Welcome to a special edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at the Canelo Alvarez-Daniel Jacobs fight taking place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Alvarez handles Jacobs for unanimous decision
Canelo Alvarez put on a great performance against Daniel Jacobs in the matchup between the two 160-pound boxers on Saturday night. It was the best Alvarez had looked as he used impeccable head movement, speed and power to outpoint Jacobs. While Jacobs was able to get in some good rounds, Alvarez’s chin held up when he was not slipping and sliding past shots.
Sponsorships
For this DAZN event, Tecate remained a prominent sponsor for this fight. Per Forbes.com, it had a pool table, green screen photo booth, full-size boxing ring and Tecate Bold Punch, a punching bag machine.
💥🥊 Punchbag Challenge: @KingRyanG vs @Realdevinhaney
Who’s your 💵 on? 👀 pic.twitter.com/Bi2BtAPPhH
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) May 2, 2019
While Tecate previously offered rebates off of PPV purchases of big fights it sponsored, it still gave out $20 mail-in rebates for purchasing Tecate at participating stores.
For fans +21 not able to make it to Vegas for the fight, .@Tecate has your back with its Mail-in-Rebate program: get $20 back for $50 in-store purchases of Tecate or Tecate Light with party essentials.
— Tecate (@tecate) May 3, 2019
There were no other sponsors on the mat for Saturday night. Jacobs’ promoter, Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing and Golden Boy Boxing were also on the mat.
Roger Dubois, the high-end, swiss watch manufacturer was on the front of Canelo’s trunks. Hennessy, another Canelo sponsor, was featured prominently during the lead-up to the fight. He was an Under Armour-sponsored athlete but he revealed during an episode of Sneaker Shopping that he was a free agent.
DAZN stream and production
The weigh-ins came under criticism due to issues with the stream which broke up in spots. Also, the length of time for the weigh-ins (over 2 hours), seemed to border on self-indulgent rather than promotional.
With DAZN’s new payment structure, there was skepticism as to whether the technology would hold up when an influx of people ordered the service for $19.99 per month the day of the fight.
The answer. Similar to ESPN+’s first foray into same-day digital purchases, there were issues.
In addition, many were not pleased with the announce booth. Specifically, there were many fans tweeting about how much they favored Canelo.
Payouts
The Nevada Athletic Commission disclosed a portion of the payouts for the event which included Canelo receiving $35 million. Daniel Jacobs made $2.5 million although his DAZN contract indicated he’d make a guarantee of over $10 million. He was docked $1 million for being over the contracted day of fight weigh-in. The rest of the fight card payouts are here.
Odds and ends
Notably, Canelo Alvarez made an appearance on Complex.com’s Sneaker Shopping. He listed himself as a shoe ‘free agent.’ During the episode he purchased several pairs of Nikes and one pair of Adidas.
“Canelo vs. Jacobs channel” drew over 1 million google searches Saturday night which likely is due to people trying to find DAZN. “Canelo” drew over 1 million google searches on Friday.
Maverick Carter and LeBron James’ production company did the ‘behind the scenes’ episodes for the fight, dubbed ’40 Days’ it premiered on DAZN as a primer for the fight.
Top Rank on ESPN ran an event from Stockton, California at the same time as the DAZN event.
Conclusion
We probably never know the amount of views the DAZN event since those numbers are private. The event was also on shown in theaters so there may be some barometer as to the level of interest this fight had with boxing fans. One has to think there were many casual fans clamoring to sign up for DAZN. The question will be whether its a ‘one and done’ situation or will they stick around for more boxing. It’s hard to say with such a mediocre review of the production and broadcasting. Yet, having Canelo Alvarez in your stable with a potential trilogy fight upcoming versus GGG should grab more subscriptions.
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