By Joe Flint
Boxing fans who waited five long years to see Floyd Mayweather
and Manny Pacquiao duke it out had to wait a little longer Saturday
night as a rush of pay-per-view orders caused technical
difficulties that led to a delay of the fight.
While the fight had no official start time, Time Warner Inc.'s
HBO and CBS Corp.'s Showtime, which were partners on the telecast,
were hoping for the first punch to be thrown no later than 11:15
p.m. Eastern time. Instead, it kicked off around midnight. Often
big boxing matches don't start until after midnight but the
Mayweather-Pacquiao bout garnered attention far beyond hard-core
fans, and the promoters and networks didn't want to frustrate TV
viewers with a very late start.
Many major pay-TV distributors including satellite broadcaster
DirecTV, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable had challenges
with heavy demand for the fight, which led to glitches and slow
processing of orders. Subscribers took to Twitter to complain and
some distributors including Charter Communications responded they
were aware of the problem and were working to fix it.
No announcements about the cause of the delay were made in the
arena but on the telecast the TV issues were acknowledged.
It cost $99 to order the fight in high definition and $89 for
standard definition. Many people congregated in bars and
restaurants to watch.
The high interest in the fight is expected to result in record
pay-per-view buys. Official numbers won't be available until later
in the week but pre-fight estimates from industry executives were
around three million. That would be a record, topping the 2.48
million that bought Mr. Mayweather's 2007 fight against Oscar De La
Hoya.
Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com
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