Fansided

Mayweather-Pacquiao PPV pirates are about to pay

By Josh Criswell

May 2, 2015; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao box during their world welterweight championship bout at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
May 2, 2015; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao box during their world welterweight championship bout at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports /
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A record-setting number of establishments illegally hosted pirated viewings of the long-awaited fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and they are about to face some serious penalties for doing so.

Pay-per-view sales, revenue and absurd prices were not the only records set when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao faced each other in both the most hyped and most disappointing boxing match in recent memory on May 2 in Las Vegas.

There was also a record number of bars, restaurants and other establishments that illegally pirated the pay-per-view broadcast of the event, and the culprits are about to be facing significant repercussions for doing so.

When J&J Sports Productions paid $7 million for the commercial licensing rights to the event, they also employed an unprecedented amount of private investigators that were tasked with one job; find establishments that were showing the fight that did not pay.

The owner of the company, Joe Gagliardi, expected piracy to be a problem, but he could never have predicted the record-setting number of instances that they were about to discover. More than 1,000 businesses illegally screened the event, compared to the 4,000 who purchased the fight, making up an estimated 20 percent of the total public viewings.

Gagliardi’s attorneys are allegedly ready to start going after the suspects, with fines expected to be handed down shortly

Some may look at the immense number of demands for payment that will be coming as a positive step in the right direction, but another viewpoint is one that sees this as a greedy, overzealous business move. While the guilty parties should be held accountable for their actions, we will see what the true intentions of the punishments are in the details that will emerge in the near future.

Attorney Mathew Pare has represented several establishments in cases against J&J Sports Productions, and paints a much darker picture of the company, giving details of an incident where they charged a woman upwards of $30,000 for a transgression that involved screening the fight to no more than five individuals.

"“They like to describe it as policing or enforcing,” Pare told USA Today. “But it goes way, way beyond that. What they’re trying to do is almost extort money.”"

The production company claims that the majority of the money goes towards attorneys fees and piracy prevention, and that they are only making such high demands because they have a responsibility ‘to protect the people who pay.’

This situation essentially sums up the state of the boxing world right now. A month after an unimpressive and overwhelmingly-hyped fight left boxing and casual sports fans alike dissatisfied, we are still discussing the Fight of the Century that never was, and not in a positive fashion.

H/T: Boxing Junkie

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