Online security experts Irdeto detected 239 illegal streams of Saturday night's highly-anticipated bout between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
Expected to be the highest grossing Pay Per View event ever, it is nonetheless estimated that 2.93 million people watched Mayweather secure his 50-0 record illegally.
Taken from a press release published by the security company today, Irdeto revealed that,
pirates exploited multiple channels, including Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Twitch and others to illegally redistribute this premier boxing event.
While there was a huge public demand to witness the fight in real time, many boxing, UFC and sports fans generally were clearly dissuaded by the prices that legitimate carriers of the fight had proposed.
It is not a new trend by any means.
A recent survey carried out amongst 'more than 25,000 adults across 30 countries' discovered that '52% of consumers around the globe knowingly watch pirated video content.'
Rory O'Connor, a prominent member of Irdeto, has described the reality of this issue as it now stands and how organisations such as his plan to halt it:
Live sports are a cornerstone of global piracy, with thousands of sites providing illegal content attracting millions of viewers. When combatting live sports piracy, speed in disrupting piracy is essential.
The most effective strategy is an intelligence-driven approach with a 360-degree view of piracy.
Last month, the Premier League enhanced their efforts at reducing the availability of such streams when they acquired a blocking order from the High Court in England. With multi-billion pound deals on the line for the world's most popular football league, it is an issue they would certainly like to thoroughly rectify.
