The Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight Will Be a Game of Piracy Whack-a-Mole
Rapper Doug E. Fresh interviews WBC/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 28, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather will face WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in a unification bout on May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas.
Photographer: Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesWith the biggest boxing match in years just days away, the fight to keep it off illegal streaming sites is well under way. HBO, Showtime, and the promoters for Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to shut down two websites that are advertising free streaming videos of Saturday night’s fight. The suit follows one brought in Florida last week by a Filipino media company against a man who it says operates an illegal streaming site in the Philippines. Both suits ask for restraining orders to stop the sites showing the fight.
The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will be a major test of the sports media industry’s ability to crack down on piracy. The fight is expected to be the most lucrative boxing match ever—and the most-pirated live sporting event in history. And while the lawsuits are a first step, the real contest will be a spirit game of whack-a-mole taking place as the fight is actually going on. Sports pose a unique challenge when it comes to piracy. Whereas an episode of Game of Thrones will likely draw significant attention days or even weeks after it airs, relatively few people will want to watch a boxing match once they know who has won. As a result, everything comes down to what happens during a few hours on Saturday night.