Football's World Cup kicks off in about 40 days. The world will be watching, but whether this includes anyone in Malaysia is still an open question at the time of writing.
The latest update I have is that Telekom Malaysia is in talks with RTM to secure broadcasting rights. But even after some reduction from football’s governing body Fifa, the price tag of about US$35mil (RM166mil at the moment, amid fluctuating exchange rates) is too much, especially given the current uncertainty of the global economy.
Malaysia has been airing World Cup matches since 1974, although not always showing all the matches. A standout year is 1982, when originally only four matches were scheduled for live broadcast. Then somebody suggested the public should raise their own funds, and Malaysians collectively raised around RM300,000 to cover the cost of airing four additional games.
The phrase “Ditaja oleh rakyat Malaysia” (Sponsored by Malaysians) became a source of pride. I was one of those who peered through sleepy eyes at our black and white TV set at home to support Italy and their awesomely-named goalkeeper, Dino Zoff.
The obvious question now is, can we do it again? To answer it, I turn to a different problem entirely: the so-called red button/blue button meme.
The premise is simple. Everyone must choose between a red or blue button. If more than half press the blue button, everyone survives. If not, only those who press the red button survive.
To me, the solution is straightforward. If you press blue, your survival depends on others making the same choice. If you press red, you survive regardless of what others do. From a purely selfish standpoint, red is the safer option. In fact, if everyone chooses red, everyone survives, and no one has an incentive to switch. It becomes something called a Nash equilibrium, and represents a possible “best response” strategy if you don’t know what others will do.
It’s something I would encourage everyone to follow. We need to stand together so that all will survive. It’s like encouraging people to take the vaccine, or to go out and vote, because it’s specifically in your best interest. But my wife and daughter disagree. They would both press blue. They are willing to take the risk, because they believe that cooperation is better than self-interest. This is also why I love my wife and daughter, while wondering why they love me.
And that brings us back to football. Imagine trying to crowdfund the World Cup today. You would need a critical mass of people willing to contribute before anything happens.
In 1982, RM300,000 bought four matches. Adjusted loosely for inflation, that might be just under RM1mil today. But Fifa’s current rights costs work out to roughly RM1.3mil a match, which is a testament to its unwritten policy for this World Cup which goes something like “Why charge less money when you can make more?”
So even if Malaysians could rally behind broadcasting the final, replicating the collective effort of 1982 across multiple matches feels unlikely. It might mean spending a few hundred ringgit too much above what is already a high cost of living.
On top of that, we now have a third option: Piracy. With a few clicks, a match appears on your screen. The stream may lag, the commentary might be in a foreign language, and there may be suspiciously persistent pop-up ads. But it is free, and for many, good enough.
There is an analogy with the button game. Contributing to a legal broadcast is like pressing the blue button where you only benefit if enough others do the same. Meanwhile, piracy is the red button where you get what you want regardless of what everyone else decides.
And just like in the thought experiment, the safer individual choice undermines the collective utopian outcome. The more people who choose the red button, the harder it becomes to sustain any shared solution. Over time, the blue buttons die off until everybody is red, or not a football fan.
The companies and market will, of course, adapt to this. During the 2024-2025 season the English Premier League’s (EPL) anti-piracy team removed more than 230,000 illegal live streams from social media platforms. That same year they also obtained an order from Singapore’s High Court to force Internet service providers to block access to 25 websites that illegally stream EPL football matches.
Then later last year, it was reported that the EPL is preparing to launch its own direct-to-consumer streaming service in Singapore, with potential expansion elsewhere. Why pirate when you can pay to watch it on your own desktop in the comfort of your home for less than the price of a real-life EPL ticket?
If that works, it changes the nature of what it means to watch football. Football, at least at the World Cup level, used to be something shared by everyone, both football fan and non. It was watched in living rooms and at mamak stalls, discussed in office cubicles and at family dinners, together and simultaneously.
When access becomes a personal decision, this shared experience is broken. In 1982, Malaysians didn’t just want to watch football, they wanted everyone to be able to watch it too, even those who didn’t or couldn’t contribute. That is what brought the rakyat together. But if we press the safer button, it will mean that the world’s game will slowly become something we watch on our own.
