Can pay per view events be successful online?

As people cut the cord and sign up for streaming services, one of the issues that has arisen for them is the inconsistency of the performance of pay per view events. One of the most egregious offenders was the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight last month which ran into trouble over snafus and glitches. Showtime and UFC which co-promoted the fight faced a class-action lawsuit and had to offer refunds for the $99.99 price.

This past weekend’s Canelo Alvarez-Genady Golovkin on HBO PPV seemed to go without any glitches through Ring.com’s infrastructure.

But if the interest in Canelo-GGG had reached Mayweather-McGregor proportions, there might have been the same issues that plagued the Showtime/UFC production.

The main thing is that cord cutters who want the same access to pay per view events that they had when they were subscribers to cable and satellite aren’t finding it as easy. Technical glitches hit not just Mayweather-McGregor, but also the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in 2015. That set the all-time record for pay per view buys at 4.6 million.

It’s expected when all is said and done, Mayweather-McGregor will come close or possibly surpass that number. However, the growing curve for streaming these events online is quite high. People want to see the big events online and when they click on a site like Showtime PPV or HBO PPV, they want to be able watch it without any problems.

But the whole thing is for the networks to find the whole idea of streaming their pay per events online both profitable and worthwhile. It’s also important to find the right infrastructure that can handle the demand.

With cord cutting becoming more of a reality, so is the reality of putting more pay per events online. The key is to make them work so there won’t be glitches or hangups.

[Multichannel News]