Cox’s Fight Customers Take a Sucker Punch

Ethan Fitzgerald of Mission Hills began planning three weeks ago for a big party Monday night for about 40 of his friends. Two kegs of beer and 250 hot dogs were on hand to spice up the watching of the much-ballyhooed Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvelous Marvin Hagler middleweight championship fight on cable TV.

The only trouble was: A technical glitch at Cox Cable prevented as many as 1,000 subscribers--Fitzgerald included--from receiving the signal.

“It turned out to be an absolute disaster,” Fitzgerald, 24, said Tuesday. “I tried relentlessly to call Cox but was never able to get through. The line was always busy.”

Despite the problem, a handful of partygoers remained at his home, but Fitzgerald said he had to “leave my own party to go to a party at a friend’s house and watch the fight.”

Bob McRann, Cox general manager, acknowledged Tuesday that company officials are “highly embarrassed” over the technical snafu.

“Unfortunately, it was the biggest fight in a decade, and we had a problem,” McRann said. “We’ve been communicating to our customers that we are very sorry and highly embarrassed.”

McRann’s apology, however, seemed unlikely to satisfy many Cox customers who paid $40 to watch the fight on cable and were still fuming Tuesday after watching electronic grotesqueries on their television screens instead of Sugar Ray’s artful moves.

At one point Monday night, San Diego police were called to the Federal Boulevard offices of Cox when about 200 angry customers gathered outside and demanded that the company make the fight available to them. Police said no arrests were made and the crowd was dispersed peacefully after about an hour.

Cox officials are not sure what kept the 750 to 1,000 subscribers from receiving the fight or allowed them to receive only a few rounds. According to McRann, about 16,500 customers saw the match without a problem.

On Tuesday, McRann said he was kept busy answering calls from angry subscribers and questions from a legion of reporters.

“I’ve been a fairly busy guy today,” he said. “I didn’t get any publicity for a year, and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose.”

Cox officials said they will give partial or full refunds to their customers, depending on how much of the fight they saw. McRann said the company has not agreed on a refund formula, but he warned customers who saw all of the fight not to seek a refund.

“Right now, we don’t know how many people saw part of the fight or none at all,” McRann said. “But with the aid of our computers, we will be able to answer that question, and we’re gathering that data right now.”

He said company operators fielded about 1,100 complaint calls during the fight from people who claimed that they paid to see the match but were not receiving it.

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald, the disappointed Mission Hills party host, said Tuesday that he was busy returning chairs he had rented and getting his house cleaned.

“I’ve had it with Cox,” he said. “At this point in time, I will probably cancel the cable. It’s a sad state because Cox does have a monopoly and what choices do I have? I can’t just buy the services of another cable company. I’ll probably just go out and buy a VCR and start renting movies.”