Ed Pereira is a man in the news.
The Welshman, who is targeting a world record gate of more than 135,000 for a bout in San Francisco in July, is in the headlines with his huge plans.
Pereira worked on the Times Square show in May that saw Rolly Romero defeat Ryan Garcia, while Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez scored victories.
But with a decreasing trend in TV partners, the sport has not been attracting blue chip sponsors.
But Pereira, CEO of iVisit Boxing, believes that, via YouTube, he can reach the masses with his product, hence his aim of bringing more than 135,000 to a prize-fight.
He believes boxing can get back out to the masses.
“I think there's two strands to that. And I think one is that it's not accessible,” Pereira said.
He also believes the sport has fighters to attract the masses. He has heard the line that there are no characters in the sport, and respectfully disagrees.
“When people ask me, I say exactly that, these guys are stars,” he added. “They're not only incredible athletes. They're stars. But they just haven't had the exposure needed. And I'm not digging any media distributors out there. But imagine if you had the same exposure that Jake Paul had, but you gave that equivalent exposure to Usyk. Do you know how big he would be? Everyone would know him because he is a star. He walks into the room and he fills the room, you know? And I'm not just using Usyk. These guys fill the room, they just haven't been exposed to the broader market. And that's essentially what we want to do. “That's essentially what we want to change. And it's a benefit to the sport. It's a benefit to the promoters that we're going to work with. And it's a benefit to the boxers we're going to work with and hopefully it'll grow fans for the sport.
“I don't think any fan in boxing wants to see the audience get smaller and smaller and smaller. We want it to get bigger. But we want it to get bigger with proper professional fighters that are stars and are world champions.”
One of the ways Pereira is bidding to bring boxing to the people is through YouTube. Pereira said he’s looked at boxing’s current construct, and is working with it.
“Talking about accessibility, bringing it to the people, one of the key lines we use is bringing boxing back to the people,” he continued.
“And quality. One of the things we had was we spent a lot of time going out to market, talking to the old networks, ESPN, those lot, also the streamers, because we had either, we're going to be working with a range of promoters, to go with their streaming partner or broadcast partner, and our vision very much was about getting our own so that we could really control that storytelling narrative.
“[We] really could give more space to what we've been talking about just now. So I'm really glad to say that in the process of me going out there and talking to everybody, YouTube approached us. And, essentially, we've put together a very similar deal to the YouTube NFL Brasil game that they did. So it’s going to be a great platform to put on all of these shows, the minimum of 12 shows. We're going to be putting on YouTube, exclusively on YouTube. Some will be free, some will be pay-per-view and I'm really looking forward to all that technology that YouTube's coming to bring into bear. The multi-screen content creator watch-alongs that you can choose to listen to instead of the main show, the multi-camera angle choice. All of that technology that they're bringing to bear. We're really excited to be working alongside them. And ultimately, look, [YouTube has] 2.7 billion monthly users. [That] far and above exceeds everything else. And I think it answers that question or that point, which was we want to get the casual fan involved. And one thing you can say about YouTube, it's preloaded now. Everybody has it. I'm a big fan of Sky. It [YouTube]'s preloaded into my Sky Q box, it's on everybody's computers and everybody's connected to TVs. So the idea of us is to bring that big life, live experience, that big cultural moment exclusively out on YouTube live shows.”
Will Pereira ruffle feathers? Boxing’s tides are turning and newcomers have not always been embraced by the old guards.
“We're looking to bring the best talent on board,” he added.
“It's fair to say we want to, and they always say aim for the stars and if you get to the mountain top, that's it,” he said. “That's essentially what I'm looking to do. We want to put on, my aim when it comes to the TV production, is to produce those old HBO fight nights. Now, I don't know if I'll make it to that quality, but I'll work hard towards it. First and foremost, I'm a fan and everything I do, I look at it through the fan's eyes, right? And if I ruffle feathers being a fan, then I ruffle feathers.”
Pereira is making waves.
At today’s San Francisco press conference, he was flanked by mayor Daniel Lurie and boxing fans have known about Pereira for some time. He appeared in the Boxing News Power List last year, which ranks the 50 most influential people in the sport.
Eyebrows were raised.
“It's a really good question. Listen, I think Times Square,” he said, asked how he breached the list.
“I think I made the top 50 because of Times Square. The people that were there realized it was pretty close to impossible to achieve. And we made it happen through hundreds of thousands of problems. We navigated that, made that happen. But there is no denying that it may have also been attributed tho that number, that high number may have been attributed to the plans that we're putting on this year.”
The question was asked whether he got on the list based on something he might do rather than what he had done. The Times Square show was big and memorable. But it was not a success story, unless you take into account the amount of red tape that had to be hurdled.
But he goes again in San Francisco, aiming to stage a show with more that 135,132 in attendance to defeat the record set when Tony Zale defended his middleweight title against Billy Pryor in Milwaukee in 1941.
What are the chances of him breaking the record?
“Oh, that's a really good question,” he smiled.
“Listen, I want to be in this game 100 per cent. So I think we're going to break it.”
