I don't think the live gate matters that much in fairness. Very round numbers, but let's say Whyte v Povetkin sold out the O2 or Manchester Arena at an average ticket price of £100 a pop - that's £2m. But let's say it does the same numbers as Whyte Rivas (286k) at £20 a pop, that's not far off three times what's made on the door. In that sense, it's always going to be on PPV because Whyte against a 'name' does big numbers (over 470k for Parker) and even against Rivas who is basically unknown PPV generates not short of £6m.
Ok fair enough, lets say we have a headline fight that isnt PPV level, taking away the gate money for those sort of contests and cards must result in a huge reduction off revenue for the event, are we seeing a big reduction on the amount fighters are earning or is the promoter/tv company taking the hit.
No scenario really It just shows that these fighters can have their demands lowered if people in charge essentially tell them no Sure i know currently theres no reason for that but promoters in this day and age whilst needing to create PPV stars, essentially can create a monster too
Naturally they do; in any business if you have a significant revenue stream that vanishes you either need to reduce costs or look for alternatives. Boxing has one - namely because it's always been a sport where people often have to pay to watch a fight. Lots of others have - look at clubs charging for streams to watch them play during Covid. You get this in day to day life; the restaurant that cannot have people dine in now does takeaway - that sort of thing. What the breakdowns are I couldn't say of course.
I'm not sure the demands are really from the fighters though. Boxing is weird in that it's not like a sport whereby your prize money is set by which round you get to in a competition, or paid in a salaried wage as part of a contract. Your take home is often dictated by the popularity of the fight, how many tickets are sold, and at the top end, how many PPV sales are made. So the demands would likely be a percentage. Hearn obviously cannot agree, nor can any promoter, to some theoretical demand by Whyte when he says 'I want £X' because we don't know what X will be. Obviously some have tried that approach, but it seems incredibly risky if nobody's interested.
Well the obvious answer is why even make quality match ups if everyone can make so much money with low quality ones. Whyte was offered millions to rematch Joshua, didn't take it. Can hardly blame him when Hearn could make him top wedge fighting a roadsweeper. I'm sure Hearn would much prefer to have the best fighting the best on each PPV. Of course if he was able to do so, he wouldn't have manufactured Whyte into being a main attraction. When he's struggling on quality he has had to get creative, focusing more on the 'event' and 'stacked' cards than whether the main events are worth a sausage. Whyte and Bellew have been the main beneficiaries for the lack of quality to fill up Sky's PPV quota. Fair play to Hearn for managing it, but he's still going to get pulled up on it. Can you answer my previous question anyway... "Is there anything Eddie Hearn could put on as boxing that would make you say, 'hang on a minute.. this isn't right?'. Or as long as he makes a good few quid then no problem."
In Whytes case, he wont fight for example 400k He wants that and a slice of any additional money made Thats my understanding
In answer to your question the answer I suppose is truthfully no, especially since he’s now put on a card featuring two amateur YouTube blokes I’ve never heard of. I just think I am completely able to separate the business side of boxing from the sporting side. Ultimately these things live or die by their popularity. I don’t see Bellew v Usyk or Whyte v Povetkin as being any more obviously worse than dozens of other fights over the last decades. The difference being that back when Frank was putting on Brook v Jennings and openly telling everyone how he’d made a massive loss I thought ‘why stick that on PPV?’ At least when Hearn does it I can usually understand why, and it’s because they sell. It’s no huge shame to fans in this country. In the last few years you could have gone to see absolute cast iron pound for pound stars like Golovkin, Usyk and Lomachenko fighting over here. Boxing doesn’t feel like it’s on the slide; it feels like it’s booming.
Boxthing has certainly been booming in the UK over the past 12 months, with nearly all of the Matchroom stable and the other top UK fighters, including the only genuine Heavyweight Champion Tyson Fury fighting in USA. Now we even have the filthy Saudi blood money taking cards away from the UK. Yes boxthing in the UK is booming from the other side of the world.
Im getting that from an interview Hearn did, possibly before the Parker fight which may have been Whytes first PPV outing (im not counting the AJ fight) He said something along the lines of you cant expect Dillian to fight for say 400k which is why it has to be PPV That suggests Whyte wouldnt fight unless the PPV take was offered no?
That just sounds to me like Hearn is saying Whyte can make that money, so why wouldn't he? It's what these debates always boil down to. If it's PPV Whyte can make £400k. If it's not he can make a lot less. Over to you Dillian - which one do you fancy? But in your (slightly odd) scenario - if he says 'I want £400k or I'm not fighting' Hearn isn't going to say 'of course' because it could be a massive loss.
Been an interesting debate so far. I think where you go wrong, Tony, is it sounds like you’re defending these terrible PPV cards. Defending them and explaining them are obviously two different things but you have an incredible knack of making them sound the same, hence people arguing with you. Here’s a question, will you be buying it? For the first time in a while, I think I’m gonna take my chances on a row row row your boat gently down the...on this one. It’s simply not value for money, especially now we’ve lost the Bakole fight and it was very very weak anyway.
Good man. I believe most of the forum will be having a party cruising down the river on pudding night.
