Local bar sued for airing pay-per-view fight, three years later

 A local bar being sued over it's airing of a pay-per-view boxing match three years ago. Apparently they didn't have the rights to show it and now the owner's gone AWOL.

The cost to air a pay-per-view fight at a bar can be in the thousands but it's around 100 bucks to watch it at home. To save money some bars, have been buying fights at the residential rate and now years later they're paying the price. 

\"Little old me, what are they losing on me? Well you start adding that up, a couple million people, then you've got significant money,\" said Peter Balistreri, the attorney who represents the plaintiff in this case. 

Big fights, like the recent Pacquiao- Mayweather boxing match draw big crowds for bars and attorney Peter Balistreri says production companies, who pay millions for the rights, are going to extreme methods to make sure they're getting paid.

\"They have to resort to random investigators who go into neighborhoods when the fight is in progress to determine if facility is broadcasting the event,\" said Balistreri. 

And these investigators are people you may know.

\"They're all local people in fact I have one fellow in Green Bay who is a minister of all things! Great guy to have on the stands.\"

Balistreri says businesses and bars are caught more often than you might think, in fact he's suing this bar in Racine county. 

That's because in 2012, an investigator went into \"The Old School Way\" bar and found it was illegally airing another Pacquiao fight even taking video and pictures as evidence. 

\"I've had that happen they say 'I've never seen the fight,' then I send them a DVD of the videos with the bartender and the TV and the fight on...and then I get a 'gee I don't know how that happened,' \" said Balistreri.

It takes years before these cases hit Balistreri's desk as the company always attempts to settle. But he says he is sure this latest fight will keep him busy.

\"If got a feeling if I'm doing this in a couple years from now of I'm still doing this it'll be big,\" he said. 

Balistreri says 99% of cases end up settling but get this- most for 5-10 thousand dollars, about 4 times the cost of just paying for the broadcast.