I'd go further and say that ALL athletes earn too much money. Having said the above though, it is the fault of the fans because we are willing to pay so much to watch them. I would also prefer the athletes get the money rather than the TV companies or the promoters.
the way she went about it was all wrong, and why should all of them. SOme clubs did some didnt, but the woman showed pure ignorance towards their proffession and I believe 'Boro decided to do it but then did a U turn when the woman (or the charity) made it public over which clubs did and which clubs didnt agree - which was naughty. Arsenal donated all their wages from last week to a kids charity,a nd a lot of clubs (and players) do a lot for local charities.
We had a promoter round here, Ken Purchase (Ringside Promotions), that was paying his lads D Mitchell, Max Maxwell, James McKinley, etc £2,000 a pop for a four-threes or a six-twos. Ken is a rich bloke, a nice bloke too, but he was paying Richie Woodhall a weekly wage to train the lads and also had overheads on the state-of-the-art gym he was running in Aston. He was also putting on regular shows in the Second City. He has now decided to bale out of the professional game after 18 months. He had Wayne Elcock as his big attraction for the first year - having sell-out fight nights at the ICC and the Aston Villa Events Centre - but Wayne left to rejoin with Maloney (that fell through) and his interest waned. He had a lot of fighters in the gym but, with the exception of Thomas Costello and James McKinley (7-0, the most crowdpleasing fighter i'd even seen, but he knocked it on the head as he couldnt be bothered to train hard for two months to get £2,000 when he was earning £1,000 per week on the sites), Ken didnt have any ticket-sellers and his shows were then sparsely attended. The trouble was he was paying the likes of Max Maxwell, a good, skilful counter-puncher (http://www.britishboxing.net/boxers_76260-Max-Maxwell.html) but a complete and utter non ticket-seller, £2,000 (after tax) for a six-twos and they got greedy. Max turned down £5,000 from Ken to fight Prince Arron for the British Masters middleweight title in September because he thought he should have been paid more. If he could shift tickets then it would have been understandable that he should have got a bit more, but that offer was more than reasonable in my book. Martin Concepcion told me that when he signed with Frank Warren he got the option of having a monthly wage and a lower purse on fight night or a purse on fight night and a cut of the ticket sales. Even though Martin can shift a ticket, he has a wife and two kids to feed and took the monthly wage.
At 6-0-1 with a more impressive resume IMO I got £1300 to fight Lee McCallister for the British masters title in Aberdeen. 10 rounds.
Precisely, Jeff. £5,000 is very,very generous, especially for a novice pro who had been matched very carefully. As you said, you had mixed at a better level and didnt even get paid half of that. Max thought because he was getting paid handsomely for four-threes and six-twos £2,000-£2,500, as I said he would be looking at around £10,000 for a British Masters title fight against Arron. Thats the trouble when you pay over-the-odds from the start: no concept of the real pay structure in boxing.
Although i think its harsh some boxers get paid so little its hard to compare it to footballers. Football is the most widely played and spectated sport in the world, the top clubs earn millions through gates, sponsors, tv money etc etc So of course their players are going to be well paid.
If you want to earn good money from a sport do not go into boxing. Simple as that. My son can box as much as he wants amateur but unless he's exceptional he's not turning pro. Football is the direction i'd like him to go.
I agree with you, but if you compare the earnings of top premiership players with top calibr fighters i.e. Mayweather, Hatton, De La Hoya etc, I reckon the boxers earn more money. For example, Hatton received £10m against Floyd. Please name me a footballer who receives a similar amount in a year's earnings from their profession, forgetting everything else? The earnings Tyson made from boxing makes footballers look like paupers in financial terms. Too bad Mike is not able to savour the fruits of his labour now.
Mayweather earned over 50 milion dollars this year, in which he is the second best sportsmen of the USA, behind Tiger Woods. Oscars has earned almost 40 million in one fight. Ricky has also earned a decent amount of money. They are paid better then any football player. ps. this doesn not include sponsorcontract money. Only money directly from the sport. The best paid footballplayers are around the 10 million. Beckham had 23 million this year, including his sponsor contracts
