Major media companies help shut down popular sports piracy site

An anti-piracy organization that represents the largest media companies in the world said it shut down a major sports piracy website.

In a press release on Thursday, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced that it successfully put an end to Watchwrestling.ai and domains associated with it. The platform was based in India and, according to ACE, captured upward of 253 million visits for its streams. Most of its traffic came from India, the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

Although people look to pirated sites for all types of sports, these sites gain a vast majority of traffic for pay-per-view sporting events where consumers want to watch but are unwilling or unable to pay for various reasons. This is most especially the case for combat sports, specifically boxing, mixed marital arts and professional wrestling.

One member of the organization is DAZN, a global sports streaming service that's predominantly known for showcasing boxing and MMA in the United States. ACE said it worked closely with DAZN, likely because it's a native over-the-top service and stands to lose the most from the pirating of major sports providers. Its chief operating officer praised the actions to shut down Watchwrestling.ai:

“DAZN has invested significant amounts in building a successful business around combat sports, helping fund the development of MMA and boxing, as well as providing the best quality content and service for fans,” said Ed McCarthy, Chief Operating Office of DAZN Group. “To continue to invest, DAZN has to be able to protect its intellectual property. The enforcement work ACE undertakes, as part of its joint Sports Piracy Task Force initiative, is a critical element of this work. It is particularly pleasing to see a criminal endeavor of this size being effectively tackled, and the positive outcome that potential subscribers will be redirected to legitimate providers of content such as DAZN.”

DAZN is far from the only sports provider to be impacted as other streaming services from legacy media companies are frequently pirated for both their basic-level and premium-live content. ACE represents Comcast (which owns Peacock), Paramount (Paramount+), Disney (Disney+, ESPN+), Warner Bros. Discovery (Max) and more. 

Sports leagues also are pushing for more piracy protections. In August, the NFL, NBA and UFC wrote to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, asking for speedier takedowns of illegal streaming sites through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).