By Adam Baskin: Promoter Eddie Hearn says the announced $84.99 PPV price for the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Ryan Garcia contest is “a lot of money” to charge fans for this event.
Although Hearn notes that the Tank-Ryan fight is big, he still sees it as being priced high by the event organizers, which undoubtedly will scare many boxing fans from buying it.
If the event organizers take a huge financial bath on this one, it’ll teach them not to dump a lot of money on unproven fighters.
Tank Davis has never brought huge PPV numbers during his ten-year professional career, and he’s mainly fought weak opposition fed to him by his former promoters at Mayweather Promotions.
In Ryan Garcia’s case, he’s not a PPV fighter. His fights have been shown on regular DAZN. Like Tank, Ryan has fought weak opposition his entire career, and it’s quite possible that he’ll never win a world title. Let’s face it, Ryan is a hybrid fighter. In other words, a boxer/social media fighter.
The promoters & Showtime are counting on the huge following that Gervonta (28-0, 26 KOs) and Ryan (23-0, 19 KOs) have on social media to be willing to pay the $84.99. Whether that happens will be interesting to see.
Ryan has over 9 million Instagram followers, but it’s believed that many of them are teenagers, and it’s unclear if they’ll have the funds to pay the $85 asking price to see him in action.
For many of them, it’s enough just to read his posts on Instagram and look at his photos. They’re not really boxing fans. They’re just followers of Ryan, an influencer/Youtuber.
Hearn talks Gervonta vs. Ryan PPV price
“Yeah, it’s lumpy. I mean, we’ve seen U.S. pay-per-views before at $89.99, $99.99. It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s a big fight,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV about the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Ryan Garcia fight on April 22nd on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“It is kind of industry practice for a mega-fight in America, which it is, I think that it is one of the biggest pay-per-views in America for a long time. It is not my fight,” Hearn continued about the Gervonta vs. Ryan fight on Showtime PPV.
“What’s the highest price? We haven’t gone to 29.99. 24.99,” said Hearn about the PPV price in the UK for fights.
Luckily for Hearn, he’s not involved in the promotion for the Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia event, so for once, he doesn’t have to deal with a huge backlash from boxing fans over this one.
