Via Allan Fox: Eddie Hearn says Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo Alvarez III is a the battle is four times bigger compared to the clash between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford.
Hearn said while he agreed that boxing fans consider Spence-Crawford a better match than Canelo vs. Golovkin III, it won’t bring a lot of pay-per-view purchases.
The problem that welterweight champions Spence and Crawford have is that the average boxing fan isn’t used to it either.
They haven’t made enough noise in their careers promoting their fights to attract a lot of attention from casual boxing fans.
If Hearn is right about the Spence-Crawford war being so much smaller than Canelo-Golovkin III, they’ll need to come up with creative ideas to market their war after it’s signed.
Canelo-Golovkin = 4 x greater than Spence-Crawford
“When I talk about scale, I talk about revenue,” says Eddie Hearn Against TV Hub when asked about his previous comments about the Canelo vs. Golovkin was a much bigger matchup than the one between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford.
“Its [Canelo vs. Golovkin III] at least four times bigger maybe more, but I’m talking revenue. If you say to heavyweight boxing fans, ‘What’s better than fighting,’ I think it might be, because it’s a different world.
“You are talking about two global icons of the sport, two legends of the sport, worldwide names compared to two great American boxers. [Errol Spence & Terence Crawford] that no one really knows but boxing fans in America.
“When I say it, it’s not offensive to the fight,” Hearn said, “I’m just giving you the financial facts around that are fundamentally bigger. “No, it’s not,” Hearn said when told that heavyweight boxing fans are pay-per-view buyers.
“Normal fans are the buyers. That’s how you get a big pay-per-view. Boxing fans account for between 150 and 200,000 pay-per-views.
“That’s why when you talk about Errol Spence, they say his biggest paid view is 300,000. I don’t really believe it, but if it is, it’s against Mikey Garcia, I believe. Terence Crawford, I don’t believe has made more than 100, 150 jerseys.
“That is true of my argument. Hardcore boxing fans will buy Errol and Terence Crawford pay-per-view. How do you get 1 million pay-per-view purchases? How do you get 1.2 million pay-per-view purchases?
“Canelo Alvarez just did 600,000 pay-per-views against Bivol, 700,000 views on Plant. These are consistent numbers. He is a freak in his charisma.
“So it’s not really about who comes from where. Just one person doing these numbers and another person doing these numbers. I’m just telling you I know how much money is made or all of these wars, and Canelo-GGG is a lot bigger than that one. [Spence vs. Crawford”
Spence vs. Crawford must engage casual fans
“Again, not what’s a better fight? Which one do you want to see more? I’m just telling you financially which one of bigger.
“120 is about the number that it did off Dazn, and that was actually staged in the message in the Tweet,” said Hearn when told that Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe said Canelo vs. Dmitry Bivol did 120,000 pay-per-view buys.
“It did 120,000 buys off the platform. People have got to realize that this was a Dazn pay-per-view. Off platform is just other random platforms that engaged during that fight.
“The bulk of the pay-per-views were on DAZN. Speaking of DAZN, it did over 600,000 buys. It was a huge success.
“We hope this [Canelo vs. Golovkin trilogy] now one million. That should make us see that this is a sustainable pay-per-view platform.
“Not that we had the intention or what it was, but the fact that we have the ability to successfully do pay views on the platform is great for us because we can keep fighting. like this on DAZN.
“This war [Canelo-Golovkin 3], you put these two together, and it’s huge. That’s a million purchases either there or there. You put the other guys [Spence & Crawford]You have to attract casual fans.
“Every boxing fan will buy Spence vs. Crawford. 250 or 300,000. How do you get it to a million? If you get into that market through advertising, through a bit of bad blood, through compelling linear platforms like ESPN and FOX and help it grow, I believe that fight [Spence-Crawford] can get 5 or 600,000 buys, but not really over.
“It was an excellent fight between two excellent fighters. Just casual fans who don’t know much about them. So you have a lot of work to do. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it.
“If they get together and start rolling around on stage, and the build is amazing and everyone gets it right on FOX, get it right on ESPN, it’s a big fight with lots of pay per view. You have a lot of work to do.
“Why do people want to see this fight?” said Let’s Learn about the Canelo vs. Golovkin. “The first two are fantastic, and the first is disputed. A lot of people thought Gennadiy got the second win. All these reasons.
“You just watched two games of the year. A lot of people think Gennadiy Golovkin won both skirmishes, especially the first or the second. Why not do it again?
“You’ve got the best at 160 [Golovkin] best at 168 [Canelo], in my opinion. Undisputed unified middleweight world champion. Having bad blood, they can’t stand each other.
“Stylistically, it was an absolute fight. So you can’t ask me why we would want to watch it again when it’s one of the best fights we can have in the sport.
“I don’t believe so,” Hearn said when told that fans watching Canelo vs. Golovkin is a game over as GGG is past his best age. “He just had over 400 days off the ring.
“He went to Japan, started slow for two innings, and then beat Murata to unify the team. He [Golovkin] has not been canned for more than 400 days. I think he finished at 160. He was there for 12 years or so.
“Murata was good, but in the end he defeated him. As I said, you will see from the numbers. My friends in the UK, they all flew for this war [Canelo vs. Golovkin III]”Hearn said.
Others don’t know Spence or Crawford
“No, they’re not,” Hearn said when told that his fans are heavyweight boxing fans. “They are ordinary fans. They don’t really go to a lot of boxing. They go to AJ, they can go to Fury-Wilder.
“The problem with fighting games is that people’s minds are very internal. You live in this battle bubble. By the way, I live in it. It’s what we do every day, but there’s another world out there.
“If I say to my friends, ‘Spence vs. Crawford.’ They don’t even know who they are. These are football fans who go to a fight a couple of times from time to time.
“If I say, ‘Canelo vs. GGG,’ they book flights, they buy hotels, they buy tickets. They spend $5000 to get themselves out there for that fight. Because they go, ‘Canelo Alvarez – GGG, wow.’ We go, ‘Spence-Crawford, wow.’
“They say, ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ but this is the bubble we’re living in. The problem with the bubble we live in, if you live in that bubble, you’ll never grow beyond it. You have to reach out to another world,” Hearn said.
