Can Canelo Alvarez Be a PPV Star For Showtime? - Forbes
Can Canelo Alvarez Be a PPV Star For Showtime?
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez squares off Saturday night against Alfredo Angulo at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in a fight billed as “Toe-To-Toe.” It is the first fight for Alvarez since he was trounced by
Floyd Mayweather in September in the
highest-grossing bout in the history of boxing. Saturday’s fight will be broadcast on Showtime’s pay-per-view arm, but critics argued that Alvarez-Angulo is more suited for the Showtime network and not worth the $50 (regular) or $60 (hi-def) cost.
“It is a big responsibility to headline on pay-per-view. It shows the end result of everything I’ve done in the gym,” said Alvarez at Thursday’s final press conference before the fight.
Alvarez has a chance to cash in if he can draw a crowd to the PPV telecast. He will earn a guaranteed $1.25 million plus 80% of the fight’s net after expenses (Angulo is guaranteed $750,000 with a very small upside on the PPV revenue) . The fight will be a sellout of 14,000 and gross around $2.5 million for the gate, according to Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, who is promoting the fight. But the big money for the fighters and promoters is derived from PPV.
(Photo by: Tom Casino / Showtime)
Alvarez will bank around $6 million if the fight can attract 300,000 PPV buys says Schaefer. With expenses already covered at that point, Canelo’s payday will soar if a bigger audience tunes in. Another 100,000 PPV buys means another $2 million for Alvarez after the distributors and Showtime take their cut. Schaefer thinks the fight will come in around 350,000 buys, but says he wouldn’t be surprised to see it climb to 500,000. “Canelo thinks he can became the next big PPV star,” says Schaefer.
Schaefer says Alvarez has been itching to be the main act on PPV for a couple of years. He is the most popular boxer in Mexico where his bout against Mayweather aired on broadcast network Televisa and generated the highest rating in the history of Mexican TV, according to Golden Boy. His April 2013 fight against Austin Trout headlined a card in San Antonio that attracted 40,000 fans to the Alamodome. “Canelo owns the Hispanic market,” says Schaefer.
Mayweather and
Manny Pacquiao have dominated boxing PPV telecasts since 2007. There have been only two PPV cards in recent years that did not feature one of the two pugilists. Mayweather and Pacquiao generated one million-plus PPV buys for most of their fights the past seven years, but it was not always the case. Pacquiao fought on PPV eight times before he attracted more than 400,000 PPV buys with his 2008 victory over Oscar De La Hoya, who was the headliner in that fight. Mayweather had two PPV bouts with less than 400,000 buys before his 2008 fight with De La Hoya that set the record for most PPV buys ever at 2.5 million. Mayweather and Pacquiao both used victories over the previous PPV champ De La Hoya as a springboard to stardom.
Alvarez is coming off a bad defeat at the hands of Mayweather that garnered 2.2 million buys. Could his loss to Mayweather be a launching pad for Canelo on PPV? “You can’t just turn the switch for a one million PPV star,” says Schaefer.
There have been only three or four PPV bouts in recent years, largely dependent on whether Mayweather and Pacquiao fought once or twice during the year. Canelo vs. Angulo kicks off a run of four PPV boxing telecasts in four months featuring the biggest stars in the sport. Boxing fans have a smorgasbord of options before them. Showtime and Golden Boy would love to see Alvarez step up and fill the void left by Mayweather, who is set to retire next year after four more bouts. Canelo thinks he is ready to be the star attraction on a PPV card. Saturday night he gets a chance to prove it.
