Almost 1m Kenyans used pirated channels to watch Joshua v Ruiz fight
Friday June 07 2019
England's Anthony Joshua (right) fights with US-Mexican Andy Ruiz during their 12-round IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO World Heavyweight Championship match at Madison Square Garden in New York on June 1, 2019. PHOTO | TIMOTHY A. CLARY | AFP
Nearly a million Kenyans watched the much-anticipated boxing match between Britain’s Anthony Joshua and Mexican Andy Ruiz Jr through unauthorised channels, a BBC report based on an analysis by a global anti-piracy firm, Muso, says.
An estimated 998,027 Kenyans used unofficial channels to watch the fight, making the country second after Nigeria on the list of unlicensed viewers.
Muso found that there were more than 13 million people worldwide who watched the match through the said channels.
Nigeria, where Joshua's parents come from, topped the list 2.35 million people unlicensed viewers.
Third on the list was UK with 921,994 viewers.
"The Joshua v Ruiz fight has been the largest unauthorised audience that we have ever tracked across boxing and it is staggering to see that 93 percent of the audience watched via YouTube. The official pay-per-view audience figures have yet to be published, but this is a massive audience that's being ignored," BBC quoted Muso's chief executive and co-founder, Andy Chatterley.
“This highly engaged audience offers up huge insight and perhaps, more importantly, significant commercial opportunity.”
Developments in technology have created opportunities for people to exploit to access such premium events.
Also, cost to the consumer to access the premium events through legal means has become prohibitive as the big multinational broadcast licence holders charge high rates, especially for third-world countries.
Many a times, Kenyans have expressed frustration with the premium satellite television service providers for charging exorbitant amounts for few programmes and sporting events.
Anthony Joshua lost his heavyweight world titles to Andy Ruiz Jr.