Japan and Asia is the NEW market for BOXING. <<BOOK IT

You aren't going to change economics overnight. Showtime and ESPN will take over where HBO left off. Joshua and Wilder fight on Showtime. Historically, wherever the heavyweight champ is, that's where the money is. Las Vegas and Atlantic City still have the big casinos that underwrite these events and make them more profitable than most other venues.

When Manny Pacquiao was fighting, he'd get sixty million Phillipinos to watch his fights in his homeland, but the broadcast rights were only worth a million or two. He got twenty million on US pay per view and a couple million from the gate. Just look at how all the big Mexican fighters come to America because they get more money, even though the sport is ten times as popular in Mexico. Chavez vs Haugen set the record for biggest audience by filling a soccer stadium in Mexico City but the biggest check Chavez ever made was in America versus De La Hoya.

I remember trying to look up Asian fighter's purses for my biggest purse per weightclass thread. Japanese fighters made nothing. I think the richest was Yoko Gushiken, and he'd made about ten million dollars. Gushiken and Harada would pull fifty or sixty million viewers for their fights. It never translated to big money for them. Koki Kameda was doing that recently. I don't think he made more than about five million during his whole run. Dereck Chisora made as much with one fight against Haye. If the big money fights leave the US they are going to Britain, which has the same kind of economic structure, where Joshua is making tens of millions a fight.

Plus, the Japanese boxing market doesn't function like the US market. I think it functions more like Thailand where the managers/gyms take 50 percent and sort of own the fighters. The Chinese market needs at least a decade to grow, even though Arum and Pacquiao did some good business in Macao.

 

Tyson-Douglas was sort of a one off but didn't Tyson make 20 million for it? You can do that once, like the Thrilla in Manila, or the Rumble in the Jungle, but that didn't turn Zaire or the Philippines into a mecca of big money boxing.

+Just checked. Tyson made 6 million and Douglas made 1.3 million.
*6 million in Feb. 1990 = 11.82 million in August 2018.

 

Japan is hot for combat sports when it has its own stars. It only works when it has Japanese stars.

 

Totally True, Most of the time fake stars. Made-up and hyped-up "Stars" using hometown decision wins fed by Sardine cans.

 

Perhaps soon