Is Turki Alalshikh getting a return from his investment in boxing?

[MulaKO]

End thread

[tomhawq]

Most fans would rather not have any concerns about these anomalous figures like few of us do. They'd rather dwell on fantasy pretending cable tvs are still prevalent, thus PPVs are still very much saleable. They're fond of fantasies even though non of them buy PPVs.

Just years ago, $1 million purse is a huge deal. Some even complain why uncle Al Haymon is paying too much for his fighters. Anything higher is in fraction of that figure. Those numbers are all gone now and replaced by fake exaggerated numbers. Well, it all started when DAZN repped by Hearn started offering 10x as much. That was because it's a startup in boxing, thus willing to spend a billion $$$ like all startups do. Not to be outdone, PBC fans and fake writers started inflating figures. Spinoza overpaid Wilder just to catch up with the figures. Oh man, it almost bankrupted Showtime and Wilder's fights were eventually passed on to Fox Sports. "Ortiz vs Wilder 2 PPV didn't make sense to us," Spinoza finally declared. It's comical.

True. Last time I checked, Wilder was on ESNews complaining about why PBC hasn't paid him for his fight with Helenius. And this was guy who waxed poetic about his loyalty to Showtime and PBC.

[brettWall]

No, he's not getting any return from his "investment" other than showcasing his country in a new light. That's a given. It's not even new, it's been an age-old effort since time immemorial. No need to repeat it. You can find it in Sandra Mackey's book The Saudis on Amazon.

But still, some people are just wondering what the numbers are. Top Rank is promoting his fights in the US as they're the recipient of the US feeds, thus numbers had to exist, whatever they are. If it's mere 10K or something, fine, let us now. If everyone assumes they're all pirated, then why assume others are not?

Most fans would rather not have any concerns about these anomalous figures like few of us do. They'd rather dwell on fantasy pretending cable tvs are still prevalent, thus PPVs are still very much saleable. They're fond of fantasies even though non of them buy PPVs.

Just years ago, $1 million purse is a huge deal. Some even complain why uncle Al Haymon is paying too much for his fighters. Anything higher is in fraction of that figure. Those numbers are all gone now and replaced by fake exaggerated numbers. Well, it all started when DAZN repped by Hearn started offering 10x as much. That was because it's a startup in boxing, thus willing to spend a billion $$$ like all startups do. Not to be outdone, PBC fans and fake writers started inflating figures. Spinoza overpaid Wilder just to catch up with the figures. Oh man, it almost bankrupted Showtime and Wilder's fights were eventually passed on to Fox Sports. "Ortiz vs Wilder 2 PPV didn't make sense to us," Spinoza finally declared. It's comical.

[tomhawq]

Is Turki Alalshikh getting a return from his investment in boxing?

No, he's not getting any return from his "investment" other than showcasing his country in a new light. That's a given. It's not even new, it's been an age-old quest since time immemorial. No need to repeat it. You can find it in Sandra Mackey's book "The Saudis" on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Saudis-Inside...s%2C100&sr=8-2

But still, some people are just wondering what the numbers are. Top Rank is promoting his fights in the US as they're the recipient of ppv buys on the US feeds, thus numbers had to exist, whatever they are. If it's mere 10K or something, fine, let us now. If everyone assumes they're all pirated, then why assume others like more expensive fights on PBC are not?

[garfios]

Understood that it's Saudi oil money, but it's still considered investment like spending billions of riyals in infrastructure for pilgrims and tourists. (In the olden days that's their main source of income..)

His fight cards are huge and are supposed to massively eclipse any PPV card in America. Yet we never see Rafael, Coppinger, etc. come up with any PPV number from Turki's fights, but are quick to provide fake numbers when it comes to PBC obviously pulled out from their ass.

Do you really care?

[ELPacman]

The Saudi involvement was never about money. If you don't understand that, I'm not sure what to tell you. For what they were actually after, it's absolutely paid dividends already.

Yeah, this is what I always thought. There is no way they're making a return. The amount of piracy for PPVs now is crazy and if fights typically don't do that well, even with less paid guys on it, there is no way cards that have tons of big name fighters are able to make back the money to pay all the fighters.

What Saudi cares about and Turki has implied it in numerous interviews is bringing attention and eyes to Saudi. They want folks traveling there. They want tourism. All that is greater than putting on a boxing event can ever do for their country. He also mentions he wants to make it the new mecca for boxing, but again, even if that becomes the case, I don't think they're going to make back what they're putting out. It's always been about letting people know, they're safe and can have a good time going over to Saudi Arabia for vacation/traveling. They want people to see the country in a new light.

I would too. They chopped up that US/Saudi journalist dude who flew over to apply for a marriage license for his wife because he was criticizing the prince in his journalism. Dude literally went over just to get the license and never left the consulate building alive.

So as long as you don't talk no chit about the prince, you'll remain intact in your travels.

[tomhawq]

Oh wow, I haven't thought about this. You're right. I haven't seen any PPV number on the Saudi promoter's fights. People are raving about the magnitude of his fights, yet no one is releasing any PPV result. I wonder why.

Not a single "journalist" is investigating anomalies in this sport. They're all into fantasies even when the realities of major networks getting out of the sport, HBO, Showtime, Fox, etc. are in front of their faces. It's as if they were replaced by even bigger ones. PBC is not getting Saudi oil money, yet fake writers want us to believe their top fighters are getting $20+ million for every fight, and we're supposed to believe ppv numbers exceeding 1000,000. While cheaper non-PBC fights are getting none. How is this even possible?

They accept fake, extremely exaggerated figures.

[OliviaRobbins]

There’s all this hype around the fights, but no clear PPV numbers. I’ve seen a lot of talk about how big these events are, but it's like they’re keeping the numbers under wraps. Maybe they’re not hitting the targets they were hoping for, or they just don’t want to reveal the figures for some other reason. It’s weird how they hype the fights up so much, yet the actual numbers are nowhere to be seen.
By the way, have you checked out the new skins on https://skin.land/ ?

[rickJen]

I think the whole point is amplify the influence of the Kingdom but there's absolutely no point because you can get a much better Roi doing things other than spending on boxing. Boxers are tremendously overpaid beyond their commercial value and there's no point. You can do a lot more impact by investing in other sports that have higher viewership.

Good point. They could have better ROI if they engage in producing movies, imho.
No doubt they could do it as seen in cinematic previews of their big boxing events.
Not all people watch boxing, but almost all watch good movies from all walks of life.
Plus a movie production employs hundreds if not thousands of people.
And if "fantastic" figures are to be believed, it's far better to spread them around
instead of being given to only one or two boxers.

[HisExcellency]

The grand plan is to open up and make Saudi the next big tourist and investment destination in the region kinda what Dubai did. They believe they got a bad reputation because of decades of tight restrictions, closed society, laws, and underdevelopment and have much more to offer than others in the region in terms of variety (it is a much larger country), consumer market (larger population), economic opportunities (it is the largest economy in the region), investment (trillion dollar + economy), development (they have bigger funds to make bigger things), etc.

It is not just boxing but overall development along the Red Sea, developing historic tourist destinations (al Ulaa), building hotels and resorts, office and residential skysc****rs, opening up investment opportunities, long-term residency, making companies make Saudi their regional headquarters if they want Saudi govt contracts, changing labor laws, relaxing other strict laws, relaxing visa restrictions, etc. Sure it will take time because nothing happens overnight and laws need to be changed gradually to prevent unrest but they are on track with that vision and all these events are part of rebranding the country.

So, that is where their return on investment lies, not in making a profit from boxing fights.

100%…the Saudis have seen the kind of money neighbouring Dubai is bringing in after becoming the Vegas of the Middle East and want a piece of the action. In addition to boosting tourism, they also want to change the image of the country from a strict, Islamic nation with a poor human rights record to a more tolerant, globally acceptable society.

That’s why they’ve also invested heavily in other sports too such as Football & Golf after signing some of the best players in the world. However, unlike those sports which are already very well established in the West, Boxing is more disconnected due to inter-promotional rivalry which has allowed Turki to capitalise by bringing everybody together under one roof.