LAS VEGAS ? Madelyn Arias-Aviles is such a hard-core boxing fan that not only did she name her English bulldog puppy ?Tyson? in honor of the former heavyweight champion, she also picked a dog that had a marking around its eye that would be reminiscent of the Hall of Fame boxer?s facial tattoo.
She?s the kind of fan promoters dream about. She buys about 80 percent of the fights that are offered on pay-per-view, is a faithful viewer of all televised over-the-air cards, attends most of the live events in the New York metropolitan area and occasionally makes a long-distance road trip to watch a favorite fighter.
Boxing would be thriving if it could find more fans like Arias-Aviles. The problem for the sport, though, is that beyond Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., far and away its two biggest names, the average fan in the street would be lucky to name any other active boxers.
Luke Fulmer, a 30-year-old from Lakeview, Ohio, who works with mentally handicapped children, became a mixed martial arts fan because that?s all his friends watch. He?s still a diehard boxing fan, however, and plans to buy Saturday?s Golden Boy Promotions card from the MGM Grand Garden Arena on HBO Pay-Per-View.
But Fulmer is discouraged because men who are stars to him, such as brothers Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, who between them hold three of the four major heavyweight title belts, are essentially anonymous to his buddies.
?They definitely know who Mayweather and Pacquiao are, but I?d bet no more than one in 10 of them know who Klitschko is,? Fulmer said of his friends.
Therein lies the rub. Boxing promoters have essentially tried to sell pay-per-views on the star power of the main-event fighters, but if no one other than the hardest of the hard-core fan base knows who the stars are, the pay-per-view has little chance to succeed.
Golden Boy and Top Rank are the two largest and most successful promoters and the only ones putting on pay-per-view cards with regularity that do any business. Saturday?s card features a super lightweight match between Erik Morales and Marcos Maidana as well as a lightweight tilt between Robert Guerrero and Michael Katsidis.
When Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer began putting the card together, he did so with the thought that it would be headlined by Juan Manuel Marquez, who is a known pay-per-view commodity. But when Marquez balked at facing on-the-comeback Morales, instead preferring to sit out and hope for a Pacquiao fight, Schaefer retooled and tried to come up with a dynamic show that would appeal to his hard-core fan base.
As a result, he put Morales, one of the most entertaining fighters of the previous decade, in against Maidana, one of the most entertaining fighters of the current decade. He supplemented that with the Guerrero-Katsidis fight, one that anyone remotely familiar with boxing is desperate to see.
It?s a challenge, though, because in boxing, big names require big money. On cards shown on HBO or Showtime, the networks give the promoter a license fee that generally covers all or most of the costs of the fighters? salaries. That is not the case with a pay-per-view show. The networks distribute it and take a cut of the profits for doing so, but the promoter finances the entire thing.
?There are no guarantees in pay-per-view, and it?s not like you have the television money there to rely upon,? Schaefer said. ?It?s expensive, and it?s risky. There?s a cash flow issue. The promoter has to pay the fighters the night of the fight. He?s responsible for the TV spots, the commercial inventory, the advertising. Collecting the revenue takes a long, long time. And there is no fallback.
?If the fight bombs, it could end up costing you hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. There is a delicate balance between putting the right mix of fights on and working within a budget.?
But promoters are beginning to lean toward a model of filling the pay-per-view with competitive fights. In addition to Golden Boy?s card Saturday, Top Rank has put together what on paper should be a sensational undercard for the pay-per-view on May 7 headlined by Pacquiao and Shane Mosley.
Top Rank?s pay-per-view undercard will include a rematch between Humberto Soto and Urbano Antillon, the 2010 Yahoo! Sports Fight of the Year, as well as an intriguing super bantamweight bout between Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. and Jorge Arce, as well as the comeback of former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.
Arum said there is a financial balance that must take place. On Ultimate Fighting Championship cards, Arum said, about 20 percent of the gross revenue is spent on talent. In boxing, he said that it is much higher and for a major card like Pacquiao-Mosley, around 80 percent.
Boxing has a much more top-heavy pay model than MMA. In boxing, about 98 percent of the money is paid to about two percent of the fighters. In MMA, it is far more balanced, and fighters down on the card on a UFC event generally wind up making much more than those on a boxing undercard.
Arum has long believed that it is the main event that sells a pay-per-view, and he hasn?t deviated from that belief. But he said he?s beginning to load the undercard for different reasons other than just trying to sell.
?Having a good undercard satisfies people who bought only for the main event, if the main event turns out badly,? Arum said. ?If you have a main event which is questionable, you could save yourself from embarrassment and some headaches by having a strong undercard. But a great undercard isn?t a sales tool. It?s a customer-satisfaction tool.
?Look at this Golden Boy card. That main event with Morales and Maidana could turn out horribly, but they have a fight on that card ? Guerrero and Katsidis ? which should be a very good, interesting fight. A lot of people think Morales is done, and if he is and that main event turns out badly, they still have the Guerrero-Katsidis fight, which people know should be good. That, in some kind of a way, will assuage people who may be disappointed about the main event.?
Fighting is the only sport that regularly asks its customers to purchase its biggest events on pay-per-view. The Super Bowl is the country?s biggest sporting event, but how many millions fewer viewers would it get if instead of being broadcast for free in primetime on network television, it was on pay-per-view for $54.95?
Arias-Aviles, a 30-year-old New Yorker who works in the International Business and Legal Affairs department at MTV, buys four out of every five pay-per-view cards. But she?s increasingly discriminating and isn?t going to accept a series of one-sided undercard fights blindly any more.
She?s buying Golden Boy?s card on Saturday, even though she said ?Erik Morales is not the Erik Morales he used to be.? Golden Boy?s plan to fill the card with intriguing fights worked in selling her on it.
That?s what it will take on a regular basis to keep her business.
?I am interested to see what Erik has left,? she said. ?As a fan who loves this sport and really supports it, I want to see the guys given a challenge and put in fights where they might win or they might lose. That makes it interesting to me. I like to see the up-and-comers, too, and I don?t want to see a newbie thrown in against a guy with way more experience. But I also don?t want to see [the up-and-comers] in bouts where you know before it starts that it is going to be one or two rounds, at best. The young guys need their tune-up fights, and doing that for them once or twice is OK. But time after time, it gets annoying to see them in those kinds of fights.?
Pierre Delice, a 43-year-old New Yorker who works in corporate finance, has been a hard-core boxing fan for nearly three decades, ever since he was introduced to the sport as a boy by watching guys like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran.
He said he buys ?some fights I probably shouldn?t, like a couple of those recent Roy Jones fights,? and is a regular purchaser of nearly all the major pay-per-view cards. He regards the cards as entertainment on a Saturday night and said if he weren?t watching boxing, he?d be in a club in New York having a couple of drinks.
?Doing that in the city, you?re talking $50 or $60, at least,? Delice said. ?So the way I see it, if I stay home to watch the fight for $40 or $50 and I bring the 12-pack home with me, I?m about in the same [financial] position I?d be if I went out. The added bonus for me is as a fight fan, I am entertained by watching some good fights.?
His clients are Wall Street types who aren?t nearly the avid boxing fans he is, and he said they don?t buy the fights regularly. Delice said he buys primarily for the main event, and on Saturday, he?s highly interested in Maidana, who he believes is one of the best action fighters in the business.
Having Katsidis on the undercard, however, sealed the deal for him because like Arias-Aviles, he?s not sold on Morales any longer.
?I perceive it as a very good card overall despite Morales not being what he was or what we wish he still were,? Delice said of Saturday?s card, which Golden Boy has dubbed ?Action Heroes.? ?The reason I?m buying that card is Maidana. To me, he?s a can?t-miss fighter. He almost never fails. Look at his fights with [Victor] Ortiz and [Amir] Khan. He delivers. He has tons of heart and tons of grit.
?Throw in Katsidis, who is almost never in anything less than a terrific fight, and you make it an appealing action fight card for the hard-core fan base. You don?t have the huge names, but you have a lot of what should be very good fights. That will get my money.?
Fulmer plans to purchase Saturday?s card. He also bought the March 12 pay-per-view Top Rank card that was headlined by Miguel Cotto against Ricardo Mayorga. The show, which was distributed by Showtime pay-per-view, did surprisingly well considering it went head-to-head against a free card on HBO. A Top Rank spokesman said Cotto-Mayorga did just under 250,000 sales.
Fulmer hesitated before buying, though he said had both men been in their primes, there would have been no question about it. And he feels much the same way about Saturday?s card. A prime Morales against a prime Maidana would have been high drama, he said. He?s not so sure now, but the depth of the card helped sell him.
He said if the depth of the April 9 card becomes a trend, it?s a good thing, because he?s long since tired of lopsided undercard matches.
?Let?s be honest: The UFC puts on better shows,? Fulmer said. ?I am a huge boxing fan and I hate to say that, but it?s true. You buy a UFC card, and you always have close fights. Sometimes they are blowouts, because of the way the fights happen, but you don?t see 10-1 or 20-1 underdogs fighting on UFC cards like you do so often on [boxing] pay-per-view.
?[Boxing promoters] have to realize that their competition just isn?t from each other now. The UFC is real competition for them and if they want to get people to buy their cards, they have to give you something for your money. Not just once, or now and then, but all the time.?
