Anyone any insight on how promoters, managers etc make money on cards/fighters etc? I've heard the usual 10% but matchroom for example can't just make money by getting 10% off fighters...
You mentioned Matchroom so I reached in to my shallow little mind and I remembered a while ago in an IFL interview Eddie Heard explained in simple terms (it did drag on though) about budgeting and costs and all that, might not be what you're talking about but it was interesting to me. Anyway, I went and found this, I think it's the right video, go 24 minutes in and Eddie starts rattling on, you have to use you imagination in the sense he doesn't quote exact figures but when you think about selling TV rights to other countries, advertising and sponsorship it must all add up. And the Sky Deal must help, just like FW has the BT deal now. From 24 Minutes This content is protected Anyway I hope this was interesting for you even if it didn't give you the information you wanted.
Seen that video before. To be fair to Eddie, he's quite open to any type of question and does his best to explain things to the fans. Talks crap too of course, but that's why he's a promoter. I like him, Frank and Hennessy to be honest. They give good interviews and have entertaining little digs at eachother. It's the American promoters I don't like. Arum, ODLH etc, I can't stand them ****s.
When you hear Hearn say "after it is all done we take 20%" and then "Take you multi millions".. When you're talking 20% of multi millions then you're talking a hell of a lot of money.
TV rights/ticket sales/sponsorships/promoters cut typically. The average card on Sky Sports has a rights fee of £200k so that gives Matchroom a fair bit of a head start in at least breaking even.
This. Hearn has earned millions from Boxing. He wouldn't do it otherwise, he's stated that. Bellew/Haye Froch/Groves II Wlad/AJ All of AJ's fights Eddie has earned major coin from these shows. Because PPV went through the roof, and/or ticket sales were legendary/very bloody high. I bet you that he's earned more from this game than any other he's been involved in. He's probably earned more from it than his Dad did, in all honesty. As his Dad never did shows this popular or big.
Hearn is an absolutely brilliant salesman/conman that's why. He's brilliant at hosting press conferences too, unlike Frank who needs a piece of paper and is like a wet fart in comparison. Maybe it's the age thing.
To put things in perspective, Channel 5 will typically pay only up to £50k per card for a rights fee. Hence why the level of boxing rarely goes above British level for a domestic event.
Remember seeing a breakdown of the groves froch 2 fight a while back...made income of something like 23 million in total. Thats including everything. Ppv buys. Ticket sales. Sponsorship etc. The expenditure in total was something like 16 million. Froch got 10 million. Groves with 2. The other 4 went on renting wembley which was half a million. The undercard was half a million. The other 3 million for the rest of the expenses. Left 7 million of profit left over for sky. For the marketing etc. Think eddie was paid out of that pot. How much is anybodies guess tho. I actually think the ppv problems not always with the promoters but more the boxers themselves nowadays. 10 million for one fights way too much. Especially when you consider groves was still pretty unproven at that point. The argument is without the fighters you ve got no fight. But at the same time...why not 5 million froch. 2 million groves. And charge say 7 pound for the ppv. Everyone gets rich. The fans are happy enough. And matchroom get paid lets be fair they put in a good bit work for it. Everyone always ready to jump on the bandwagon of bashing promoters but if people want the fights...with the amount the fighters are charging nowadays...the fans need to pay for it. Otherwise the numbers dont add up. Thats the reality of it.
I agree that a lot of fighters over value themselves which gets in the way of fights. But also that the fighters are the ones taking the risks and they should take the lion's share. There is also too much disparity between the guys at the top making multi millions, and some of the undercard guys making 5-10k. The way I see it is that PPV is short term greed. A non-PPV show makes less money, but gives more exposure to boxing as a whole. This means more money down the line because there will be more fans. However, the current crop of fighters might only spend 2-3 years at the top or get only one shot at PPV, so it is understandable that they want to maximise their earnings in the limited time available. Looking at it objectively, if you are primarily a football fan and pay £40 a month for Sky Sports and watch one game a week, then it's £10 a game. The problem comes when you already pay for a subscription then are asked to cough up more for PPV, it isn't fair. Subscriptions should have an asterisk like this: Sky Sports £40 a month* * Does not include Anthony Joshua, Floyd Mayweather.
1) Re: the first paragraph. That try to a degree, but look at Haye/Bellew. Both men earned millions, and why? Bellew hasn't even got a streak at Cruiser & Haye hasn't done a thing at Heavy in years. Yet they earn millions? Ridiculous. 2) Agreed. There's no middle ground. It's one extreme to the other. 3) Now this is why I ended up getting rid of Sky. In terms of popularity, Boxing is at the bottom of the barrel compared to Footy etc, yet we have to pay to watch even decent cards! £40 a month is a lot of money for a few sports channels (and most of the content is shocking. Johnny Nelson montages? Could watch that on the tube!) and then you have to pay for Ski anyway, and then if there's a big show on you have to pay for that? Many people are getting rid of Sky these days, and reasons like this are why.
