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Original Streameast pirating site was taken down before but remains accesible today.
A pirate flag flying at the harbor in Whitstable in Kent County, England. Credit: Getty
On Wednesday, a global antipiracy group, which included Apple TV+, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that it had assisted in a sting operation that took down Streameast, described as the “largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world.”
Now, accessing websites from the thwarted Streameast brings up a link from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) that explains how to watch sports games legally. However, people have reported that they can still access illegal sports streams from a different Streameast, which is the original Streameast. The endurance of the popular piracy brand is a reflection of the entangled problems facing sports rights owners and sports fans.
Sting operation kills Streameast “copycat”
terday, ACE, which is comprised of 50 media entities, said the Streameast network that it helped take down had 80 “associated domains” and “logged more than 1.6 billion visits in the past year.” The network had 136 million monthly visits on average, The Athletic reported.
An ACE spokesperson told Ars Technica that about 10,000 sports events have been illegally shown on the streaming network over the past six years.
Per ACE, Streameast traffic primarily came from the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Germany.
The sting operation that took down Streameast stemmed from an investigation that ran from July 2024 to June 2025, Deadline reported. ACE worked with Egyptian authorities, Europol, the US Department of Justice, the Office of the US Trade Representative, and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Centre, per The Athletic.
ACE's spokesperson said:
On the night of Sunday, August 24, into the morning of Monday, August 25, Egyptian authorities carried out synchronized raids targeting two individuals behind the piracy network operating the Streameast group of websites. Twenty-two police officers were deployed in the operation.
The sting resulted in the arrest of two men over suspicion of copyright infringement in El Sheikh Zayed City near the Greater Cairo metro area. Egyptian authorities reportedly confiscated cash and found connections to a company in the United Arab Emirates used for laundering $6.2 million in "advertising revenue," per The Athletic. Investigators also found $200,000 in cryptocurrency. Additionally, they confiscated three laptops and four smartphones used to operate the pirating sites and 10 credit cards with about $123,561, ACE told Deadline.
The piracy network showed unauthorized streams of NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL games, as well as soccer matches from England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and other European leagues, plus games from Major League Soccer, UEFA competitions, and qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup. Users could also access pay-per-view boxing, MMA, and motorsports events.
Original Streameast still pirating
Despite ACE's announcement, there is still a pirating site—which TorrentFreak describes as “the original Streameast operation"—called Streameast online. The leader of that pirating site claims that the site isn’t related to Streameast, which ACE helped take down. The Streameast that was seized recently was a “copycat,” the original Streameast’s leader told TorrentFreak.
ACE's rep told us:
ACE is aware that the original site is a different website from the one shut down in Egypt. The Egyptian operation is a far more popular group that attracted 1.4 [billion] global annual visits.
The original Streameast remains online, even though Homeland Security Investigations seized several domain names linked to the piracy site, which TorrentFreak reported had "millions of users."
TorrentFreak reported today: "The seizures were carried out by the book but did not achieve the desired effect. Streameast remained available through alternative and regularly updated domains.”
The original Streameast has still been accessible since the August 2024 seizures. Shortly after the takedown, operators of the original Streameast announced that the network was still accessible through new domain names, TorrentFreak reported at the time.
Sports rights industry “crisis”
The endurance of the Streameast name is indicative of the problems challenging the sports industry and its fans.
Sporting events are fragmented across streaming services and broadcast networks, making it pricey for avid sports fans to watch all the events they want. Meanwhile, sports rights holders enter bidding wars in a competitive market fueled by streaming services seeking more ad opportunities and subscribers from exclusive live events.
There's evidence suggesting that the surge in sports piracy is a result of sports rights selling at astronomical prices. S&P predicts that spending will total $57.2 billion this year. High sports rights prices contribute to companies charging fans more to watch sporting events.
“We’re getting to the stage where it’s almost a crisis for the sports rights industry,” Tom Burrows, the head of global rights at British sports streaming service DAZN, told The Athletic in February. “Media-rights deals have been done on the basis of exclusivity, but I think there’s almost an argument to say you can’t get exclusive rights anymore because piracy is so bad.
Sports piracy has become so widespread that even professional athletes, like Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (who was spotted using Streameast in May 2024) and Seattle Seahawks' Tariq Woolen, have been outed as users.
Players and fans alike are turning to piracy sites for easier accessibility and affordability, but ACE's rep argued that the practice hurts fans:
The illicit broadcast of content without authorization, whether it’s live sports or movies and TV series, is a violation of intellectual property rights and constitutes criminal activity. There is no justification for digital piracy, period. Further, studies have shown that people who visit piracy sites or stream pirated content are exposed to cyber threats including malware, credit card fraud and identity theft. The risks are real and have serious consequences.
The ACE spokesperson pointed to a study [PDF] released and commissioned by ACE in July that found that people in Southeast Asia accessing piracy sites were up to 65 times more likely to be infected with malware than those who did not use piracy platforms.
A pirate flag flying at the harbor in Whitstable in Kent County, England. Credit: Getty
On Wednesday, a global antipiracy group, which included Apple TV+, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that it had assisted in a sting operation that took down Streameast, described as the “largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world.”
Now, accessing websites from the thwarted Streameast brings up a link from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) that explains how to watch sports games legally. However, people have reported that they can still access illegal sports streams from a different Streameast, which is the original Streameast. The endurance of the popular piracy brand is a reflection of the entangled problems facing sports rights owners and sports fans.
Sting operation kills Streameast “copycat”
terday, ACE, which is comprised of 50 media entities, said the Streameast network that it helped take down had 80 “associated domains” and “logged more than 1.6 billion visits in the past year.” The network had 136 million monthly visits on average, The Athletic reported.An ACE spokesperson told Ars Technica that about 10,000 sports events have been illegally shown on the streaming network over the past six years.
Per ACE, Streameast traffic primarily came from the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Germany.
The sting operation that took down Streameast stemmed from an investigation that ran from July 2024 to June 2025, Deadline reported. ACE worked with Egyptian authorities, Europol, the US Department of Justice, the Office of the US Trade Representative, and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Centre, per The Athletic.
ACE's spokesperson said:
On the night of Sunday, August 24, into the morning of Monday, August 25, Egyptian authorities carried out synchronized raids targeting two individuals behind the piracy network operating the Streameast group of websites. Twenty-two police officers were deployed in the operation.
The sting resulted in the arrest of two men over suspicion of copyright infringement in El Sheikh Zayed City near the Greater Cairo metro area. Egyptian authorities reportedly confiscated cash and found connections to a company in the United Arab Emirates used for laundering $6.2 million in "advertising revenue," per The Athletic. Investigators also found $200,000 in cryptocurrency. Additionally, they confiscated three laptops and four smartphones used to operate the pirating sites and 10 credit cards with about $123,561, ACE told Deadline.
The piracy network showed unauthorized streams of NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL games, as well as soccer matches from England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and other European leagues, plus games from Major League Soccer, UEFA competitions, and qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup. Users could also access pay-per-view boxing, MMA, and motorsports events.
Original Streameast still pirating
Despite ACE's announcement, there is still a pirating site—which TorrentFreak describes as “the original Streameast operation"—called Streameast online. The leader of that pirating site claims that the site isn’t related to Streameast, which ACE helped take down. The Streameast that was seized recently was a “copycat,” the original Streameast’s leader told TorrentFreak.
ACE's rep told us:
ACE is aware that the original site is a different website from the one shut down in Egypt. The Egyptian operation is a far more popular group that attracted 1.4 [billion] global annual visits.
The original Streameast remains online, even though Homeland Security Investigations seized several domain names linked to the piracy site, which TorrentFreak reported had "millions of users."
TorrentFreak reported today: "The seizures were carried out by the book but did not achieve the desired effect. Streameast remained available through alternative and regularly updated domains.”
The original Streameast has still been accessible since the August 2024 seizures. Shortly after the takedown, operators of the original Streameast announced that the network was still accessible through new domain names, TorrentFreak reported at the time.
Sports rights industry “crisis”
The endurance of the Streameast name is indicative of the problems challenging the sports industry and its fans.
Sporting events are fragmented across streaming services and broadcast networks, making it pricey for avid sports fans to watch all the events they want. Meanwhile, sports rights holders enter bidding wars in a competitive market fueled by streaming services seeking more ad opportunities and subscribers from exclusive live events.
There's evidence suggesting that the surge in sports piracy is a result of sports rights selling at astronomical prices. S&P predicts that spending will total $57.2 billion this year. High sports rights prices contribute to companies charging fans more to watch sporting events.
“We’re getting to the stage where it’s almost a crisis for the sports rights industry,” Tom Burrows, the head of global rights at British sports streaming service DAZN, told The Athletic in February. “Media-rights deals have been done on the basis of exclusivity, but I think there’s almost an argument to say you can’t get exclusive rights anymore because piracy is so bad.
Sports piracy has become so widespread that even professional athletes, like Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (who was spotted using Streameast in May 2024) and Seattle Seahawks' Tariq Woolen, have been outed as users.
Players and fans alike are turning to piracy sites for easier accessibility and affordability, but ACE's rep argued that the practice hurts fans:
The illicit broadcast of content without authorization, whether it’s live sports or movies and TV series, is a violation of intellectual property rights and constitutes criminal activity. There is no justification for digital piracy, period. Further, studies have shown that people who visit piracy sites or stream pirated content are exposed to cyber threats including malware, credit card fraud and identity theft. The risks are real and have serious consequences.
The ACE spokesperson pointed to a study [PDF] released and commissioned by ACE in July that found that people in Southeast Asia accessing piracy sites were up to 65 times more likely to be infected with malware than those who did not use piracy platforms.
