Ten Percent of Soccer Fans Watch EPL Illegally

The final results have been tabulated for the latest EPL Talk poll and one of the answers is quite surprising. When asked “where do you primarily watch Premiership matches,” 80% of the respondents answered “at home,” but surprisingly, 10% voted “online via P2P.”

This may not be surprising to many of you. P2P (peer to peer) applications allow you to watch matches (and share files) online. Illegally, I might add. But for some soccer fans, it’s the only hope of watching their favorite team live if the match isn’t being shown on Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta Sports or a similar network worldwide.

While 10% of you watch Premiership matches online via P2P, 11% of you watch matches at your local pub.

It’ll be interesting to see how developments this summer will dramatically change the way viewers watch the Premiership starting next season. Setanta Broadband will be legally showing some of the matches (via subscription). Also, if Setanta Sports is added to Time Warner and/or Comcast Cable (as reported by AFANA), then increased access to Setanta may reduce the amount of P2P usage.

Be sure to answer this week’s EPL Talk poll where we ask whether ESPN’s interest in acquiring Setanta Sports would help or hinder the soccer coverage if a deal ever did happen. Click on the poll in the left column.