It just got a lot harder to track down a free stream for Floyd Mayweather's fight with Conor McGregor
Showtime has acted quickly to prevent a number of pirate websites from illegally streaming Mayweather vs McGregor later this week
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Your support makes all the difference.American broadcaster Showtime has acted quickly to keep pirate websites from illegally broadcasting the Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor fight, with a federal court in California issuing a preliminary injunction targeting several different sites.
The fight is one of the most anticipated sports events of the year, and will see Mayweather put his flawless professional record on the line against two-weight UFC world champion McGregor.
Showtime and HBO are screening the fight on pay-per-view (PPV) in the United States, charging viewers $99.95 to watch the contest in High Definition.
In the United Kingdom, the fight is available to watch on Sky Sports Box Office for £19.95, or €24.95 for Republic of Ireland customers.
The high price of the fight, especially in the United States, means that many fight fans will no doubt turn to an illegal streaming site so that they can watch the action for free. But the preliminary injunction issued by the courts now means that finding such a stream will be a lot more difficult.
Showtime’s complaint to the courts listed 44 different domain names advertising the fight — nearly all of them with a variant of Mayweather vs McGregor in the URL — urging them to be shut down well ahead of the contest on 26 August.
The sites are “all currently formatted as Mayweather v. McGregor blogs populated with articles that are stuffed with keywords related to the fight,” wrote attorney Dennis Wilson.
“Plaintiff alleges that Defendants have engaged in such keyword stuffing as a form of search engine optimization in an effort to attract as much web traffic as possible in the form of Internet users searching for a way to access a live stream of the Fight.”
United States district judge André Birotte Jr. approved the preliminary injunction, meaning that the site’s operators are forbidden from offering the streaming services advertised.
As one of the biggest sporting events of the year, it is likely that a number of other illegal sites will spring up advertising free streams of the fight in the week ahead. But Showtime’s decision to go to the courts may put off further streamers from breaking the law.
For those who want to watch the action, the safest bet remains simply purchasing the PPV. Information on how to do that in both the UK and the US can be found here.
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