The Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor bout was one of the biggest sporting events of the year, a much-hyped exercise in decadent appointed viewing. As exciting as the fight was for most fans, some were left in the dark because of glitches with the paid livestreaming option presented by Showtime. Now, because of the rampant use of illegal streaming that disgruntled customers turned to in the wake of these technical difficulties, the premium TV network has now been named in a class action lawsuit by those who felt spurned by the goings-on.
As per a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Showtime is being sued for "unlawful trade practices and unjust enrichment" after buffering and quality issues with their pay-per-view streaming service that fans purchased in order to watch the big fight. Attorney Michael Fuller submitted the suit to the federal court, documentation that included the following language.:
"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. 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."
Customers had forked over $99.99 per stream for Mayweather-McGregor, and the lawsuit will be seeking the appropriate damages to compensate them for their troubles. Showtime's Senior VP of Sports Communications Chris DeBlasio confirmed that fans who purchased the pay per view from either Showtimeppv.com or the ShowtimePPV app and had problems with the stream will be refunded as soon as possible. "We have received a very limited number of complaints," said DeBlasio. "[We] will issue a full refund for any customer who purchased the event directly from Showtime and were unable to receive the telecast."
Resourceful internet users tried to find a workaround to the technical issues, but the illegal streaming activity was staggering. According to Variety, an estimated 2.9 million people illegally streamed the fight.