Keith Sheldon envisions the Barclays Center remaining every bit as active in offering boxing in 2020 as it has been in each of the past few years.
When Brett Yormark left his position late last summer as chief executive officer of BSE Global, speculation spread within the boxing industry about whether Barclays Center would remain as completely committed to boxing as it has been since the first card was held at the Brooklyn arena seven years ago. The recent announcement of Barclays Center’s first show of 2020, a January 25 card that’ll feature Danny Garcia and Ivan Redkach in the main event, indicates it’ll remain one of the most active venues for boxing in the sport.
“For us, it’s all about consistency,” Sheldon, BSE Global’s executive vice president of programming and development, told BoxingScene.com. “On the heels of our great show in December, we announced this solid card in January. And I think what you can expect to see is just us continuing to grow the business. We have a tremendous foundation and I don’t see any signs of us slowing down.”
Barclays Center hosted five boxing cards in 2019, just one fewer than the six apiece held at the 7-year-old venue in 2017 and 2018. Sheldon anticipates a similar number of boxing events next year at Barclays Center, which has a partnership with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.
Sheldon has been instrumental in building the Brooklyn Boxing brand for six years. He emphasized that almost the entire group – which also includes Anthony Catanzaro, the Barclays Center’s senior boxing adviser – responsible for the program’s success remains intact.
“Even though some of the faces that are more public today that maybe weren’t as public historically,” Sheldon explained, “there’s always been a committed, passionate group at Barclays Center that’s been pushing the [boxing] program from day one. Whether that’s our marketing team, our sales team, box office, PR, you have this tremendous depth of resources that were always behind the scenes, trying to grow the sport in Brooklyn. Now, with some new leadership, you have different people’s fresh perspectives percolating. And again, it’s about building on the foundation that was created, not trying to slow anything down and instead building.”
Philadelphia’s Garcia (35-2, 21 KOs) will fight for the eighth time at Barclays Center when he encounters Ukraine’s Redkach (23-4-1, 18 KOs) in a 12-round welterweight bout Showtime will televise next month.
Garcia headlined the first boxing card at Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets, when he knocked out Erik Morales in the fourth round of their rematch in October 2012. He also lost welterweight title fights to Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter at Barclays Center.
Fights such as Garcia-Thurman, which drew a peak viewership of 5,100,000 on CBS in March 2017, headlined the type of event Sheldon wants to continue bringing to the building.
“Where we’ve found the most success,” Sheldon said, “no matter what we were doing in the entertainment space in Brooklyn, has been being a part of the big-event business. You get the Saturday night, capacity crowd, prime-time television, millions of people tuned in, all eyes on Brooklyn, that’s what we’re all about as we grow our brand at Barclays Center. Boxing has been a huge contributing factor to helping us get there, and it continues to be an important part of what we do.
“I just think it’s important to re-emphasize that we’ve put so much sweat equity into the boxing program, and we’ve built this great Brooklyn Boxing brand, we see no signs of slowing down whatsoever.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.