Interesting viewpoint. I always expect rematches to do worse than the first fight, e.g. Pac-Bradley I: 890k Pac-Bradley II: 800k Pac-Bradley III: 450k Holyfield-Lewis I: 1.2 M Holyfield-Lewis II: 850k Floyd-Maidana I: 900k Floyd-Maidana II: 925k (but note that the rematch was promoted far more than the first fight) Plus there's Canelo-GGG and May-McGregor taking the rematch off the front page. Casuals don't even know it's happening.
I don't think it will do much more than the first fight. Ward isn't a draw or particularly exciting to watch and Kovalev is not American and only is followed by hardcore boxing fans.
Nice research with the numbers. That backs up my assumption. That most rematches and certainly Ward-Kovalev can improve ppv buys from the first one, but not massively. I will be shocked if more than 25% more, which will be 200k.
I don't care whether it sells or not. If you are fortunate enough to watch this fight consider yourself a true fan. This is a "can't miss" fight.
Here's why I care about the numbers. Canelo Chavez does 1.2 million but Ward Kov can't crack 200k? Imagine if it was the other way around. The sport would be in better shape
150k I think. With the news of Mayweather-McGregor, boxing media are focussing on that and people don't even know it's KovWard2.
Agreed. But the boxers popularity and earning potential shouldn't be penalized or compromised. But you're right Kov Ward should be the fight selling a mil ppvs.
I don't necessarily doubt this trend, but I'm not sure those are the best examples to use since the first fights in two of them were flat out robberies.
I agree, there's no perfect example. Neither do we have precedent on the impact of having Mayweather-McGregor announced in the week before a ppv event.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, prime King or Arum (heck, even Oscar) would've had a field day building this fight up. The last U.S. Olympic gold medalist in a rivalry with the cold Russian knockout artist? Controversial scoring on top of it? P4P talents fighting at their prime? Good grief, it'd have been like printing money. Instead, these clowns just mailed it in and figured the hardcore fans will buy it, so why put in the work? I'm glad Andre got paid and Roc took the financial loss the first go around. He did his job. I only wish Kovalev was getting paid more.
Pac Bradley is not that great of an example. I would look at the Jones Jr/Tarver trilogy. I think the first fight had a crowd of 8000 while the third one had over 20 000. And each fight generated more revenue in ppv sales.
Yes, that's true, good counter-example. Jones Jr - Tarver I: 302k Jones Jr - Tarver II: 384k Jones Jr - Tarver III: 440k However, how much promotion is done is probably the largest factor and Ward-Kovalev II has not been promoted well.
