For fans accustomed to UFC pay-per-views, all shows are priced the same, regardless of headliner. Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz costs the same to order as Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson 2. This is not the case in boxing, where pay-per-views are budgeted and priced differently depending on the quality of the main event.
Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley 3, which bombed on PPV, was tagged at $69.99 (HD)/$59.99 SD. This month's Canelo Alvarez vs. Amir Khan card is also $69.99/$59.99 (SD). Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was priced beyond calculable numbers. Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux was priced at $59.95 HD/$49.95 SD. Buyrate goals and fighter purse totals are adjusted accordingly.
So with that in mind, HBO's next pay-per-view is set for July 23rd, as WBO 140 lbs champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) unifies his title with WBC champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will be priced the same as GGG/Lemieux was, and arena tickets range from just $50-$300.
This is an excellent fight and one of the best matchups that boxing has to offer this year, but it's essentially been forced to be on PPV as opposed to a regular HBO slot. Why? HBO has significantly reduced its annual boxing budget. As this UCNLive article notes, the 2015 budget was reportedly around $30 million, and it's since been chopped down further this year, to a rumored $25 million. As a result, there are fewer available dates, purse totals have to be curtailed, and select fights, like Crawford vs. Postol, will be on pay-per-view because it doesn't fit in HBO's budget. Crawford wants to fight more than twice a year, but he can't get all of those HBO dates down because they're simply not there.
According to Top Rank's Bob Arum (via ESPN), Crawford vs. Postol "would need to generate about 75,000 buys, at about $50 apiece, to break even on the event." A surprise moment of honesty from Arum gives away that Crawford's PPV debut will not have a lot of money behind it.
It's not something we normally think about when discussing UFC pay-per-views. Dana White doesn't toss out buyrate predictions to the media prior to every PPV, although he will predict them for ones that aren't happening. They clearly aren't putting equal financial backing behind, say, UFC 200, as they would a Demetrious Johnson headlined PPV, but we always look at the DJ PPV buyrates as a major disappointment. Here, you have Bob Arum angling for 75,000 as break even, and more than 100,000 as a considerable success. Just something to ponder when you look at why the UFC still persists with Mighty Mouse as at least a co-main event PPV attraction.
HBO and Showtime ran very few PPVs through the late 2000 and all of the 2010s, primarily because Mayweather and Pacquiao were able to produce absurd amounts of revenue with every fight they had, leading up to their actual fight last year. Showtime doesn't have any PPVs planned this year, and they've not even let on that they're running one any time soon. It's a different story for HBO, who re-acquired Canelo Alvarez last year, and he figures not to be back on regular HBO for a long time. The rest of the bigger names on HBO's roster would include Gennady Golovkin (potentially fighting Canelo in the fall), Sergey Kovalev (fighting Andre Ward on PPV this November), Miguel Cotto (for however many fights are left in his career) Timothy Bradley, and now Crawford is rushed into the PPV mix.
The American PPV market is going to change considerably in a post-Mayweather and post-Pacquiao world, and for boxing fans who aren't supportive of the pay-per-view model in the first place, or are fed up following Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, this is the sort of news that isn't particularly encouraging.
Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley 3, which bombed on PPV, was tagged at $69.99 (HD)/$59.99 SD. This month's Canelo Alvarez vs. Amir Khan card is also $69.99/$59.99 (SD). Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was priced beyond calculable numbers. Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux was priced at $59.95 HD/$49.95 SD. Buyrate goals and fighter purse totals are adjusted accordingly.
So with that in mind, HBO's next pay-per-view is set for July 23rd, as WBO 140 lbs champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) unifies his title with WBC champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will be priced the same as GGG/Lemieux was, and arena tickets range from just $50-$300.
This is an excellent fight and one of the best matchups that boxing has to offer this year, but it's essentially been forced to be on PPV as opposed to a regular HBO slot. Why? HBO has significantly reduced its annual boxing budget. As this UCNLive article notes, the 2015 budget was reportedly around $30 million, and it's since been chopped down further this year, to a rumored $25 million. As a result, there are fewer available dates, purse totals have to be curtailed, and select fights, like Crawford vs. Postol, will be on pay-per-view because it doesn't fit in HBO's budget. Crawford wants to fight more than twice a year, but he can't get all of those HBO dates down because they're simply not there.
According to Top Rank's Bob Arum (via ESPN), Crawford vs. Postol "would need to generate about 75,000 buys, at about $50 apiece, to break even on the event." A surprise moment of honesty from Arum gives away that Crawford's PPV debut will not have a lot of money behind it.
It's not something we normally think about when discussing UFC pay-per-views. Dana White doesn't toss out buyrate predictions to the media prior to every PPV, although he will predict them for ones that aren't happening. They clearly aren't putting equal financial backing behind, say, UFC 200, as they would a Demetrious Johnson headlined PPV, but we always look at the DJ PPV buyrates as a major disappointment. Here, you have Bob Arum angling for 75,000 as break even, and more than 100,000 as a considerable success. Just something to ponder when you look at why the UFC still persists with Mighty Mouse as at least a co-main event PPV attraction.
HBO and Showtime ran very few PPVs through the late 2000 and all of the 2010s, primarily because Mayweather and Pacquiao were able to produce absurd amounts of revenue with every fight they had, leading up to their actual fight last year. Showtime doesn't have any PPVs planned this year, and they've not even let on that they're running one any time soon. It's a different story for HBO, who re-acquired Canelo Alvarez last year, and he figures not to be back on regular HBO for a long time. The rest of the bigger names on HBO's roster would include Gennady Golovkin (potentially fighting Canelo in the fall), Sergey Kovalev (fighting Andre Ward on PPV this November), Miguel Cotto (for however many fights are left in his career) Timothy Bradley, and now Crawford is rushed into the PPV mix.
The American PPV market is going to change considerably in a post-Mayweather and post-Pacquiao world, and for boxing fans who aren't supportive of the pay-per-view model in the first place, or are fed up following Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, this is the sort of news that isn't particularly encouraging.
Article courtesy of Yahoo
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