2015 was a big year for boxing. It featured the start of a new organization, a return to network television, litigation (of course), controversy and the long-awaited fight people waited years to see.
Mayweather-Pacquiao was the dream matchup that came several years too late. Still, the fight reaped the rewards due the brand names of its participants. At a $100 pay per view price point, it was guaranteed to compete for the De La Hoya-Mayweather buy mark. It far exceeded the 2.1 million PPV buys as the unique co-promotion between Showtime and HBO drew 4.4 million PPV buys.
The gate at the MGM Grand was an enormous $72 million as there were few, if any, comps for this event.
The fight itself was not exciting at all and widely criticized. Post-fight, Pacquiao admitted to having a shoulder injury and his camp placed blame on the NAC for not allowing him to take an injection they thought was allowable.
The news of the injured shoulder sparked outrage and litigation as a variety of lawsuits were filed against Pacquiao, HBO, Showtime, Top Rank and almost everyone else in the vicinity.
Mayweather came under scrutiny later in the year as a piece written for SB Nation by Thomas Hauser indicated that the undefeated fighter was allowed a TUE to rehydrate after weigh-ins the Friday before the fight. The Hauser piece drew the ire of USADA, the third party regulatory body that oversaw the testing for the event.
Mayweather fought one more time in September and announced his retirement. His fight against Andre Berto drew the lowest PPV buy rate under his Showtime contract.
Bob Arum announced that Manny Pacquiao’s April 2016 fight will be his last. It was recently announced that he will fight Tim Bradley for the third time.
Another big event occurring in 2015 was the advent of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions (PBC). PBC was all over the networks this year. It forged deals with SpikeTV, Showtime, NBC Sports Network, Fox, FS1, Bounce TV, ESPN, CBS and NBC. The return to network television was a big event as it drew 3.13M viewers in March. In April, it drew 2.9M viewers. But since the nice starts, the boxing cards rarely make a dent in viewership.
Spike TV also made boxing a part of its “Friday Night Lights Out” promotion which started in March. Similar to other PBC events, they ratings have decreased since its debut.
| PBC on Spike | |
| Rating | Date |
| 869,000 | 3/13/2015 |
| 569,000 | 4/24/2015 |
| 772,000 | 5/22/2015 |
| 446,000 | 6/12/2015 |
| 679,000 | 8/14/2015 |
| 583,000 | 9/11/2015 |
| 315,000 | 10/16/2015 |
| 466,000 | 11/13/2015 |
| 538,000 | 12/18/2015 |
The other big business story occurring in boxing in 2015 was the two antitrust lawsuits filed by Top Rank and Golden Boy against Al Haymon and his business partners in federal court in Los Angeles. The Golden Boy lawsuit (a detailed review here) was filed in May and the Top Rank lawsuit was filed in July. Both lawsuits are similar in nature as they claim that Al Haymon’s strategy violates antitrust laws.
An April 2015, a Sports Business Journal article on the finances of PBC may have been a driver toward these lawsuit. Obviously, one article does not decide whether or not an organization is willing to delve hundreds of thousands of dollars into a lawsuit which may impact the industry of professional boxing, but it did shed light on how Haymon (who is still a very private individual) and how he runs his business.
The lawsuit is still in its initial stages after several attempts by Haymon to dismiss both lawsuits. In the Golden Boy lawsuit, he sought a stay of the lawsuit pending the results of an arbitration.
Haymon did win a motion to dismiss the Top Rank lawsuit this past fall. However, the court allowed Top Rank to amend its complaint and re-file. And, a subsequent attempt to dismiss the amended complaint was denied by the court this past Wednesday.
We will see where this lawsuit heads in the coming year.
As for the best of the rest, GGG made his debut as PPV headliner in October and Cotto-Canelo headlined a PPV in November. GGG drew 150K PPV buys and Cotto-Canelo drew a reported 900K PPV buys.
Although Wladmir Klitschko lost his heavyweight title in 2015, he drew the largest rating on HBO for boxing since 2012 when he made a rare New York City title defense this past April. His upset loss to Tyson Fury drew over 1 million HBO viewers this past November.
New stars coming with PBC! And top rank gbp….Spence,thurman,garcia,broner,wilder,fury,jacobs,ggg,crawford,mickey garcia when he returns,maidana, good 2016 for boxing a lot of matches to be made hahaha
…….2016……………………….THE END OF BOXING!
HAHAHA!!!
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mcgregor-vs-dos-anjos-holm-vs-tate-reportedly-061437961–mma.html
Another huge ppv coming up for the UFC!!
Il take note of your statement 2016 end of boxing….hahaha…you just boxed yourself in a corner hahahaha…always emotional D
This guy is the definition of the UFC nuthugger. Immune to facts, addicted to bashing. Don’t even try to reason with him.
@ d
OMG UFC 197!
4.65 million buys… not 4.4
Tops, I’ve taken note of your comments where every year you say the UFC is over, etc. Boxing has clearly declined and their ppv is about to take a massive hit. They have 1 ppv star left after Pac’s dreary ppv fight against Bradley and Canelo will never match Pac, let alone Mayweather numbers.
D do you not realize boxing is a part of mma as well? spoken like someone who has obviously never been in any ring.
Fight Fan, you really like comparing apples to unicorns. What does any of what you stated have to do with what I said?
Also, I’ve had about 1000x more experience in both boxing and mma gyms than you. You’ve admitted you get all your info from your wing man.
the ufc will trounce boxing this year in ppv sales, anyone want to make a friendly wager on this.
Don’t waste your time wagering with these guys, most of them won’t hold up their end of the bet.
hehe your right d, im even a long time boxing fan, hell i watched hagler vs leonard live in 1987!
at least they came to fight.
ufc is going to absolutely trounce boxing this year, it will not even be close.
what these morons fail to realize , is one fight accounted for like 75% of boxings ppv revenue last year
there is no boxing fight right now that will even draw over a million buys.
Well… Hagler did at least. But back then for the most part, boxers did bring it. Completely different sport now. Those guys you would pay to see back then, now, I wouldn’t pay anything to watch boxing.
Yeah, it will be another routine year for the UFC over boxing in ppv. The only fight that has a shot at hitting 1m is if Canelo fights GGG and I doubt he will fight Golovkin, not to mention they still may fall short of 1m. These guys were all talking last year about how mma was dead because Silva/GSP were done and the UFC had no stars, but they failed to realize the UFC has a strong track record of replacing stars, while boxing does not and we are seeing it now with Mayweather retired and Pac on his way out. Their ppv industry is going to plummet.
Dont forget how ufc pays so much bigger money than boxing hahahaha…and how ufc is so big globally and how ufc would be in the 2016 olympics,and it has many shows in new york as well,and no loan due hahahahaha.
And 90% of.the mma market is UFC…one promotion represent the whole sport hahaha
Boxing is global, ufc isn’t even in New York and had to cancel their event in South America.
Dw is a good hype machine…always hyping the ny.getting sanctioned….going to do a show but how many times this year did boxing put up a fight in ny….no big deal,but being the pied piper that he is…makes it appear that theyre conquering something….hahaha…world domination..
Boxing is gonna struggle next year for sure, no Floyd, Manny vs Bradley nobody cares about.
GGG vs Canelo is the only big fight.
There are other great fighters and good fights, hopefully Ward stops screwing around and actually fights someone, Crusher or GGG. Crusher/Adonis would be awesome if they get the deal done.
You have good fights but other than GGG/Canelo what is there thats big? I guess Floyd comes back to fight someone big but thats about it.
Just like in mma, plenty of great fighters and even fights but that doesnt equal big fights. Lawler vs Condit was amazing, could be FOTY two days into the new year but it wasnt huge, PPV sales wont be more than 300 to 350k.
Stars sell and right now for first time ever the biggest stars in combat sports are mma fighters.
Hahaha still living in the mma bubble
With boxing payouts…its a sign is struggling hahaha…
Topps is self destructing. Hahaha.
…Fight Fan’s source…..the wing guy at BFF. Haha.
http://www.cynopsis.com/story/pbc-punches-new-deal-fox/…..Jason is media rights deal mean fox is paying PBC? split in ads? Or fox gets all ads?
i am a long time boxing fan but how can you guys on here think boxing is healthy
floyd is gone- manny has one more fight. who else is drawing out there?
canelo will only fight has beens and smaller guys he will not fight ggg
what big fight is out there this year.
So danny garcia fought in espn and nbc last year and is fighting on fox this january…so haymon is shwcasing boxers in diff free tv platforms same with his potential future opponent then like thurman in a sort of tourney format(thurman vs porter) than fighting each other on ppv?
They will never have those guys fight on ppv, no one will buy it.
Also, I can’t wait for the ratings to come out for PBC on FOX. Although, when they fall flat, the sympathizers will continue to defend them.
Pacman,mayweather,did not have exposure like this in theyre time…they started as undercards for other boxers,if they can get errol spence or any fighter and be on free tv.for 2 years (6fights) keep winning….then hype them up on hbo or showtime…ppv stars…garcia had 1 mil on espn and was it 3m on nbc? When pacman was fighting barera and morales in was 350k ppv…this is on free tv….more awareness
Mayweather medaled in the Olympics and never lost as a pro. Pacquaio was ko’ing fighters left and right and went on a tear. Neither ever did so much as a decent ppv until they fought De La Hoya. That is how boxing ppv works. It revolves around piggy backing on star names. The fighters you mentioned not only do not have the skill of either of those two, they also lack the charisma. No ppv for any of those guys. Just some information for the layman.
Mayweather medaled in the Olympics and never lost as a pro. Pacquaio was ko’ing fighters left and right and went on a tear. Neither ever did so much as a decent ppv until they fought De La Hoya. That is how boxing ppv works. It revolves around piggy backing on star names. The fighters you mentioned not only do not have the skill of either of those two, they also lack the charisma. No ppv for any of those guys. Just some information for the layman.
Also, the Garcia on ESPN fight relied also on Malignaggi. Let’s not act like he was going up against some no namer. Bellator does better on spike with their washed up has-been mma tour. If Garcia were to headline a ppv against anyone right now at ww, he wouldn’t break 100k buys. The Bellator has beens could. Haha.
PBC hasnt really been doing good, ratings are down everywhere.
Look at Thurman, kicks off big NBC card 3.4 million viewers then does 800k on ESPN.
Is Showtime benefiting by having these guys fight on bigger networks then when they come back to Showtime are they doing better?
Pbc plan is long term they say…3 to 4 years theyre initial plan i think…in 2 to 3 years bunch of these fighters would be ppv stars….how many boxers on the undercard get that kind of exposure in the 90’s and 2000’s? hbo and showtime where there,so did top rank.gbp,and all old school promoters where also there…so pbc just added more exposure and build more boxers for the future….
That was the plan, but they were expecting much higher ratings. They are almost a year in now and their numbers are gradually declining to an unsustainable level. PBC has already burned through half of the money they were loaned. Do you honestly think a year from now, after all of the money has been burned through, that they are going to re-up this utter failure for another 2 years? Better to cut their losses.
Also, the plan was NOT for ppv, it was strictly for tv rights. The huge article with the investors analyzing the plan pointed this out. Which leads one to believe this will be done in a year, because if it is a tv rights play, and they are bringing in ratings far below what is needed at a clearly unsustainable level, they are not going to get a deal with a network that would be good enough to turn a profit.
The exposure however hasn’t led to any improvement in ratings or ppv potential. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be talking about how boxing right now is in a state where they have only 1 ppv headliner.
topps garcia will never be a sell on ppv.
I see on hear a lot about how boxing only has 1 star right now. Well guess what?? Boxing has always thrived off one or 2 huge stars in the sport with a hardcore fanbase that follows everybody. The first time this “boxings dead” sang came to be was around the time Jack Dempsey retired. Then it was Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Ali, Tyson, ODLH, Mayweather/Pac and now Canelo. You also have to realize no other sports are like Combat sports where someones a bonafied unbeatable star one day and a bum on the decline the next. Who on this site thought that a 122 pound Manny Pacquiao would become such a superstar?? Who thought some shit talking Irish guy would be the face of the UFC right now?? Combat sports are so ridiculously unpredictable most of the time you never know who’s the next star.
An article described whats happening to boxing is the best in quarter of a century…the mainstream exposure…..more fights on TV,more fighters for people to support and watch…but they should at least fight 4 x a year if its an errol spence level
…because of pbc pirating gbp boxers…golden boy got all sorts of awards this year in matchmaking because they were forced to do that…they discovered kingkong ortiz because majority left gbp….
Some people simply live in denial.
The reality is, just because they are SPENDING a lot of money to gain exposure, while drawing poor ratings, does not mean it is good for boxing. They would be better off consolidating their cards to have better quality, rather than quantity.
Boxing has almost no star power, poor tv ratings, and their ppv is going to be awful this year with the retirement of Mayweather with no one to replace him.
I remember in the early 2000’s in the welterweight division…there was mosley,mayorga,vernon forrest…now theres aside from pac nd floyd….garcia,thurman,bradley,postol,khan,brook,porter,guerero,errol spence,maidana,mattyse, 140 who can go to 147 broner,crawford,mickey garcia…..and the contenders are not unknowns…stacked
Provodnikov,algieri….more media exposure much better for boxers
“garcia,thurman,bradley,postol,khan,brook,porter,guerero,errol spence,maidana,mattyse, 140 who can go to 147 broner,crawford,mickey garcia…..and the contenders are not unknowns…stacked”
Most of those guys have been fighting for years and back to the point at hand- they can’t sell a ppv.
The exposure hasn’t increased the tv ratings either, they are declining.
Dunlap,
That isn’t the case with boxing, it takes them years to develop ppv stars, then have them fight a ppv star, it is a long process. With mma, it is not because there are so many different stars they’ve been able to produce. Boxing has had the same 2 guys as their ppv stars for the past 7 years- arguably two of the longest reigning ppv stars where for a long stretch of time, they weren’t losing and looked dominant. That won’t be replicated again- certainly not with someone to replace Mayweather.
Someone like Pac is replaceable, but I don’t see anyone on their horizon- even GGG, if he ever gets a chance to fight a top star- he will never match what Pac or Mayweather did because of his age. Canelo is a fraud and the second he fights someone very good he will lose again.
The truth is, once Mayweather went, boxing’s ppv hit a serious brick wall. He was the one of the top 2 ppv draws of all time(the other being Tyson), with his trash talking and perfect record. You brought up the long running story about people claiming boxing is dead- the issue is way back when there was no competition. There is now with mma. They are controlling the US/Canada marketshare and will gradually control the rest of the world. Look at the ppv numbers, the tv ratings, etc. Bellator is outdrawing PBC on Spike even when they have stars headlining the cards. The UFC is outdrawing PBC on network tv. The writing is on the wall.
A lot of fights to be made on free tv…berto vs provodnikov(if top rank agrees), postol algieri…..ortiz vs rios…ortiz vs errol spence..each pbc per promotion can have 2 welter fights for tv…zab judah vs matyss 2