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Bar Owner Hit With $33K Judgment Over Pay-Per-View FightLock Icon

1 min read

Showing “The Fight of the Century” in 2015 was costly for a Caddo Valley sports bar owner.

An owner of the Mirage Sports Bar & Grill was ordered to pay $6,000 plus $27,200 in attorney’s fees and court costs for showing the battle between Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao. (Mayweather won.)

J&J Sports Productions Inc. of San Jose, California, alleged in a 2018 federal lawsuit that the Mirage played the fight without paying the $6,000 commercial licensing fee. J&J also named one of the Mirage’s owners, Nilesh Dalal, as a defendant.

Dalal said during a bench trial in June that he was never in a position to supervise and control what went on at the bar, according to Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson’s ruling filed in the Hot Springs Division of U.S. District Court.

Dalal also said the bar was never profitable and closed in the fall of 2016.

Businesses showing sporting events without paying the licensing fee is “a huge problem that costs the clients tens of millions of dollars annually,” said attorney Thomas Riley of South Pasadena, California, who represented J&J.

Still, he said “It was terrific to come to Hot Springs. We had a terrific judge, and we had a good trial.”

Attorney Morgan Andy Berry of Arkadelphia, who represented Dalal, didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

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