When the numbers are tallied following Terence Crawford?s pay-per-view bout with Amir Khan on April 20 in New York?s Madison Square Garden, the pound-for-pound, elite, three-division champ could hold the distinction of having fought his two biggest bouts for the exclusive enjoyment of fewer than 200,000 people, total. If that doesn?t tell you something about the modern state of boxing promotion, then your head is cement-thick.
Back in July of 2016, Crawford?s main stage coming out party against fellow 140 lb. titlist Viktor Postol was moved from HBO to HBO PPV, where it flopped spectacularly with reportedly fewer than 60K buys.
Fast forward three years later, in a universe where experts are universally acknowledging him as one of the top two or three fighters in the world (with many seeing him as no.1), Crawford is set to fight his first major fight as the cornerstone of ESPN?s revamped boxing program against the most recognizable name on his r?sum??and once again he finds a potential breakthrough fight isolated behind a paywall.
Now, mind you, Crawford?s paydays have gone up over the last several years and his re-upping with Bob Arum?s Top Rank Promotions reportedly brought some serious ESPN money to his pockets. But his exposure hasn?t gone up a bit. The fighter who could be this generation?s Sugar Ray Leonard is not the least bit more mainstream-recognizable than he was before battering Postol.
This past Saturday, Golden Boy?s 20-year-old golden boy Ryan Garcia was impressive in knocking out Jose Lopez in two rounds. Well, most of us ASSUME he was impressive, anyway. Garcia?s efforts were buried behind the subscription paywall of upstart streaming service DAZN.
Subscriber numbers are not shared with the public by the wannabe Netflix of sports, but reports have those numbers nuzzled somewhere between ghastly godawful and sluggish. No matter what, though, Garcia?s audience most definitely will not come even remotely close to topping the 2.5 million who viewed his bout with Carlos Morales last September on Facebook Watch or the 1.7 million who viewed his demolition of Jayson Velez on the same social media platform four months prior.
Golden Boy?s genius move of sharing a rising young star with his social media-savvy peers was ditched as soon as they got a sack of cash from DAZN for exclusivity rights. Now, the star lauded for his mainstream crossover appeal to a new, energetic audience will be playing, exclusively, to the same tired bunch who are already sold on the sport.
Promoter Bob Arum, who handles Terence Crawford?s career, recently commented on the perceived mishandling of three-belt heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua?s career and the subsequent stunting of the British star?s growth.
?Eddie Hearn (Joshua?s promoter) has put Joshua in the position in where because of his ties to DAZN, which isn?t involved in PPV but has streaming networks, has isolated him,? Arum recently told World Boxing News.
?Eddie has really isolated Joshua. The only way Joshua can now fight is on DAZN. Therefore, the amounts paid are really artificial because it?s just a company like DAZN just throwing money at it.
?Joshua is completely isolated because he has in effect, been captured and rolled into this DAZN arrangement. This frankly inhibits his ability to make major fights and his ability to really become a factor. He?s fighting in the US against [Jarrell] Miller but it?s on DAZN. Nobody has DAZN.?
Of course, Arum is the same one embracing a pay-per-view business model that similarly isolates his fighter Crawford (and others) from potential new fans, so his assault on isolationist business practices reads a little like a tax cheat lecturing an embezzler.
Oddly enough, for those fighters mentioned in this article, pay has gone up as exposure has been capped. And that is, perhaps, a testament to the mixed-up times in which the fight game lives (and has lived as part of a bubble seemingly ready to burst for decades now).
How can fighter compensation increase as overall demand and viewership decreases?
Short answer: Because a shrinking base of loyal fandom is paying more and more for the privilege of watching.
Long answer: It can?t, at least not long-term. Maybe one failed streaming service and a collapsed ESPN effort will finally burst that boxing bubble. And what follows will be anyone?s guess. Follow us on Twitter@boxing_com to continue the discussion
