Errol Spence is one of a growing group of fighters choosing to not align himself exclusively to one promoter. That trend will either continue and grow or fall aside based on whether fighters opting for this career model, like Spence, Mikey Garcia, and The Charlo Brothers, among others, go on to have greater and greater financial successes.
“I feel like basically Showtime is my promoter right now,” Spence recently said. "They’re promoting me...I’m fighting on TV, I’m getting the main slots and basically doing what I wanna do...my manager comes to me and says, ‘Do you wanna fight here?’ Or, ‘Do you wanna fight this opponent?’ And I have say-so in it. Everything’s been going good now. I’m getting publicized...My name’s been out there...What could I possibly need a promoter for me to do that I’m not already getting done with the team I have now?
“I’m not looking for a promoter. You know, we’re setting a new trend where you can do stuff without a promoter. And just the fact that everybody feels like you need a promoter to be this top guy, you really don’t.”
The “promoter or no promoter” debate, in many ways, is at the crux of the anger hurled at advisor Al Haymon’s way by old guard boxing businessmen. Haymon, with his Premier Boxing Champions project, has intentionally minimized the power of the promoter and has encouraged a greater degree of self-determination to be placed in the hands of the fighters, themselves.
A good, solid case could be made that boxing would be better off without the current promoter-driven system. There would be less corruption in the sport if the same promoter with a heavy stake in the outcome of a fight didn’t also have his hand in the selection and payment of the judges and other officials for that same fight. That’s just common sense.
Basketball fans would not allow for the Golden State Warriors to be in charge of the officiating for their NBA Finals series against the Cavaliers. In boxing, this is standard practice. Boxing’s system is one that just begs for corruption and foul play. It’s amazing how little is spoken about this reality and how this one tweak—a move away from a promoter-driven business model-- could probably solve 90% of the sport’s problems.
But this is not to say that the promoters are inherently bad or that they should be driven from the sport. Boxing promoters play a vital role when it comes to bringing along fighters from amateur to high-end pro.
Promoters bankroll young fighters as they work their way up to bigger and better things. Many times, a promoter will never see a long-term profit on a fighter they bankrolled. Often, they run in the red until a fighter eventually becomes a TV main eventer—if that moment ever comes. Promoting is often a thankless job where one runs tremendous risk at all times.
But, does a fighter need a promoter?
Boxing promoter Oscar De La Hoya, of course, thinks so.
“You can have a manager, you can have an adviser,” De La Hoya told Boxingscene, in response to Spence’s declaration of independence. “He thinks Showtime is promoting him and that's not the case…You need a promoter to move you along and eventually become a pay-per-view fighter, which he will never be without a promoter…A promoter has a plan, a long-term plan to eventually make you a pay-per-view star and look, there's a reason why there's one superstar in boxing - and that's 'Canelo' Alvarez. There's a reason why there's only one fighter in boxing that sells pay-per-view - and that's 'Canelo' Alvarez…He [Spence] might be a great fighter - and I'm talking about many fighters out there - but there's a reason why you're only making a couple of million dollars and not making 10, 15, 20 million dollars."
But then there’s Floyd Mayweather, who made nearly a billion dollars as, essentially, his own promoter.
To counter that, though, is the fact that maybe the world would not have even heard of Mayweather in the first place if Top Rank Promotions had not invested in his early development and growth.
Clearly, promoters have not done a great job in promoting the sport in general, at least not in the US. Boxing promotion these days basically amounts to little more than a handful of crudely put together press conferences and some press releases issued to media. Canelo Alvarez becoming a bankable star, for example, seems more about Golden Boy snatching up a marketable fighter than the promotional firm dreaming up some strategy to MAKE him a star.
The value of a promoter in today’s game is certainly up for debate. The level of success achieved by those in the present tense who opt to do without one will determine the “right” answer to whether a fighter actually needs a promoter.
What’s your take on this issue? Comment down below.