Conor McGregor’s cross-promotional match up against Floyd Mayweather Jr. quickly became one of the most watched pay-per-view events of the year, before breaking Mayweather vs. Pacquiao’s astounding record. Now, it would appear that the event also beckoned a large illegal streaming audience.
As reported by Variety, “The Aug. 26 match from Las Vegas yielded 239 illegal live-streamed rebroadcasts online, reaching an estimated 2.93 million viewers worldwide, according to content-security vendor Irdeto. Of those, 67 were hosted on well-known piracy streaming websites. Pirates also used services including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter’s Periscope, Amazon-owned Twitch and media-player platform Kodi to illegally redistribute the highly anticipated event, according to Irdeto.
“In addition to the live-streaming piracy, an estimated 445,000 internet users downloaded video of the fight after it concluded Saturday, including 78,000 in the U.S. and 49,000 in the U.K. and Ireland, according to piracy-tracking firm Tecxipio.”
