Spanish newspaper El País revealed that the Barcelona-Real Madrid match on Dec. 3 reached 600 million viewers in 185 countries through "pirated" Facebook Live streams, according to LA AFICIÓN. BeIN Sports, which carried the game in Spain, "drew 2.2 million viewers." El País reported that the closing of streaming websites like Roja Directa "matters little," as Liga MX, the Champions League, the EPL and La Liga games "can be accessed by 'liking' a certain Facebook page" (LA AFICIÓN, 2/21). 101 GREAT GOALS' Ben Green reported there is "no doubt now that one player in the market is making all the moves: Facebook." It has recently been announced that official Facebook Live streams will be offered for Liga MX and La Liga. While some of the top leagues "are now implementing official broadcasts on Facebook Live, the pirates have been doing this for some time." There are now "tens of pages on Facebook that show pirated live streams from the biggest matches in the world and are enjoying millions of views." The Barcelona-Real Madrid match in December's reported audience of 600 million did not "count the pirated Facebook Live broadcasts." One Spanish Facebook page, named Capitanes del Fútbol, "had 700,000 people watching their broadcast concurrently and had an estimated 4.6 million views in total." La Liga has recognized "the problem of Facebook Live streams." A league spokesperson said, "We have agreements with social media platforms to track illegal content. With Twitter, for example, it is automatically deleted when we detect it. In the case of Facebook they have their own tool, so making these videos disappear is faster. But if one closes they open more. ... From Facebook they simply refer us to their general rules of publication, in which they are committed 'to help individuals and organizations to protect their intellectual property rights'" (101 GREAT GOALS, 2/21).
