World’s largest illegal sports streaming site shut down, NBA games among content pirated

One of the most popular ways fans were watching NBA games without paying has been shut down.

Streameast, billed as the world’s largest illegal sports streaming site, is no more after a raid in Egypt on Aug. 24 led to the arrest of two men. Egyptian law enforcement seized laptops, phones and other materials tied to the operation, per The Athletic’s Adam Leventhal.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a coalition of major media companies including Amazon, Netflix and Paramount+, said the investigation uncovered millions in laundered ad revenue through a UAE shell company and even suspected real estate purchases in Egypt tied to the site’s earnings.

Streameast had become a go-to for pirated NBA streams, along with NFL, MLB, Formula One and just about every major pay-per-view combat sport.

At its peak, it pulled in an estimated 136 million visits per month, with domains scattered across the U.S., Canada, the UK, the Philippines and Germany.

NBA officials have long pushed for tighter crackdowns on piracy, arguing that illegal streaming undercuts league revenue and, by extension, the players’ own paychecks.

While the site is gone for now, the demand that fueled Streameast’s popularity isn’t. Fans unwilling to pay for League Pass or local RSN packages will be looking for the next workaround.

As ACE chairman Charles Rivkin put it, the takedown was “a resounding victory.” But in the NBA’s world, where streaming is both the future and a constant headache, this fight is far from over.