By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s title defense against unknown fighter Alex Leapai (30-5-3, 24 KO’s) did horrible ratings numbers on ESPN last month in the United States. The mismatch, which took place in Oberhausen, Germany on April 26th, brought in just 468,000 viewers rather than the normal 1.4 million viewers that ESPN normally gets for that time slot on Saturday’s, according to Yahoo Sports.
The question now is whether ESPN will take a chance on televising future fights of Wladimir. If they’re unable to bring in good ratings televising his fights, then it’s quite possible they’ll go with something else like basketball or football instead of taking risks of Wladimir continuing to bring in poor ratings.
So why did do so poorly? Well, Wladimir’s promotional company K2 failed to do the marketing for the fight that they needed to do in the U.S to attract interest. There could have and should have been numerous interviews given by Wladimir to boxing sites in the U.S, as well as with the American television companies like ESPN to get fans aware of the fight. I mean, just having the fight televised on ESPN wasn’t ever going to be enough to get fans interested in the fight, because it was a horrible mismatch on paper and few fans have ever even heard of the 34-year-old Leapai. Even hardcore fans hadn’t heard much about Leapai before he was given a high ranking by the WBO and put into an eliminator against Denis Boytsov to get the shot at Wladimir.
If Wladimir is interested in picking up fans in the U.S, then he and his promotional company are going to need to put forth a major effort to attract interest in his fights, because America isn’t a market like Germany, where the boxing fans loyally watch Wladimir’s fights against overwhelmingly over-matched opponents. Wladimir has a huge built in fan base in Germany, and they don’t seem to mind if he fights over-matched guys like Leapai. Mismatches don’t seem to fly in the U.S, and Wladimir needs to make a major upgrade of the guys he’s been fighting if he wants to bring in good ratings in the U.S.
K2 Promotions is going to need to have Wladimir tour cities, give actual interviews, and talk with more of the media. It would also help if Wladimir would pick out a talented heavyweight contender that the U.S fans have heard of like Deontay Wilder instead of the guys that he’s been fighting lately, like Leapai, Mariusz Wach, Francesco Pianeta and Jean Marc Mormeck. Those are the kind of opposition that contenders should be facing, not world champions. Wladimir has kind of been doing things backwards in terms of picking out his opposition, and that’s obviously got to change if he wants to open up the U.S market for his fights.
Comments are closed.