Over Three Million People Reportedly Illegally Stream Mayweather Vs McGregor

It seems that any efforts to stop people illegally streaming Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor were all in vain.

Even though there was always going to people finding a way to watch the scrap for free, it's still pretty interesting to find out just how many did.

Digital platform security company Irdeto has estimated that there was around three million people who streamed it illegally, refusing to pay box office prices, Forbes reports.

Credit: PA

The three million watched it via 239 streams, with 165 of them being posted to Facebook, YouTube or other social media platforms as live feeds, whereas 67 were through regular streaming sites.

Kodi, as you'd expect, had a few, with a reported total of six available as an add-on through the "illicit" streaming platform.

Even still, it won't make much of a difference to the pay packet both fighters have taken home, as BBC Sport reports that it is estimated McGregor will make about $100m (£77.5m) for the time he spent between the ropes, which equals out at roughly $3m (£2.3m) a minute.

mayweather mcgregor

Credit: PA

For those who did choose a dodgy stream to watch one of the most talked about fights ever may face fines. The Daily Mail reports that many of those streaming the fight through an unofficial source saw a watermark pop up on their feed with a random selection of letters and numbers.

That mystery code, according to TorrentFreak - an online publication dedicated to news about copyright and file-sharing - was quite possibly placed there by licensed broadcasters in order to track down pirates.

The site stated: "The numbers would allow (the broadcaster) to track the illicit stream back to a subscriber and/or a set-top box tied to a particular account.

"Since that subscriber has then re-streamed that content back online illegally, the code would act as a homing beacon and could spell bad news for the individual involved."

TorrentFreak also suggests the code could also have been placed there by the pirate sites themselves.

"Pirate streams are vulnerable to being 'stolen' in much the same way that official streams are," the publication said, "so it's possible that a provider wanted to keep tabs on where its streams were ending up."

"Think of all the money we made." Credit: PA

If the watermarks were placed there by licensed broadcasters, it could mean serious fines - or even jail time - for those hosting illegal streams of the fight on YouTube, Facebook or blogs.

Two people are reportedly facing up to a $60,000 (£46,455) fine and five-year jail sentence after using Facebook Live to stream the Danny Green vs Anthony Mundine fight back in February this year.

Australian Darren Sharpe received a phone call from television network Foxtel asking him to stop his bootleg broadcast. He has started a Go Fund Me page saying: "Please donate in case I end up getting sued."

Time will presumably tell what the purpose of these codes were - and whether other people will find themselves in similar situations.

If this turns out to be the case, was it worth it?

Topics: Conor Mcgregor, Boxing, Streaming, Floyd Mayweather

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.