By Chris Williams: Bob Arum says he has a promising location outside of the United States to potentially stage the trilogy match between WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder in October or November.
If he has it his way, Arum would like to stage the fight in the United States in New York, Los Angeles, or California. However, if fans still aren’t allowed to attend fights by October or November in the U.S, then Arum will take the Wilder-Fury fight outside of the country.
Unfortunately, Arum paints a bleak picture for the revenue that the third fight between Fury and Wilder can pull in. He says there’s no way they’ll be able to make up for the lost income if the fight takes place behind closed doors.
Even if they slash the pay-per-view from $80 to $40, he says that won’t make up for the lost revenue from the gate. What Arum isn’t saying is there is zero interest from boxing fans in the U.S in seeing Fury and Wilder fight a third time.
Yeah, fans will watch it, but they’re not going to way to pay the steep $80 price tag on pay-per-view, especially if they’re still out of work by October or November. Imagine charging $80 for fans to watch a boxing match during the Great Depression. It’s doubtful that you’d get many takers, aside from the wealthy.
Unfortunately, there are not enough wealthy people interested in seeing Wilder and Fury fight a third time for it to make up the difference of lost money from the out of work middle class.
Fury-Wilder III promising for outside the U.S – Arum
“I’m looking for a Fury-Wilder fight, and that’s going to be all my efforts,” said Arum to Boxing Social. “I also co-promote Joshua and Pulev, and I’m also looking at a Joshua-Pulev fight. It’s way premature to talk about step asides or if anyone will ever be in a position to talk step asides.
“Wilder-Fury 3, right now, we’re looking for October. That may be a little optimistic, so we may need to drift that over until November. But we are exploring places outside of the United States to do that fight, and I think we’re having some success.
“It’s not in the Middle East, and I’m ready for that to happen. If we can do it in the United States with fans, then that’s where we’ll do it. If not, then we’ll confer with everybody with what looks promising now outside the United States. We would talk to PBC people, with whom we’re getting along spectacularly. I don’t foresee any problems if we have to shift the location outside of those three U.S cities,” said Arum.
Hopefully, for Arum’s sake, he gets a considerable site fee for a location outside of the United States to stage the Wilder-Fury 3 fight. But that still won’t help the pay-per-view sales from the U.S fans, who don’t have the means to pay $80 on a fight that they have NO interest in seeing again.
At this point, even dropping the price to $40 might be too high. $10 or $20 might do it, but even that would be asking a lot for a fight that boxing fans already know the outcome.
Joshua-Pulev and Fury-Wilder too big to stage without fans
“Of course,” said Arum when asked if Joshua vs. Pulev and Fury vs. Wilder 3 are too big to be placed behind closed doors. “Speaking from my own experience, when we did $17 million gate for Wilder-Fury in February.
“Where do you replace that? If you go behind closed doors, you immediately eliminator a significant source of your revenue. Then you can say that you can make it up on pay-per-view.
“That’s not necessarily the case because people in the United States are charged or were charged to watch it on pay-per-view, but it was a period of time. Most of the people that bought it held parties at their homes and invited over people. In many cases, these people contributed to the cost of the fight. Well, people can’t do that anymore,” said Arum.
You can’t stage Wilder-Fury 3 and Joshua vs. Pulev behind closed doors. Arum speaks of fans not being able to bring fans over to their houses to chip in to pay the $80 cost for Fury vs. Wilder. It’s not only that. Fans in the United States will have less of a desire to have their friends come over to see a fight where they know will be a mismatch.
You’re asking American fans to pay to see another U.S fighter lose. It doesn’t make sense. For a fight like that, you’ve got to give it away free, and even then, many fans won’t want to see it in the U.S. Arum is an American, but he promotes Fury, so he doesn’t mind that Wilder will lose. But for a lot of U.S fans, they’re not going to want to pay big money to watch Wilder lose again. That’s why it’s a foolish idea to have this fight on pay-per-view in 2020.
Charging $40 for pay-per-view for Wilder-Fury might not help buys
“We’re on lockdown, and how are we going to start doing that,” said Arum. “I don’t believe we’re going to get a big boost of pay-per-view if we don’t have a live gate. The problem in the UK is less serious because the amount that’s charged for pay-per-view is so much less.
“If you slash it to $40, would you then do double the pay-per-view that you did before? And if you didn’t, that would be another slice out of your revenue.
“When you factor that in, fewer pay-per-view dollars, and no live gate, it becomes very, very daunting. At that point, maybe the fighters don’t want to go ahead and fight for so much less money than they got in the February fight,” said Arum of Wilder and Fury,” said Arum.
Even if they don’t slash the prices on the pay-per-view, the PPV numbers could be poor. How do you charge out of work fans $80 to watch a pay-per-view fight? You don’t. You can argue that Arum should consider pushing the Fury vs. Wilder III fight to 2021 unless they want to bring in poor numbers.
At least if they postpone the fight until 2021, there’s a chance that the revenue will be higher. Of course, that will spend on a vaccine being discovered and administered. If there’s still not an effective vaccine through 2021, then Wilder and Fury will likely make considerably less for their trilogy match than they did for their first two contests.
Where does step aside revenue come from?
“I’ve read the same things, and obviously no one has talked seriously about step asides,” said Arum in addressing the talk of Wilder and Pulev stepping aside for the Fury vs. Joshua fight to happen. “First of all, what are they going to be stepping aside with?
“If you’re talking about Fury and Joshua fighting, where are they going to fight? How much money is involved, and who is going to pay for the step aside? None of that has been ascertained or really worked on. Until that is, nobody is paying anybody step asides or offering anybody step asides. Whether it’s Eddie, Frank, or myself, we’re all saying the same things,” said Arum.
There’s no way that you can pay both Wilder and Pulev step aside money. That idea is insane. There’s only one option available, and that’s for Joshua and Fury to make their planned title defenses against Pulev and Wilder.
Arum is looking at proposals to stage Fury-Wilder outside of U.S
“Yeah, we’re looking at proposals outside the country to do that fight,” said Arum on the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight. “Whether it’s after each of them fight, Fury-Wilder or Joshua-Pulev, or are we looking at an immediate fight?
“Who’s putting up the money? How much money do we have for the step aside, and what terms are we going to do it? None of that has even remotely discussed. As far as we’re concerned, we’ve never talked to Shelly Finkel, Wilder’s manager, or Al Haymon about a step aside. Frank has said to us that he hasn’t discussed it with them.
“So the idea of a step aside is wishful thinking of the writers. It’s logical. It’s a big, big fight, and it’s the one that you should go into right away. Therefore, you must be talking about step asides.
“The truth is, we’re not because there’s nothing to be talking to about. For example, if the revenue from a site is $20 million. How would you talk about giving these guys, whether it’s Pulev or Wilder or both of them, step aside money?
“Are the fighters in the big fight, Fury, and Joshua, going to fight for next to no money because they paid out all the revenue to other fighters to sit on their a** for step asides? Right now, there’s no discussion of that because there’s nothing there. When there’s something there, maybe we pursue it, or maybe we don’t. It depends on what’s there,” said Arum.
You can forget about a step aside payment being made to Wilder or Kubrat Pulev for them to step aside because there’s no money to give them. If Joshua and Fury fight, it would need to take place outside of the UK and U.S.
The money from the gate would go to Wilder and Pulev to step aside, which would mean that Fury and Joshua would be left with just the pay-per-view money. They wouldn’t even get all that due to a portion going to the undercard fighters.
