Streameast Shut Down: World's Most Massive Sports Piracy Site Disabled After Raid Todd SpanglerSeptember 3, 2025 at 10:47 PM 0 illustration: Variety VIP+; Adobe stock RIP, Streameast: The "notorious piracy network" that carried illegal streams of live games from the NFL, NBA, MLB and more, has been ...
- - Streameast Shut Down: World's Most Massive Sports Piracy Site Disabled After Raid
Todd SpanglerSeptember 3, 2025 at 10:47 PM
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illustration: Variety VIP+; Adobe stock
RIP, Streameast: The "notorious piracy network" that carried illegal streams of live games from the NFL, NBA, MLB and more, has been shut down, according to a U.S. antipiracy organization.
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an antipiracy coalition led by the Motion Picture Association, announced the shutdown of Streameast and its 80 associated internet domain names in collaboration with Egyptian authorities. In the past year, Streameast had more than 1.6 billion visits, according to ACE — making it the largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world. Its sites averaged more than 136 million monthly visits, the organization said.
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According to ACE, all former Streameast sites will be redirected to the organization's "Watch Legally" page.
Egyptian law enforcement officials raided Streameast offices and seized three laptops and four smartphones used to operate the sites, as well as 10 Visa cards that had about $123,000 in total as well as about $200,000 in crypto wallets, according to ACE. Authorities also found that the operators created a shell company in the United Arab Emirates to funnel ad revenue from the sites. The shutdown followed an investigation conducted from July 2024 to June 2025; two men were arrested and detained on suspicion of copyright infringement in El-Sheikh Zaid in the Giza Governorate of Egypt late last month, according to ACE.
Streameast and its related domains offered users access to sport-specific piracy sites for American sports including the NFL, NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer as well as unauthorized sites for pay-per-view boxing, mixed martial arts and motorsports including Formula 1 and MotoGP. In addition, the piracy sites provided unauthorized access to matches from Europe's top soccer leagues, including England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, Italy's Serie A, Germany's Bundesliga, France's Ligue 1 and Portugal's Primeira Liga, along with access to UEFA club competitions (Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League, among others) and international qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro and UEFA Nations League and CONMEBOL Copa América.
Site traffic to the various domains originated primarily from the U.S., as well as Canada, the U.K., the Philippines and Germany, ACE said.
"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," said Charles Rivkin, chairman of ACE and chairman and CEO of the MPA, 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."
Larissa Knapp, EVP and chief content protection officer for the MPA, added: "This action swiftly dismantled what was once the largest illegal sports streaming operation in the world, and I applaud the Egyptian authorities for their partnership. It's further proof that no piracy network is beyond the reach of coordinated global enforcement."
The current governing board members for ACE are: Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, the Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery.
DAZN, a company that offers legitimate sports streaming outside the U.S. in deals with major leagues, cheered Streameast's shutdown. "Dismantling Streameast is a major victory for everyone who invests in and relies on the live sports ecosystem," said Ed McCarthy, COO of DAZN Group, in a statement. "This criminal operation was siphoning value from sports at every level and putting fans across the world at risk. We commend the Egyptian authorities and ACE for their action in bringing down the world's largest illegal sports streaming operation."
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