For the longest time, premium cable giants HBO and Showtime subsidized high-end boxing, handing out big checks to promoters and often running in the red for the privilege of airing exclusive content on their networks. The direct financial losses were negated by the long-term benefit of bringing in subscribers who came for boxing, but stayed for the other premium programming.
Right when HBO Boxing started seriously imploding and Showtime Boxing pulled back a bit, Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) began making waves in the industry, throwing around big money and willing to operate in the red to get their foot in the door of the American boxing market. Some would argue that PBC’s success in signing American talent and HBO Boxing’s contentious response in the face of that success cinched the premium channel’s exit from the sport after 40+ years.
Then came streaming service DAZN, backed by billionaire Len Blavatnik. In 2018, the wannabe Netflix of sports invested $1 billion into establishing a boxing brand and was also willing to operate deeply in the red while doing so. The company raised eyebrows by wildly overpaying fighters who really had not established themselves as bankable draws and investing nearly a half-billion into signing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin to multi-fight deals.
A lot of new money has been injected into the sport in the post-HBO days and, honestly, the business model isn’t all that different than what was happening during the HBO/Showtime days-- a time which saw boxing’s US audience shrink dramatically and eventually fall to niche sport status. But the overall vibe seems less productive, less conducive to growth now. With the exception of PBC’s FOX programming, there’s very little-to-no path to reaching the mainstream. Even Showtime’s boxing efforts seem more like stand alone events than part of a network’s premium bundle.
More and more, boxing is peddled to the already-sold fans exclusively, with no regard towards expansion or reaching new audiences. And with new money propping up this micro-targeted business strategy, things keep chugging along...in the red...delivering audiences that consistently don’t cover expanding purse demands.
But what happens when the bubble bursts and the money stops flowing so freely? What happens when the big shots get tired of losing money to corner a market that’s proven itself not worth cornering anymore?
Big. Fucking. Chaos.
I mean, it’s coming. Counting on another money man to come along and spend a billion to prop up boxing and keep the engine going is a bit like counting on lottery winnings to cover next month’s bills. The question is-- what will happen when boxing has to be run like an actual business?
Look at a guy like Devin Haney (not to single out just one fighter, because you could make this point about so many top boxers these days). The kid signed a multi-fight deal with DAZN and reportedly earns about a million bucks a fight. I’m thinking that if you added all his live gate revenue, over the course of his entire career, you wouldn’t reach $1 million. And it’s probably realistic to assume that he hasn’t sold a single subscription for the streaming service on the weight of his name value alone. To think of him holding out for more money and stalling talks with 3-belt lightweight champ George Kambosos is more than borderline absurd given the realities of his own drawing power.
Again, this is no knock on Haney or even DAZN. These poor business practices run across the board in boxing. Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter-- a great fight that promised to be a great fight-- reportedly delivered a combined main event purse of $10 million, while bringing in just under $7 million, total, in live gate and pay-per-view revenue. Imagine a restaurant that, even on one of its best nights, operates at well over a 30% loss.
What kind of business operates like this? Certainly not one with an eye on long-term health and sustainability.
There are already signs that the bubble is beginning to burst.
DAZN has reportedly reined in their free-spending ways. PBC’s recent run of pay-per-view cards either speaks of them exploring new business models or trying to keep purses high by passing the hat directly to fans. Top Rank bossman Bob Arum, even with ESPN money behind him, has been talking way more than usual about budget concerns. Golden Boy, meanwhile, has nothing but low-level fights on their 2022 schedule so far, even when it comes to their top stars.
If/when the bubble bursts, the immediate result will be a drastic cutback in the quality of fights we see (even more so than in the present tense). After that, fighter purses will have to shrink to match the marketplace. Between those two stages, though, we’ll likely have a long period of nothingness as the stars refuse to take pay cuts and prefer to sit things out to see where the business is going. In that downtime, even more fans will walk away, making for even less money in the till.
Nobody’s talking about the sport “dying.” Boxing won’t die. However, it will crack, bend, shrink, and restructure itself. And the growing pains from these changes will absolutely suck from a fan’s perspective.
But maybe that’s what boxing has needed for decades now. Sometimes you have to burn down the village to save the village. Without it’s mega-shitty, mega-flawed business model, boxing may actually be incentivized to deliver the fights fans want to see rather than engage in perpetual bait-and-switch hustle. It’ll take awhile to get fully healthy again and it’ll take even longer to get back in the good graces of the mainstream sports fan, but the first step is probably letting everything fall to shit so a rebuild is even possible.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com