services like ESPN and Fox One.
Meanwhile, sports fans who were counting on Streameast to stream their favorite teams’ games this fall are in mourning.
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