Al Bernstein On Boxing: Crunching The Mayweather vs. Marquez Numbers

Not surprisingly, the aftermath of the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez match has produced some very simplistic commentaries about the commerce of the fight.

The very good buy rate that topped 1 million has been viewed in a number of different ways. Many of them so absurdly one dimensional that it boggles my mind.

The black and white mentality of commentators in both sports and news is astonishing. There is no more gray. And, I hate to break it to them and the people who buy into their messages, but, most things are in the gray area. Usually there are several factors that make something happen, not just one.

First, the huge buy rate is good news for boxing and it’s good news for Floyd Mayweather, who has long struggled to provide evidence that he can carry a pay per view. In this case, Marquez brought a following, but it was incumbent upon Mayweather to provide the bulk of the interest.

The other specific point that this huge buy rate demonstrates is that, as I suggested in my special commentary (which you can watch below on my boxing channel), when a major match gets the appropriate amount of coverage from the mainstream media, it will flourish and fans will be interested.

That was the case with this fight. Because of Mayweather’s return to the ring, this match got good coverage from newspapers, television and radio.

These are some of the obvious points. After that, it’s pretty hard to draw any lines in the sand about this.

For instance, there is the trumpeting of how this proves that boxing is more popular than mixed martial arts, because a UFC show got 400,000 buys the same night of the Mayweather-Marquez fight.

Some are writing and speaking commentaries in which they gloat about boxing’s “victory” and suggest that boxing has won a PPV duel. Not really true.

Boxing did not win a duel. It is GOOD for the sport that the fight got 1 million buys, but the UFC fight opposite it was not on a level in MMA that Mayweather and Marquez is in boxing.

It was not as if Brock Lesner battled Frank Mir in the UFC card. It is actually remarkable that the UFC fight got 400,000 buys, and it shows that on a given night, two combat sports entities can produce 1.4 million PPV buys. That’s the real news.

Conversely, some MMA writers and commentators are seizing on the difference in marquee value of these two cards to suggest that boxing did not do well; that Mayweather-Marquez should have spanked the MMA fight. That to is too simplistic.

The Mayweather-Marquez fight had liabilities, like the fact that Marquez was coming up from lower weight classes to fight Mayweather and not too many people really thought Marquez could win. And, secondly, the Mayweather track record as the a fighter on a PPV was not always strong. These are nuances that are lost of the MMA folks throwing darts at boxing.

Why does it have to be one way or the other? Why does there have to be one simple truth that comes out of results in or out of the ring. This business news from the two cards on one night provides interesting information in an ongoing mosaic of how boxing is doing, and how MMA intersects with that.

Then, there is the fact that you could look at this from a boxing perspective, without ever mentioning the UFC or mixed martial arts. Just looking at the buy rate for the boxing match speaks volumes about the promotion, the coverage, the work of 24/7 – the HBO show about the fight, and the fact that this excellent year of 2009 in boxing has won back many boxing fans.

The only gloomy side of all this is the fact that the main match of Mayweather-Marquez was not a scintillating affair. Mayweather provided a glittering performance, especially when one considers the layoff, but the fight was not thrilling.

Even that produced some one dimensional commentary. Some suggested that boxing had again provided a dreary one-sided fight in a big match, and that this was “always” the case with the sport.

Well, for the uninitiated media member who only looks at boxing when Mayweather or De La Hoya fights, that could be true-but there are so many other matches in which that is not the case. THOSE are the matches that must be covered so fans can see the great boxing that exists.

The big buy rate for Mayweather-Marquez is a positive thing for the fight game and it demonstrates that coverage equals interest in big fights, but beyond that, draw simplistic conclusions at your own peril.