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The long-awaited battle between welterweight champions Floyd "Money" Mayweather Jr. and Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao may be the fight of the century---and the most lucrative boxing match of all time. So, yeah, you probably want to watch. But if you aren't in Vegas, the options to catch it are limited. You can pay-per-view it, go to a bar, or have a friend pay. And HBO and Showtime will do almost anything to keep it that way.
Earlier this week, the cable giants, along with the companies that promote Mayweather and Pacquiao, sued two sites claiming they would be livestreaming the fight for free Saturday night. "Now if you can't afford to buy tickets then simply watch Mayweather vs. Pacquiao here," one site said, according to the suit. HBO and Showtime are accusing the sites, boxinghd.net and sportship.org, of infringing on exclusive copyright of the fight recording, the cable networks claimed in the suit. Shut it down.
And they did. Both sites disappeared the next day. And, in a victory for networks everywhere, a California judge granted a restraining order Thursday against the wannabe streamers, prohibiting boxinghd.net and sportship.org from cropping back up on fight day to stream it live. (The sites' owners were listed only as John Does in the suit.)
They're not the only ones. We at WIRED tried to find some free livestreaming sites available for the match and couldn't find any (so far), which is exactly what HBO and Showtime want. A source close to the boxing promotions team told WIRED that they have an aggressive plan in place to monitor any pirate livestreams that crop up and act quickly to shut them down too. The message is clear: pay the exorbitant $89 to $100 to watch, or don't watch at all. (Though in looking out for your best interests, we found that you could try to use a VPN to catch the fight, but it's not a sure bet.)
Which is weird. Because when you can stream pretty much anything for free---from a guy in Texas' cat on Periscope to Game of Thrones' latest episode via torrent sites---it’s pretty incredible that the cable big leagues are going out of their way to stop you from getting a free May-Pac fix.
That's because when it comes to TV, live sports are still the moneymaking king. The boxing pair-up is expected to bring in more than $300 million, generated by everything from its insanely pricey tickets to the millions buying pay-per-view to watch it at home. To HBO and Showtime, Mayweather and Pacquiao are worth way more than their weight in gold (at current gold prices, their combined weight is worth about $5.5 million). Just as Fox, CBS, and NBC are willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights to NFL games, HBO and Showtime will stop at nothing to protect their pay-per-view profits.
While HBO doesn't seem too worried about the millions illegally streaming its most popular scripted show, live sports are different. Still. They're the last standing bastion of the way things used to be: Americans everywhere tuning in to watch something in one place, together, all at the same time, as it happens, live. And whether it's on ESPN, HBO, or Showtime, those Americans are willing to keep paying, a lot. Cable networks aren't giving that up anytime soon. Even for you.
