As part of their coverage of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Yahoo Finance put a spotlight on Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya.
The former six division world champion, who captured a gold medal in the 1992 Olympic Games, founded Golden Boy Promotions in 2002, and retired from active fighting in 2008 after a TKO defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao.
In 2014, De La Hoya was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
At the moment, De La Hoya has a content deal with streaming service DAZN.
De La Hoya explained that it wasn't easy to get taken seriously when he started his company.
"[The Latino community has] been proud of my success and helped me overcome challenging situations,” De La Hoya said to Yahoo.
"I was a former athlete, and thus, I had to work harder to prove that I was a businessman as well. Adding to that, being Hispanic added an additional layer of doubt that I had to overcome. I did it by being focused, being prepared, and knowing how to leverage my knowledge of my sport to be more effective in business.
“I learned empathy, loyalty, and passion from my family and my community. I use each of these traits every day in how I conduct business. I learned empathy from my mother, loyalty from my immediate family, and passion from my community. I wear my Latino-ness with honor each and every day and am very proud to be the first Hispanic to own a national boxing promotional company.”
De La Hoya's company has a real focus on Hispanic fighters - with boxers like Canelo Alvarez, Vergil Ortiz, Ryan Garcia and Jaime Munguia in their stable.
“Boxing is mainly consumed by Hispanics. We strongly feel that as long as we continue to deliver content that is identifiable to our consumers — content that they can relate to, we believe that we can grow that audience, and we can grow the sport as well,.” De La Hoya said.
