Comments Thread For: Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev PPV Show Barely Cracked 160K Buys

[HandsofIron]

Maybe Jay-Z could throw out a tweet or make an appearance for the rematch? Lol, the dude has millions and millions of followers and fans and has his name on this company yet is nowhere to be found in the promotion of his best fighters biggest fight And the biggest fight of 2016. Main events did what they could, I heard Duva on multiple podcasts trying to promote and Ward tried his best throwing out some comments here and there but it seems none of it worked.

Jay-Z and all the other urban, bubblegum pop-tart celebrities couldn't save Hillary's campaign. What makes you think he'll have any impact on boxing? Boxing is pretty much a joke right now.

[Jsmooth9876]

Jay Z shouldn't have to do anything, fights sell fights. Meaning they should've been doing better fights and double headers in the lead up. They signed this fight a year ago! They had a year where Kovalev could've fought a decent fighter on the east coast like Yuneski Gonzalez and Ward fight Pascal in Oakland, then do it again - Kovalev/Chilmeba, Ward/Barrera - split site double headers instead of separate dates and no decent support bouts.

Instead it was

• Kovalev/Pascal II - nobody cared...
• Ward/Barrera - nobody cared...
• Kovalev/Chilmeba - on a Monday night and wasn't even live...
• Ward/Brand - nobody cared....

The build up was atrocious and killed any chance this fight had to build interest.

Yeah, I agree, I was just talking about just this fight in the buildup... They both had super lackluster performances just prior to them fighting which, if the casual would have watched they certainly wouldn't be looking forward to ever seeing them fight again.

[OnePunch]

Wow

I'm not sure what to make of this or what to say. If this is true, I don't think this falls solely on the fighters (being unknown or whatnot). Those in the game have damaged the PPV outlet big time. You had the Mayweather vs Pacquiao farce, you got **** like Canelo vs Khan/Smith priced high af, GGG vs Brook priced high af as well.

This is why I laugh when people say that Canelo-GGG will do near a mill or higher. They (promoters) are feeding us bull**** on PPV while streams are abundant.

The good news here is, that people are letting their wallets do the talking now and hopefully promoters will stop their bull****.

in all fairness to the promoters, they really dont have much of a choice. When guys like Ward and Jacobs, who cant draw ants to a picnic are demanding multi-million dollar purses, the promoters have no choice but to send it to PPV.

Believe me, they would MUCH rather have guaranteed HBO / Showtime money instead of gambling on PPV, but its not up to them. The high purse demands cannot be met by typical premium tv rights fees......

[pacmanis1]

I wonder if this will show more boxers that just because you're a good fighter fighting another good fighter doesnt mean they deserve millions upon millions of dollars. Two great fighters going at it didn't automatically make it a PPV fight.

[MrClutch85]

Well put the rematch on regular Hbo not Ppv.The low numbers are not shocking to me

[SteveM]

UK fights have no bearing on US PPV potential. You can sell just about anything on PPV here for £17.

Joshua vs Molina is on PPV here for flip sake.

It would make a lot of sense to have US ppvs priced at $20/25 to reach a broader base. Then once you have a consistent 500k plus for most fights then you can raise the price back up to $50.

[DoktorSleepless]

No. That's how he gets his actual buy rates.

@BoxingVoice_Vic We going with Facebook polls and personal friends who bought the fight over here big bro. pic.twitter.com/3lfZIjfiVO

— Chris Jones Jr (@cgowler83) May 12, 2016

That was his just his own personal opinion of what he thought the fight did. I don't know why you're just being willfully obtuse.

The real number he released was 250k.

[TexasCowBoy]

I was talking with my brother the other week and he says Kovalev won I disagreed and said I felt Ward did, his response was I'm done with boxing I'll stick to UFC in future.

That's what boxing is up against, casuals are more excited by UFC. It genuinely has stolen the audience, personally I've no interest whatsoever but this smack talkin Irish dude people are paying to see him back his shyt up and paying to hope he loses, either way he has them all along for the ride.

1.6m is something else, what's the average cost ?

Its not that they are paying to see the irish dude lose its that their whole card is full of intriguing matches...(i dont like to see the ladies fight because they are too beautiful) .....all my friends watch ufc....I can safely say I am the only boxing fan of the group....I think boxing needs to.go back to 15 rounds to add some excitement to the fights where there is runners ,dancers and huggers

[dsomonster]

main events jsut doesn't have the budget. kathy duva is on record saying that she's budgeted 5000 grand for marketing for kovalev's fights in the past.

RN is mostly to blame for letting their guy rake them over the coals . he did it for tuneups as well. they're looking to make an investment in andre ward, and they thnink they have the msucle to turn him into the next PPV star [the next floyd mayweather.]


floyd mayweather was a perfect storm of marketing. he played a villain role extremely well. in his prime it was tough to put a glove on him. ward's just an *******, he's not villain. you can put a glove on him, he'll just hold your other glove so you can't do damage, and if he gets hit he'll weather a storm and find another way to beat you.

floyd would just outclass peope with his boxing, and it was pleasing on the eyes. a casual fan could see the big swing and misses that floyd would elicit from his opponents, or the picture perfect counters. ward does things on the inside and with turning and holding that make him a top shelf operator, but it's not nearly the eye pleasing style that floyd had.



people elect big fighters. you've got to have "it" to sell to casual fans. and casual fans decide what "it" is!

floyd was a villain. people hated him and they couldnt' do a damn thing about it. he made people jealous. manny was an underdog. here's this tiny little asian guy with a knockout punch beating up welterweights. people were drawn to the novelty. oscar was just bloody good looking and had a left hook for the history book. ali divided an entire country, and was a paragon of the racial and SES clash of the civil rights era and the decade or so that followed it. mike tyson acted like the guy in a back alley that you wish you never saw! and you had his style, and his fall from grace, to bolster that idea.

true, crossover, bonafide stars are elected. they are not produced. ward's not going to crossover and become a star unless he can do something in the ring to make him a more palatable commodity to the casual fan.

Damn New England, WELL SAID!

[TexasCowBoy]

Jay-Z and all the other urban, bubblegum pop-tart celebrities couldn't save Hillary's campaign. What makes you think he'll have any impact on boxing? Boxing is pretty much a joke right now.

Hahahaha.....best post of the day