Distributor Files Suit vs. 2 Dallas Bars for Showing Boxing Events Without License

Closed-circuit events distributor G&G filed consecutively numbered Communications Act complaints Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas, alleging two Dallas-area restaurants stole the broadcast feeds of two boxing events in 2020 and 2021 and showed them to customers for commercial profit. G&G alleges the Dallas establishment J. Whiskey’s Sports Bar Grill showed the December 2020 Saul Alvarez vs. Callum Smith championship fight program without a license (docket 3:23-cv-00556), and the Arlington, Texas, Tex-Mex eatery El Tenampa did the same with the May 2021 Saul Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders event (docket 3:23-cv-00557). The closed-circuit broadcasts weren’t intended “for the use of the general public,” said both complaints. In Texas, they could be exhibited in a commercial establishment only if that establishment were “contractually authorized to do so” by G&G, they said. The transmission of the events originated via satellite and was scrambled, they said. The establishments that contracted with G&G were provided “with the electronic decoding capability and/or satellite coordinates necessary to receive the signal,” the complaints said. Both complaints seek statutory damages up to $100,000 for each willful violation of the Communications Act. Neither establishment commented Wednesday.