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

[j0zef]

people need to understand that just because the entire boxing world claims for a fight doesnt mean casuals will actually care, i wasnt expecting 200k for this fight, why is anyone surprissed with those numbers?? a fight itself can increase ppvs but you have to have at least 1 big name...

Completely disagree. Take a look at the purses for Ward and Kovalev. They are largely dependent upon the revenue projection for the event - in this case the PPV fight.

Depending on which source you use, the main event purses were either $7M or $12M. No matter how you look at it, it's either 2 or 3 times more than Golovkin/Lemieux PPV, which generated similar # of buys (150k vs 160k). Per Loeffler and Taffet, that PPV was a moderate financial success, making money for all parties involved. Unless somehow they generated a ton of gate revenue, by comparing PPV buys & purses between GGG/DL and Ward/Kov, it's an absolute guarantee that Ward/Kovalev lost millions.

Promoters don't put on shows with the objective of losing money.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Boxing in America is in such bad shape...

To put it into perspective... The rule of thumb was if a fight projected to generate less than 250k in ppv, then it wouldn't be a PPV fight, as the showtime or hbo license fee would be just as much or greater...
But if a fight could get over 250k in buys, then they would move it to PPv.. In the past that's how they decided what was PPv or not..
Your blockbuster PPVs would get 800k or higher
And your normal lesser profile fighters/fights would get 250-600k..

Average fights like floyd-baldomir would get over 300k easily.. Now major fights can't break 300k. And the blockbuster fights like cotto-canelo can't break a million..


I see in the near future, american based fighters having to go to UK to sell good PPv numbers over there if they want a major payday.. Similar to Brook-ggg doing 600,000k there.

[Earl-Hickey]

Kovalev is Russian and andre ward is boring AF

Boxing in the states stay taking L's

[HI-TECH Boxing]

I'm glad Main Events and Roc Nation took an L.

[Progrssive_Jedi]

But they said GGG and Ward would be Huge fight

Oh, wait. That's Kov and Ward.

I mean, duh. This fight wasn't gonna sell. Boxing fans don't get excited by guys whose only goal is to old on to his opponent until he lands enough pot jabs that American judges can give him a W

[Illmatic94]

The May/Pac s hit show hurt the sport very badly, the sport won't die but it's on life support. Pac showed up to fight and Mayweather didn't want none, the whole world saw how much of a sissy Mayweather truly was and it pissed of many people because they were ripped off big time.

And some of you on here are deluding yourself, thinking Mayweather was this master salesmen, he never sold on his own, (Mayweather-Berto proved this, he couldn't even crack 1 mill, the so called face of the sport) he needed to be matched up with the right, popular opponent to sell.

Boxing is old and out-dated, it needs to evolve and most importantly, the safety-first tactics (running & over-clinching) needs to stop, it's what's truly destroying the sport. People want excitement and action, not pu$$y fights.

no, pac showed up to make excuses ..the reason i say the fight was a dud was because it lacked "action", and that blame goes more on the guy who was advertised as the busier puncher..floyd simply performed the way he always does. pac tried to box and win on points that's what ruined that fight..then the avalanche of excuses afterwards.

[KillaCamNZ]

The well has run dry, folks.

[Illmatic94]

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

did not know this, if this how this guy comes up with numbers why DF is he even taken serious? that is some pretty idiotic logic he's working with there. ima just fall back until somebody from either camp puts the numbers out.

[texasboi15]

I actually find Ward and Kovalev to be two of the most interesting characters in the sport right now.

BWaHaahaHA!!!

[LoadedWraps]

The fans from 07-present don't understand that PPV's without big stars don't do massive numbers.

Not too long ago people say Mayweather-Guererro and Mayweatehr-Maidana as "bad numbers" when they did just shy of 1 million PPV's. Which is insane.

Fans became used to global superstars like Mayweather and Pacquaio hitting 1 million+ every time and thinking anything less was poor.

Floyd and Pacquaio used to do in the 300-400 range consistently before 2007-2008 when they became mega stars.

Roy Jones PPV's used to do 500 or less.

Any PPV without Tyson or De La Hoya in was not going to hit close to a Million and even Oscar's PPV's often fell short of the 1 million mark.

It's not that much of a suprise that a lot of these PPV's are failing to do 500k. None of the fighters involved are cross over stars yet like the Tyson's, the Oscar's, Floyd and Pacquaio's of this world.

Well said. Best post of this thread.