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Says the 850,000 reported doesn't include digital purchases. During an interview with World Boxing News. I tried to post a link but its banned unfortunately.
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Don't anyone tell Robbie Barrett, Tyistall or ****EM. They might have a fit.
In the end it was a great fight, even if I didn't get the outcome I wanted. Also got to see my dude Navarette fight. 8-10 people came thru and we had a great time.Comment
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It took Bob Arum 2 full days to finally respond? Digital buys are the easiest to count and are available after a day or 2. Boxingscene article states the number they are seeing INCLUDES digital already.
The Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder rematch was the most-watched heavyweight pay-per-view fight in the United States in more than 17 years.
Their heavily hyped showdown did not, however, reach the expectations of its optimistic organizers.
BoxingScene.com has learned that the event is projected to have produced slightly more than 750,000 pay-per-view buys in the U.S., the highest rate for a heavyweight fight through that platform since Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson in June 2002. Lewis’ eighth-round knockout of Tyson generated roughly 1,970,000 buys, the second-highest total for a heavyweight fight in pay-per-view history.
The most pay-per-view buys in the U.S. for a heavyweight boxing match is 1,990,000 for the Evander Holyfield-Tyson rematch, the infamous “Bite Fight” in June 1997.
fury-wilder-rematch (8)
The Fury-Wilder rematch, which England’s Fury won by seventh-round technical knockout Saturday night at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, eventually could crack or at least approach 800,000 buys. That can’t happen until all cable companies submit each purchase made through those outlets.
Typically, most buys are tallied within six months from cable and satellite operators. In rare instances, smaller cable companies can take more than a year after an event to fully report buy rates.
However, results for digital buys through ESPN+ and the FOX Sports app, two newer ways to purchase pay-per-view boxing events, are available within a few days after those fights.
The 750,000 figure includes purchases through In Demand (all cable systems), DirecTV, Dish Network, ESPN+ and the FOX Sports app.
While successful compared to almost all pay-per-view boxing events, the Fury-Wilder rematch didn’t quite produce the type of business many experts expected. Bob Arum, Fury’s co-promoter, predicted that Fury-Wilder II would reach two million pay-per-view buys because he was encouraged by an unprecedented promotional push from FOX and ESPN, the co-distributors of the event.
In addition to an abundance of advertising and shoulder programming on those two networks, FOX aired two Fury-Wilder commercials during its telecast of Super Bowl LIV on February 2. Each of those spots was watched by more than 100 million viewers in the U.S.
ESPN, which has an exclusive contract with Arum’s Top Rank Inc. and Fury, and FOX, which works with adviser Al Haymon and Wilder, have massive reach within the U.S.
ESPN, a basic cable channel, has 83 million subscribers in the U.S. FOX, one of the country’s four major broadcast networks, is available in nearly 120 million American homes.
Based on voluminous amount of coverage, pre-fight expectations for the buy rate were high, as two boxing industry insiders with extensive experience in pay-per-view told BoxingScene.com last week that they anticipated the Fury-Wilder rematch to eclipse one million buys. About 1.1 million buys is believed to have been the number needed for the networks and promoters to break even on the event.Comment
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