By Keith Idec, photo by Stephanie Trapp
Michael Yormark wouldn’t commit to a specific number Tuesday when asked during a conference call about the pay-per-view business he expects from the Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward fight next week in Las Vegas.
Roc Nation Sports’ president and chief of branding and strategy said, though, that he thinks the four-fight broadcast headlined by their light heavyweight showdown will draw a “huge” pay-per-view audience. Without attaching an actual number to it, we can only assume Yormark meant more by “huge” than the 300,000 buys Roc Nation’s promotional partner in the event, Kathy Duva, has said would cause her to “set off fireworks” in the Totowa, New Jersey, office of her company, Main Events.
Duva, who has been involved in boxing in some capacity for parts of five decades, also has said that 250,000 buys, even for a terrific fight of this magnitude, is the realistic expectation. That’s largely because, despite their resumes and skill levels, neither Ward (Roc Nation Sports) nor Kovalev (Main Events) has been even been the ‘B’ side of a pay-per-view event, forget the ‘A’ side.
“We’re very optimistic about the pay-per-view numbers,” Yormark said during the conference call to promote the November 19 fight at T-Mobile Arena. “This is a 50-50 fight, the biggest fight of the year and, on paper, the biggest fight of the last decade. We would be very disappointed if it wasn’t the biggest pay-per-view fight of 2016.”
It obviously isn’t the biggest fight of the past decade, not even of the past year-and-a-half. Out-performing even the Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan “middleweight” title fight from May 7 – which drew around 460,000 buys, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole, not 4.6 million – is extremely ambitious.
HBO Sports didn’t announce official pay-per-view figures for Alvarez-Khan, nor did Golden Boy Promotions, which represents Alvarez. It is believed, though, to have generated more pay-per-view buys than the other four noteworthy pay-per-view shows in 2016 (Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley III, Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol, Alvarez-Liam Smith and Pacquiao-Jessie Vargas).
Regardless, Yormark’s optimism is understandable.
Multiple sources have confirmed that Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports has guaranteed Ward (30-0, 15 KOs), of Hayward, California, a career-high $5 million purse to face Russia’s Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs), whose lesser purse hasn’t been verified by BoxingScene.com. Committing so much money to Ward means the fight must out-produce the ill-conceived third bout between Pacquiao and Bradley – which drew roughly 400,000 buys on April 9 – for Roc Nation Sports to make money off what clearly is a commendable matchup between two elite, undefeated fighters.
“I’m gonna go back to my old hockey days,” Yormark said, “and quote the late Herb Brooks, back in 1980, when the United States beat Russia for the gold medal in the Olympics. Herb said, ‘Great moments are born out of great opportunities.’ And when I think about November 19th, this is just a tremendous opportunity for Andre to prove why he is the best of the best, and one of the greatest fighters of all time. We at Roc Nation are so excited for him and his family. We know there’s gonna be a sellout crowd. We expect a huge pay-per-view audience.
“As I said earlier, this is, without question, the ‘Fight of the Year’ and one of the biggest fights of the last decade. It’s been 19 years since two fighters ranked in the top five pound-for-pound fighters in the world, undefeated, in their prime, have gotten in the ring together to do battle. And on November 19th, you’re gonna see that again for the first time in 19 years. As Andre said, he’s ready. I’m ready to embrace him as he collects those three belts [IBF, WBA and WBO]. And we can’t wait until November 19th. We hope that everybody will tune in on HBO Pay-Per-View.”
Ideally, Ward-Kovalev would draw as many eyeballs as Mayweather-Pacquiao. That aesthetic disappointment lured an astounding 4.6 million people to purchase it, despite an unprecedented price point of $100.
Unfortunately for anyone that cares about boxing, Mayweather-Pacquiao also infuriated hardcore and casual fight fans alike. Many industry insiders go as far as to say that the fallout from Mayweather-Pacquiao has done irreparable damage to the boxing business.
Suppose that isn’t true, it still seems safe to assume Ward-Kovalev will do modest pay-per-view business that isn’t commensurate to the risk taken by two tremendous boxers. In a perfect world, this fight would be HBO Sports’ early holiday present to patient, resilient subscribers who’ve endured a calendar year devoid of meaningful fights – or any fights, for that matter – from a premium-cable network that has long set the standard for a niche sport that operates in a continuous state of crisis.
When one fighter is guaranteed $5 million, though, televising Ward-Kovalev live on the network wouldn’t be possible even during a successful year in which HBO’s boxing budget were bigger. Besides, Ward-Kovalev also is about developing another pay-per-view attraction as Pacquiao and the retired Mayweather, who very well could fight again next year, fade farther and farther from their respective primes.
Kovalev, 33, is a knockout artist violence-starved viewers usually enjoy watching. Ward, 32, is more tactical, though the prevailing expectation is that Kovalev will force him to become more offensive than usual during their scheduled 12-rounder.
That could lead to a more entertaining fight than some skeptics anticipate. However Kovalev-Ward unfolds, the “huge” pay-per-view audience Yormark projected probably won’t materialize.
That’s an unfortunate reality for the promotional company that guaranteed Ward $5 million to fight Kovalev.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
