Last night's Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight "was delayed about 30 minutes because of high pay-per-view demand causing problems for cable and satellite systems." Fight announcer Jim Lampley said an "electronic overload" caused cable and satellite operators to ask for a delay. PPV issues prompted "scores of angry tweets directed at various providers" (AP, 5/3). The beginning of the fight "was delayed by about 45 minutes to help fix the pay-per-view issues," with the fighters entering the ring at 11:45pm ET. Fans "reported issues" with Optimum, DirecTV, Charter, Comcast, TWC and AT&T. Problems ranged from "issues with ordering, to pixilated screens, to screens going to black" (ESPN.com, 5/2).
No announcement was made to fans inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena as to "why there was a delay" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 5/3). At 10:20pm last night, a website showing outages from Charter Communications across the country "highlighted St. Louis; Asheville, N.C.; and parts of South Carolina as the most-impacted regions" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 5/3).
Meanwhile, Top Rank Chair Bob Arum said of the expected PPV totals, "This figure is going to be enormous. Four, four-and-a-half, five (million). I don’t want to say anything. We’ll know soon enough. But it is going to be huge" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 5/3).
