If multiple media reports are to be believed, the June 17 rematch between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada produced less-than-stellar pay-per-view results.
Kevin Iole of Yahoo has placed the buy rate at 125,000 while a Boxingscene article has reported the number as 130,000.
Regardless of which number one chooses to believe, both tallies paint the picture of an aggressively underachieving event that, despite the high-end pairing of two elite fighters and the controversy produced in their first bout, still generated 40,000 fewer sales than their November, 2016 clash.
If the PPV numbers are accurate (and if the live gate matches the $3.3 million generated for their first bout), the money brought in would just barely cover the guaranteed $6.5 million promised to Ward and to the modestly-paid undercard fighters.
Meanwhile, Kovalev, who was working without a guaranteed purse and relying on a percentage of the total take, may come away from the event as the big loser-taking the "L" for the bout and an "L" when the loot gets divvied up. For the record, though, both Kovalev's promoter and manager insist that he will be walking away with a "seven-figure" payday when all is said and done and it's unclear if the Russian received any "off the books" payment in foreign currency.
Some may attribute this fight's underachieving PPV buy rate to poor promotion from Ward's promoter Roc Nation, who took full lead promoter status for this event and didn't really do a whole lot to reach out to the mainstream sports fan. And that's a fair issuance of blame. It should be noted, though, that no American boxing promoters these days seem to have a firm grasp on how to a generate a buying public for their fighters anymore, unless it's for a fighter with a niche ethnic market like Saul "Canelo" Alvarez or Miguel Cotto. Ward-Kovalev 2 is a big fail for Roc Nation, but it's a big fail in keeping with an overall downward trend within the American fight scene.
Efforts to take these fighters out from behind the premium cable and PPV paywalls must be amplified if the American fight scene is to rebound. A "business as usual" policy in boxing will continue to produce diminishing results for even its top match-ups.