PPV to watch a Youtuber vs Conor McGregor’s jujitsu partner who’s had 2 MMA fights in his life (the last being 3.5yrs ago) - Game Changed.
Totally different audience. But let me know last time a boxing fight with 14 million followers wasn’t on PPV. For reference that ls 3 x the following of Tyson fury. There’s clearly a market as they are slaughtering boxing PPVs. it’s on the boxing world to adapt and compete. Sticking Wilder vs Helenius and Eubank vs Smith on PPV and doing a fraction of the numbers should put a reality check on boxing
Come on mate, you can’t say boxing needs to adapt and compete to accommodate Youtubers then highlight Wilder being on PPV as the problem. Boxing needs to keep its integrity.
You can both be right here - boxing really should have some integrity but DAZN doesn’t need it. In a sense this fight will subsidise other boxing cards and since it’s PPV anyone who subscribed to see normal pro boxing won’t be affected anyway…
Bit harsh that Trafford. Even Eddie was distancing himself from the YTers the other day, poi ting out that he was a 'purist" himself and didn't like to see the sport getting Dragged through out the mud like it is nowadays with this YT nonsense. Just cos it makes loads of money doesn't make it digestible. What if you were to dress elite boxers in tutus and get them to slap at each other and do a pirouette each time they landed and that got more of a casual audience interested, is that the right way for our elite boxers to perform. No of course not.
That's a bit harsh. White collar boxing amongst people with an undoubted wide audience is hardly a crime. Sport Relief did stuff like this for years and stuck it on BBC1, the only difference being the 'stars' didn't get paid (directly). Andrew Flintoff did it for money. But as you said correctly elsewhere, as long as it's on a niche platform then no real harm done.
I agree. What I’m saying is boxing needs to be built properly and make the best fights that the fans want. Too many times over the last 20 years we miss fights or they happen too late. the YouTube thing has a market it’s not the standard boxing market. It’s a much younger audience but people that watch this will grow up and we have to entice them over to the actual sport. can’t really knock dazn for screening it as it’s generating PPV and subs for their business. But boxing needs to stop sticking nothing fights in PPV unless they are at an affordable level.
I personally don’t like it and Eddie was right but also said boxing is under siege and needs to make the big fights and hype itself back up as they are promoting the life out of themselves. it is digestible clearly though to an audience. It’s not for me like I said and not for a boxing purist but much like WWE isn’t for me and the UFC was. Both can exist and both have an audience but UFC makes the fights it’s audience wants to see at the min boxing doesn’t
Because "boxing" as a business, is not a thing. The one outcome I was hoping to see from Matchroom's expansion, as Barry Hearn said in the past, would be a circuit of top level boxers under the same promotional banner, who would have no choice but to fight each other - as UFC and other similar groups do. The alphabet bodies and cluster of greedy promoters circling around them, are ruining the sport.
