World Cup TV piracy boosts Asian bar/club profits

The Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia has noted that the unlicensed screening of FIFA World Cup matches in bars and clubs has been alarmingly widespread in Hong Kong. “We are very concerned with the ongoing tolerance of widespread piracy in one of the world’s most advanced economies, Hong Kong,” CASBAA chairman Marcel Fenez said. “Despite efforts by Hong Kong to champion its world class status, when it comes to the basics of sports and entertainment intellectual property rights protection, the SAR still lags behind other media hubs such as Singapore, Sydney, Seoul and Tokyo.”

According to Telecom Asia, while the World Cup boosted Hong Kong bar revenues by up to 50 percent, independent estimates suggested that at least one-third of the cash was generated by screening pirated TV programming from markets such as the Philippines and South Africa. The Asian Football Business Review observered the same phenominum in other Asian countries.