Wilder v Fury 2 - Las Vegas

[Kirkland Laing]

UK fans, they do their part. But US fans are picky. They want their fights when they want them. To get BOTH markets we all know it must be in the USA to be at the time USA fight fans watch fights.

I do agree with this though, I think that the Brits are more inclined to pull an all nighter than the Yanks are to watch a full boxing card at 2pm, I don't think I'd get the same sort of buzz watching a full card at that time of day, plus it would clash with other sports, imagine how many viewers the boxing would lose if it clashed with the Premier League, even if it is only now and again.

They're more likely to stay up and watch but that's hardcore fans. The British PPV money is down to attracting casual fans in UK primetime. Only a small fraction of potential PPV viewers in the UK are going to stay up till five am to watch a fight. So you're not getting both markets when the fight is in America. What's happening here is that Haymon is putting up a massive guarantee to Fury to keep the fight in America and to give Wilder as much advantage as he can get him. Haymon may make the money back, he may not.

He’s giving massive guarantees to both because the money is there. The PPV will be 79.99 USD here, 20 euro there. We can’t be blind to the difference and act as if it is about advantages. It’s about money.

Nobody knows if the money is there. Haymon is gambling on the first fight creating a buzz that brings in casual boxing fans and sports fans in general. Let's take the promoters at their word about the last fight doing 325 000 buys. The calb ecompanies who supply the broadcast to the customers take a standard 55% of the purchase price and in some states there are various taxes. Let's forget the taxes and say the promotion makes all of the remaining 45% and the gate pays for the costs of the promotion with some left over. That means the PPV side of the first fight brought in fourteen million and change in profit (and I would guess less than twelve with the state taxes) and there was some gate money on top. Or maybe not, there are conflicting stories about how well the tickets sold and the stories saying they went well came from the promoters.

But fuck it, let's say twenty when you include global non UK TV and I'm being very generous here, they probably lost money on the gate and global non UK TV is normally no more than a million dollars total even for big fights, only a couple of Mayweather fights in recent years have broken that million dollar number. But then Showtime get their cut. They have to pay for the cost of producing the broadcast and then actually make something for doing it. They're going to take a cut of that PPV money. So the whole thing at best made less than Fury's guarantee this time even when you include the UK money. I can't remember whether it was PPV or they just got a licence fee but it wouldn't have been much.

Any way you look at it this next fight could be a gigantic loser for Haymon but he's taking a gamble that the combination of these two fights could turn Wilder into a massive US earner. But he could also be wrong, couldn't he. The lads who run the casinos in Vegas are normally on the money with these things and they're not interested in the fight at all. It's ended up in NY which means a whole load of state taxes for everybody to pay on any profit they do make and no gate guarantee/site fee. In fact the NY location would indicate that they're making it easy for a big Brit contingent to turn up and actually pay money for the tickets. So we'll see how it works out, but unless there's a huge increase in interest in this second fight it's going to be a huge money loser for Haymon.