Kenyan football fans have been ranked top in Africa and third in the world for the wrong reasons.
According to a study conducted on the English Premier League, Kenyans made the top five in the world on fans who illegally stream football.
The study by AI-powered sports sponsorship and marketing technology firm, GumGum Sports, and global authority on digital piracy, Muso, was commissioned by an undisclosed elite EPL club.
The report found that China, Vietnam, Kenya, India and Nigeria enjoyed the billion-shillings content for free benefiting advertisers but not the clubs.
GumGum and Muso studied eight matches spanning the 2018-19 season, where they discovered a total of 7.1 million viewers enjoyed illegal streaming.
“Piracy audiences have too long been disregarded as offering no real value to rights holders and distributors, but the reality is that these huge audiences still see the same shirt sponsors and commercials as people watching the game via a licensed channel,” stated Muso co-founder and Chief Executive Andy Chatterley.
Illegally streamed audiences in the US and the UK stood at position 10 and 11 respectively with each match generating over Ksh129 million in lost sponsorship value.
This comes barely a month after Kenyans were again on the spot for illegally streaming the boxing fight between Briton Anthony Joshua and Mexican Andy Ruiz.
Kenya ranked second in the list of countries with the most piracy incidents right after Nigeria, whose 2.35 million nationals pirated the match. United Kingdom came in third with 921,994 viewers streaming the match without paying.
Muso cited the cost consumers have to pay to access premium events through legal means, which has become discouraging as the multinational broadcast license holders charge high rates, especially in third-world countries.
