Advanced Television

MUSO: Millions watched Joshua vs Ruiz illegally via YouTube

June 6, 2019

MUSO, the global specialist in digital piracy protection, has released data from the boxing match between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr, revealing that over 13 million people across the globe turned to unauthorised channels to watch Joshua’s shock defeat.

In terms of how people were tuning in illegally, YouTube had over 93 per cent of the audience share and over 2.3 million Nigerian fight fans watch through unlicensed channels, a nod to Joshua’s Nigerian background.

The top 10 audiences by country for the fight through unlicensed channels were:

  1. Nigeria – 2,351,496
  2. Kenya – 998,027
  3. UK – 921,994
  4. USA – 600,501
  5. Mexico – 587,028
  6. Philippines – 541,171
  7. Uganda – 417,443
  8. China – 376,202
  9. Turkey – 351,272
  10. Indonesia – 309,902

The 13 million people watching Joshua vs Ruiz eclipses the 9.98 million people who watched the Fury vs. Wilder fight back in December and becomes the highest unlicensed audience that MUSO has tracked in boxing so far.

Andy Chatterley, CEO and co-founder at MUSO, commented: “We saw how popular the Fury vs. Wilder fight was across piracy networks just six months ago and how a significant part of the audience was coming in through YouTube. The Joshua vs. Ruiz fight has been the largest unauthorised audience that we’ve ever tracked across boxing and it’s staggering to see that 93 per cent of the audience watched via YouTube.”

Chatterley continued: “The official Pay Per View audience figures have yet to be published, but this is a massive audience that’s being ignored. This highly engaged audience offers up huge insight and perhaps, more importantly, significant commercial opportunity.”

Categories: Articles, Content, Piracy, Research