Crawford's guaranteed $3.625M for the Benavidez fight

[ThatDude44]

Also, I'm guessing this is also because he's fighting on the ESPN app. Top Rank is likely giving him an incentive to fight on the app by sweetening the pot.

Meanwhile Lomachenko fighting on regular ESPN is only getting $1M.

So please no more crap about how Lomachenko is getting preferential treatment.

There's a reason they're getting paid this way.

It's only on the app and not on ESPN?

[deanrw]

Also, I'm guessing this is also because he's fighting on the ESPN app. Top Rank is likely giving him an incentive to fight on the app by sweetening the pot.

Meanwhile Lomachenko fighting on regular ESPN is only getting $1M.

So please no more crap about how Lomachenko is getting preferential treatment.

There's a reason they're getting paid this way.

Only 1 million? He got a guaranteed 1.2 for Rigo (without the side pay). Linares made 1.2 million to fight him. He went well past the million threshold a while back. Pedraza is making 1 million to fight him. I would say he is making over 2 million a fight now.

['b']

Creative accounting is an art. Every major business uses creative accounting to minimize liabilities. Multi million dollar athletes are no different.

So there are a million ways to manipulate the purse. I'll give you some basic examples. Let's say fighter X is guaranteed $5 million per fight by his promoter. His promoter can pay fighter X $2 million to fight and $3 million to be hired as a spokesman to help market the fight. Thus the commission and sanctioning body, as well as possibly his trainer, are only getting a percentage of his "purse" of $2 million, while having no claim on his $3 million "marketing agreement."

Or, promoter pays $5 million to a shell company owned by fighter X to make fighter X available for the fight. Fighter X than pays himself $2 million to be hired by his own company to fight, thus making $2 million his "purse" while the other $3 million is corporate income, which you can then write off all sorts of expenses, not to mention be taxed at the lower corporate tax rate.

I can give you a million examples, but some of them are a little more borderline in terms of legality, so I'll just give you one more safe one since the game is to be sold, not to be told.

Promoter has the fighter "co-promote" the event. He's still essentially guaranteed $5 million, but you file $2 million as the purse. Then in the co-promotion agreement, the company of fighter X is entitled to the first $3 million of income from the promotion. So the fighter is taking no risk, but that $3 million is coming in as promotional income, and the fighter can even write off a bunch of bogus expenses from the promotion of the event.

These are just some very basic examples, but you get the idea.

Thanks man you're a great poster!

[Ray*]

Wow that’s even more than most current top HW.

['b']

$3.625M!!!!!!?????????

That's a WHOLE LOT of burritos he is taking, goodbye and R.I.P. Hoe-gay Benadespedidas Poo-in-ya (say like 'junior')

[Madison Boxing]

are people still gonna cry about crawford not being treated fairly by top rank?

[champion4ever]

Wow! That is very good money for a regular basic cable fight. There is no way in the world that the premium HBO network would have matched that type of licensing fee but ESPN can and are.

[Scipio2009]

Yup, and people wonder why he's with Top Rank.

Well... when you get to fight Horn, Benavidez and likely Kavaliuskas and you're getting $3M + per fight, why go anywhere else?

Reminder that Shawn Porter vs. Danny Garcia, one of the biggest WW fights of the year, each only got $1M to beat each other up.

Crawford is getting $3.6M for a tuneup.

... DSG Promotions was on the marquee for the event; if you honestly think that the only money that Danny saw was his listed purse, you're kidding yourself

[champion4ever]

It just goes to show that on average boxers make a lot of money. Which they should because each and every time they step between the squared circle, they are risking their lives. Moreover, there aren't any guarantees, that any of them will ever make it out the ring the same, safe, sound or alive.

[Lopez_Boxing]

Good for him.

But aren't some people always complaining about PBC overpaying fighters to be in mismatches?

Yes. Yes there are