Report: Nearly Three Million People Illegally Streamed Mayweather vs. McGregor
Floyd Mayweather's fight against Conor McGregor on Saturday night is estimated to have been viewed by nearly three million people via 239 illegal streams, digital platform security company Irdeto reported to Forbes.
Iredeto believes 2,930,598 people illegally watched the fight on social media channels and streaming sites. The fight was shown live on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope and Twitch. Several ads for the illegal streams were placed on sites like Alibaba, eBay and Amazon.
In some of these streams, "digital Robin Hoods" were viewers who purchased the fight and would stream their television or screen that was showing the fight for the viewers to see for free.
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No official numbers on pay-per-view sales have been released yet.
Mayweather's 2015 bout against Manny Paquiao netted more than $400 million through 4.6 million pay-per-view-buys. Top Rank and Mayweather promotions filed a complaint in federal court ahead of the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight to preemptively shut down any illegal streams of the match.
[h/t Awful Announcing]
