Showtime Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit Over Failed Mayweather-McGregor Streams

Showtime Sued For Failed Mayweather-McGregor Streams

Sometimes it’s best to stay in your lane and play your position.

Showtime has been slapped with a class-action lawsuit after many customers, who paid to see Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor bang it out in the ring, experienced streaming issues the highly anticipated match-up.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Portland boxing fan Zack Bartel paid to stream the fight in high-definition through the Showtime app, but says all he saw was “grainy video, error screens, buffer events, and stalls.”

Bartel is suing Showtime for unlawful trade practices and unjust enrichment, alleging the network rushed its pay-per-view streaming service to the market without securing the bandwidth necessary to support the scores of cable-cutting fans.

“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,” writes attorney Michael Fuller in the complaint filed Saturday in Oregon federal court. “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.”

The complaint, which is largely composed of screenshots and tweets, is seeking for each member of the class actual damages or $200 in statutory damages, whichever is greater.

The proposed class includes Oregon consumers who viewed Showtime’s app advertisement on iTunes and paid $99.99 to stream the fight, but were unable to view the fight live on the app “in HD at 1080p resolution and at 60 frames per second, and who experienced ongoing grainy video, error screens, buffer events, and stalls instead.”

Showtime has yet to respond to the suit.