Popular Illegal Sports Streaming Site Methstreams Has Shut Down — What Happened?
As of Dec. 30, 2024, the well-known illegal sports streaming site Methstreams has been taken down.
Published Dec. 31 2024, 11:10 a.m. ET
As we reach the end of 2024, many sports fans online are mourning the loss of two popular websites that once offered illegal streams of live sporting events.
Among them is Methstreams, a site that gained significant traction within the sports streaming community.
So, what exactly happened? Here's everything you need to know about the circumstances surrounding the shutdown of Methstreams.
What happened to Methstreams?
On Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, visitors to the Methstreams and Crackstreams websites were greeted with a message from the owner, signaling the end of an era for the popular illegal streaming platforms.
"I'll be taking a break from live streaming," the message began, before cautioning users to proceed with care when visiting other sites with similar domain names. The owner also encouraged visitors to join an existing Discord community for further updates and information on what might come next.
In a testament to the scale of the sites' following, the Discord group had grown to more than 120,000 members by Tuesday, December 31.
The community, which has been active at least since 2022, had become a prominent hub for fans who relied on Methstreams and Crackstreams to access live sports content for free. The large number of Discord users highlights just how vital these platforms have become to sports fans.
Methstreams even gained some mainstream attention in November 2024 when NFL insider Adam Schefter posted a clip from a Thursday Night Football game that appeared to originate from the illegal streaming site.
The clip, which bore the Methstreams watermark, was pulled from another X (formerly Twitter) account, with a source later telling Front Office Sports that Schefter was not watching the Amazon broadcast through Methstreams.
Methstreams was likely shut down due to copyright infringement.
While the owner has not officially commented on why Methstreams and Crackstreams were taken down, it's reasonable to assume they were targeted for violating copyright laws related to streaming live sports events.
For those unaware, online service providers (OSPs) are often required to comply with legal obligations, including taking down sites that engage in piracy.
In early December 2024, the site owner informed Discord members that one of their domain names had been locked, likely a result of the ongoing battle between content rightsholders and those bypassing distribution agreements.
Around the same time, The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced it had successfully dismantled one of the world's largest live sports piracy rings.
ACE revealed it had identified a Vietnam-based operation responsible for 812 million visits in 2024 alone. The organization worked to seize dozens of domains from the group.
"The shutdown of this globally notorious live sports piracy ring is a huge victory in our campaign against the piracy of live sports programs and follows other recent successful actions by ACE and law enforcement in Vietnam," said Larissa Knapp, executive VP and chief content protection officer for the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
"ACE's live sports members face a unique threat when it comes to digital piracy, as live sports broadcasts lose substantial commercial value once the game ends," she added. "The takedown serves as a warning to piracy operators everywhere — including operators in live sports piracy — that ACE will identify and shut down their illegal operations."