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Showtime Sued Over Streaming Issues With Mayweather-McGregor Fight

Saturday night’s bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor was the most high-profile prize fight that could be ordered pay-per-view through online streaming, yet widespread outages and choppy feeds left many disappointed and has already prompted a class-action lawsuit.

The four-fight card in Las Vegas was available for $99.99 through the traditional Showtime PPV broadcast through a cable television provider but also streaming through Showtime’s app, Sling TV and UFC.tv. 

A customer in Portland, Ore., named Zack Bartel purchased the fight through the Showtime PPV app to stream the footage but, “to his extreme disappointment and frustration,” he saw only “grainy video, error screens, buffer events, and stalls” rather than the advertised quality of 1080p resolution high-definition video at 60 frames per second, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court after the fight Saturday night.

The complaint seeks to be certified as a class-action case and names Showtime Networks, Inc. as the sole defendant, alleging unlawful trade practices and unjust enrichment. The suits seeks compensation of “actual damages or $200 statutory damages, whichever is greater,” as well as interest, fees and costs. A representative from Showtime did not immediately respond to SportTechie’s request for comment but told Variety that affected customers will receive a refund. Variety also reported that an estimated 2.93 million people watched illegal pirated streams.

“Instead of being upfront with consumers about its new, untested, underpowered service, defendant caused likelihood of confusion and misunderstanding as to the source and quality of the HD video consumers would see on fight night,” the complaint said. “Defendant intentionally misrepresented the quality and grade of video consumers would see using its app, and knowingly failed to disclose that its system was defective with respect to the amount of bandwidth available, and that defendant’s service would materially fail to conform to the quality of HD video defendant promised.”

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The fight was briefly delayed Saturday due to technical issues with PPV; at the time, Showtime Sports released this statement: “Due to high demand, we have reports of scattered outages from various cable and satellite provides and the online offering. We will delay the start of the main event slightly to allow for systems to get on track. We do not expect a lengthy delay.”

“We received a very limited number of complaints,” Chris DeBlasio, senior vice president of sports communications for Showtime, said in a statement on Monday afternoon. “We’re reviewing all of them carefully, and we will respond accordingly.”

Showtime directed customers seeking a refund to contact the specific provider from whom they ordered the service.

Boxing fans across the country flooded social media with reports of problems, with longtime college basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale saying he was “livid” in one of the more than a dozen tweets he sent related to the matter.

Digital video company NeuLion supported the infrastructure for UFC.tv, Sky Sports Box Office, Sky Fan Pass and the Eleven Sports Network’s OTT service. In a story at Fortune preceding the fight, the reporter wrote of NeuLion, “Few, if any, boxing fans will have ever heard of NeuLion, (and, the company’s name still won’t be very visible on Saturday either) but the company’s technology and manpower will play a pivotal role in getting the stream of the Mayweather-McGregor fight into the homes of millions of people this weekend.” That wasn’t the case by Sunday after UFC’s streaming service, Fight Pass, ultimately referred customers to alternate providers.

NeuLion is based on Long Island and counts the NFL and NBA among its clients. An executive for the company did not reply to an email seeking comment Monday.

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