In the United States, the Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury rematch, which is scheduled for February 22 in Las Vegas, will be joint pay-per-view between Fox and ESPN. No UK broadcast agreement has been made yet. Sky Sports have made what was described as a “substantial” offer for the fight, although BT Sport will get the rights if they match Sky’s offer.
Fury's U.S. promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, suggested that the deal with Al Haymon, Wilder’s adviser, had been much easier than negotiations for the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, while he also expected co-operation between ESPN and Fox would be better than that between HBO and Showtime for Mayweather-Pacquiao, saying that some of the competition between those companies had been “like infants”.
Arum suggested that the fight would do 2 million buys in the US and could make $250 million worldwide.
“The first fight did 350,000 [on American pay-per-view], but nobody knew Tyson Fury in the States,” Arum said. “And based on his two prior fights nobody gave him a chance. He’s a guy who’s larger than life, he knows how to promote himself.
“For the first time ever in the United States we have two major networks working on the same promotion.
“The college football semi-finals are massive. Each event will probably have 45-60 million viewers. Wilder is in Atlanta for the Peach Bowl and will be all over that telecast. Later in the day in Arizona, for the Fiesta Bowl, Fury is all over it.”
Fury's worldwide promoter, Frank Warren, said that the fight was the best one that could be made in the heavyweight division right now.
“This is a promoter’s dream,” Warren said. “This is about two undefeated boxers at the top of their game; the number one and number two in the world. Down the road we’d love to see them in with [Anthony] Joshua, but this is the most dynamic puncher [Wilder] against the smartest boxer.”
Arum said that Fury would do a good job selling the fight to the US audience.
“He’s a guy who’s larger than life, he knows how to promote himself, he’s the one who came out in those crazy costumes,” said Arum, who added that he expected Fury to bring over fans from his brief stint in WWE.
“What it did was bring to the table hundreds of thousands of wrestling fans who are not sports fans.
“Wilder has the ability to close the show, no matter how long it goes. I’ve never seen a guy with that one-punch, concussive power that he has.”