By Chris Williams: British promoter Eddie Hearn says Terence Crawford is wrong about believing that a fight between him and Errol Spence Jr will do better numbers by staging it in the UK rather than the United States.
With Crawford now his own boss, he’s going to make it next to impossible for him to arrange a fight between him and IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight champion Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) or undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo if he’s got the idea that the fights will do better in the UK rather than the States.
If Crawford is going to stubbornly insist that the Spence fight take place in the UK, it’s not going to happen. Spence’s management at PBC will never agree to that idea because they’ll know the fight won’t generate huge money by staging it overseas in front of British fans.
Crawford, 35, has already lost a lot of fan support by backing out of negotiations with Spence to take a fight against David Avanesyan tonight on BLK Prime pay-per-view.
While Crawford may not want to accept it, boxing fans saw that as a ducking move, and many of them have now lost interest in ever seeing him and Spence fight.
“Terence Crawford’s comments about him and Spence in England and said, ‘I’ll make much more money in England. We’ll sell out stadiums.’ The interviewer was like, ‘Surely the gate receipts are more in Vegas.’ He was like, ‘They do 60,000 there,'” said Eddie Hearn to the media about Terence Crawford being dead wrong about his view of a fight against Errol Spence bringing in bigger PPV numbers in the UK than it would in the U.S.
“I’ll give you a clue. Spence vs. Crawford would generate a five million dollars max gate in the UK. It would generate twenty-five million at the gate in Las Vegas,” Hearn continued. “Five times as much money, and this fighter [Crawford] is convinced it’ll do.
“So you’re having a conversation with him, and he’s the boss, right? You’re sitting down with a fighter and he’s telling you, ‘What you want to do is go to England.’ It’s like, ‘No.’ That’s why Al Haymon will go for a fight like that. You know the model. ‘Alright, guys. All the money to you. We’ll take 15%, open book, and everybody keeps the revenue.’ Al goes, ‘That’s a beautiful deal for me.’
“But then they go, ‘How much do you think we’ll make? However, many pay-per-view buys it does. Oh no, we want a guarantee.’ If I’m Al Haymon, I’m guaranteeing that fight [Spence vs. Crawford] at 400,000 buys. That’s it,” said Hearn.
“[Crawford says] it would not only sell out a stadium, but it would generate more money than it would in America,” Hearn said. “Terence Crawford is a brilliant fighter, one of my favorite fighters. This is the problem that we have dealing with people.
“For him to say that and think that means that negotiations for him around certain things will be very difficult, and that’s not just for fighters. That’s some advisors and managers that don’t understand the finances of boxing,” said Hearn.