USA Today | By Kevin Spain | August 28, 2017
A Portland, Ore., man has filed a class-action lawsuit against Showtime for the poor quality of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Oregon and obtained by USA TODAY Sports, is seeking $200 in statutory damages or actual damages for each person in the action, whichever is greater.
Zack Bartel filed the suit because he bought the fight on the Showtime app in iTunes and, instead of watching it in high definition as advertised, he got grainy video, error messages and buffer messages. His suit claims that Showtime engaged in “unlawful trade practices” and “unjust enrichment”.
“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. “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.”
“We received a very limited number of complaints,” Showtime said in a statement to MMA Junkie. “We’re reviewing all of them carefully, and we will respond accordingly. Refunds are handled at the point of sale, so with regard to Showtime’s direct to consumer, our online offering of ShowtimePPV.com and Showtime PPV app, for those that could not see the fight on those platforms, Showtime will issue a full refund. Of course, the goal is to deliver at the highest quality all of the content.”
