Last month, a gang of five men who illegally streamed Premier League football matches to mass audiences were jailed at Chesterfield Crown Court. The ringleader was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The operation, which supplied modified VPN-altering satellite boxes, is thought to have made more than £7 million from at least 50,000 users.

Piracy has long been a thorn in the Premier League lion’s paw. But it is arguably a problem of the organisation’s own making. Where bootleggers capitalise on many consumers’ frustrations with exorbitantly priced yet uninventive coverage of only a limited number of games, the Premier League could launch its own streaming service to make legitimate viewing a viable, or even attractive, option.

Of the 380 English top-flight fixtures played each season, just 200 are broadcast legally in the UK. Sky Sports has 128 matches, BT Sport has 52 and Amazon Prime shows 20. Someone with subscriptions to all three can pay up to £1,700 a year, and still only be able to watch the fixtures
chosen by television executives. Sports subscriptions for hospitality venues cost an average of £20,000 annually.

Overseas viewers of the Premier League can watch every fixture and even switch between those happening concurrently. Those at home must contend with selection biases towards certain teams, routinely uninspiring punditry and the Saturday Blackout rule, which has survived since the 1960s.

According to some of the game’s higher powers, televising football matches in the UK between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on a Saturday could dissuade supporters from attending them in-person. In the era before lucrative broadcast revenue and advertising deals, this might have made more sense.

A study by Tifo, the YouTube channel, found that between 1986 and 2019, which encompasses the conception of the Premier League in 1992, average attendances across the top four English divisions rose from 8,132 to a pre-Covid high of 16,168 per league match.

Admittedly, the increase in this period is probably more accurately attributed to stadium renovations and changing fan demographics. But, given these hikes, it appears that the pervasiveness of TV has had little effect on the willingness of supporters to buy a ticket.

Modern consumers crave curated, personalised experiences. If the Saturday Blackout issue can be overcome, or even bypassed with staggered kick-off times, the technology already exists for the Premier League to provide 360-degree content. As well as live fixtures, access to archive footage could open the door to “Prem-flix”.

Where the Premier League might stop one streaming gang, many more will probably take it place, because the demand is so high. In the 2019-20 season, some 4.5 million people in the UK watched the Premier League illegally.

It is also worth bearing in mind that many consumers are experiencing subscription fatigue. As the cost-of-living crisis wears on, they are becoming more selective about which streaming services to keep. If the Premier League were to launch its own platform and invest in a supporting library of creative analysis and magazine shows, it could cut out broadcasting middlemen.

Disney+, priced at £7.99 a month (without adverts), represents a resilient model. Disney has withdrawn most of its original films and shows from other platforms and linear TV, so its revenue per price of content is not diluted. It has presented consumers with a stark, but relatively affordable, choice: subscribe or miss out.

If the Premier League wants to be the main beneficiary of its own product, then, it must take control. There is a gap in the market for reasonably priced football coverage, which can guarantee audio-visual quality and is free of lags. “Prem-flix” could provide that.