Mayweather-McGregor Fight Causes Digital TKO With Crushing Traffic On Pay-Per-View And Live Streams
The big event of the weekend was certainly the boxing match last night between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC champ Conor McGregor. The fight was a spectacle during the promotion and many people shelled out $99.99 to watch the fight via pay-per-view (PPV). However, for some fans, the crushing demand for the fight streams led to trouble watching what they paid for. During the event both the UFC and Showtime PPV were having issues due to intense network load, leaving some who paid unable to watch the fight.
As you can imagine. fans who had waited months to watch the fight, and coughed up their $100 weren't happy. The UFC tweeted that overwhelming traffic was making it hard for users to log into the website to view the stream of the fight they paid for. In the tweet, the UFC promised that the login issues would be resolved shortly. While the UFC stepped up and admitted it was having stream issues, Showtime played coy for most of the night, but legions of fight fans certainly complained about the problems logging in that kept them from being able to watch the fight.
.@UFCFightPass customers: Due to overwhelming traffic you may be experiencing log in issues. This will be resolved shortly.
— UFC (@ufc) August 27, 2017
Tweets poured out from fight fans begging Showtime to fix their stream with some demanding a fix or a refund. Some who paid for the PPV stream from their TV were left unable to watch as well. College basketball personality Dick Vitale was among those who bought the PPV match on his TV and were left unable to watch. This isn't the first time that a Mayweather fight has crushed PPV streams leaving some unable to watch.
We r in panic mode / Waited all day for PAY PER VIEW OF FIGHT / not getting it & we can't get anyone on the phone ! pic.twitter.com/oTnandYpHU
— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) August 27, 2017
Similar issues happened during the Mayweather and Pacquiao fight two years ago. I was watching the fight via Dish Network PPV and had no issues at all with the stream or quality. Interestingly, there was a lot of talking and delay between some of the bouts that I chalked up to Showtime drawing the event out.
As it turns out, Showtime knew that there were issues with the PPV streams with some satellite and cable providers and Showtime was delaying bouts to try and allow the issues to be resolved. As an aside, this fight was a money machine, McGregor reportedly earned around $100 million with Mayweather raking in around $300 million.Showtime makes it official: Main event will be delayed to try and catch up with PPV demand. pic.twitter.com/6ebPRa8Vg5
— John Morgan (@MMAjunkieJohn) August 27, 2017
Image, credit: Wiki Commons (Mayweather) and Andrius Petrucenia/ Flickr (McGregor)
