Moments after coverage of the Las Vegas match between UFC fighter Conor McGregor and undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather was scheduled to begin today, UFC Fight Pass pulled a real HBO Go, crashing under load and preventing many users from watching the big showdown.
Photo: AP
Twitter began blowing up with reports that the streaming service was apparently overloaded and unable to keep up with the sheer number of viewers, resulting in large numbers of customers being unable to watch a match they shelled out a lot of clams for.
Anybody else buy the fight from @ufc and now getting blocked out? Fraud much??
— Richard Marx (@richardmarx) August 27, 2017
Is the UFC App down for anyone else?????!!
— Anthony Wheeler (@NAMELESS) August 27, 2017
So @ufc about me being able to log in and watch the fight I paid for? 👀
— Peter Rosenberg (@Rosenbergradio) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/itsjoelclark/status/901616338052956160
https://twitter.com/carriesnotscary/status/901617331104866304
Did anyone else pay for the fight and it’s not working on the UFC TV app???
— alley oop (@alley_innit) August 27, 2017
In a tweet sent out shortly after the start of proceedings, UFC Fight Pass acknowledged, “Due to overwhelming traffic you may be experiencing log in issues. This will be resolved shortly.”
Due to overwhelming traffic you may be experiencing log in issues. This will be resolved shortly.
— UFC FIGHT PASS (@UFCFightPass) August 27, 2017
Anecdotal evidence seen by Gizmodo indicated the massive influx in fight traffic was beginning to affect less-than-legal streams as well, briefly rendering Buffstream unusable and straining Discord and Reddit where pirate stream links are often shared.
The main event is not expected to start for several hours, so hopefully UFC is able to work out the excess load problems by then.