The streaming service offered for Saturday’s Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather fight left many disappointed, and one fan was dismayed enough to try to take Showtime to court over it.
According to Ashley Cullins of the Hollywood Reporter, Zack Bartel of Portland, Ore. was one of many who paid $99 to view the fight in high definition on the Showtime app. What he got instead was, according to the complaint, “grainy video, error screens, buffer events, and stalls.”
“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,” attorney Michael Fuller wrote in the complaint, which was filed 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 lawsuit seeks $200 per claimant or actual damages, whichever figure is higher.
Issues with streaming services were so bad that the fight was actually delayed because of it. We’ll see if anything comes of the lawsuit, but Showtime certainly did not come out of it looking good.
