Fights You Won’t See In a Streaming Boxing World

The ESPN+ app is only $4.99. Eddie Hearn’s DAZN service is only $9.99. Neither is a whole lot of money when you consider the programming they deliver. HBO and Showtime are already on your cable bill to feed your boxing fix. The premium cable channels aren’t too pricey, either, when you consider what you get.

Add all these up, though, and we have a pretty tidy sum of money being paid out to see the sport you love.

Still…it’s not all THAT much, really, at least not when you consider everything you’re getting. So, okay, there’s no problem in keeping this going. Let’s add KlowdTV to the mix, too. They just streamed their second card. Hell, we can probably even afford another subscription or two.

The price for all these services IS steep, but not necessarily in the monetary sense (although some of us clearly have more disposable income than others). The real cost for this new business model is felt at the matchmaking level.

With the sport’s talent being divvied up by the various subscription services and bound to loyalty by exclusivity contracts, big, cross-promotional fights will be harder and harder to make.

We saw the slow strangulation of the sport in the US over the last 40 years or so due to being sealed off behind paywalls, kept from the general public, with talent separated into two teams (HBO and Showtime) that very rarely play nice with one another.

Now, the boxing businessmen are doubling down on this dubious strategy and dividing the talent into at least four isolated groups.

The use of better and more modern technology to reach fans is a good thing, but none of that may matter if the product suffers because of how the business is being set up.

So, here’s a partial list of fights that will be blocked from happening because of the sport’s business restructuring—this is the cost to fans above and beyond dollars and cents. Some are big fights, some are not. And while it’s true that money can force bridges to be built (ala Mayweather-Pacquiao), the reality is that, of the bouts listed here, only Joshua-Wilder has the potential to generate “bridge-building” revenue. As time passes and barriers are reinforced, more and more fights will be added to the list of bouts made impossible because of boxing business.

The sport can survive the loss of all of these. But why should it have to?

Featherweight

Oscar Valdez (Top Rank/ESPN) vs. Leo Santa Cruz (PBC/Showtime)

Lightweight

Vasyl Lomachenko (Top Rank/ESPN) vs. Mikey Garcia (PBC/Showtime)

Welterweight

Terence Crawford (Top Rank/ESPN) vs. Errol Spence/Keith Thurman/Shawn Porter/Danny Garcia (PBC/Showtime)

Junior Middleweight

Jarrett Hurd (PBC/Showtime) vs. Jaime Munguia (HBO)

Jermell Charlo (PBC/Showtime) vs. Jaime Munguia (HBO)

Middleweight

Gennady Golovkin (HBO) vs. Daniel Jacobs (DAZN) /Jermall Charlo (PBC/Showtime)/Demetrius Andrade (DAZN)

Saul Alvarez (HBO) vs. Daniel Jacobs (DAZN) /Jermall Charlo (PBC/Showtime)/Demetrius Andrade (DAZN)

Daniel Jacobs (DAZN) vs. Jermall Charlo (PBC/Showtime)

Jermall Charlo (PBC/Showtime) vs. Demetrius Andrade (DAZN)

Super Middleweight

Gilberto Ramirez (Top Rank/ESPN) vs. David Benavidez (PBC/Showtime)

Light Heavyweight

Dmitry Bivol (HBO) vs. Adonis Stevenson/Badou Jack (PBC/Showtime)

Sergey Kovalev (HBO) vs. Adonis Stevenson/Badou Jack (PBC/Showtime)

Artur Beterbiev (DAZN) vs. Dmitry Bivol/Sergey Kovalev (HBO)

Heavyweight

Anthony Joshua (DAZN) vs. Deontay Wilder (PBC/Showtime)

Jarrell Miller (DAZN) vs. Bryant Jennings (Top Rank/ESPN