Though Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor reportedly attracted at least 4 million PPV buyers for their event last month, nearly 3 million viewed the fight on illegal streams.
Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin matchup won’t be as nearly an attraction on PPV (somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million buys would probably would be welcomed by the promoters), but there likely will be plenty of illegal streams. This is a problem that’s not going away for the sport.
“Consumer demand for live sports content makes it both a key differentiator for pay TV operators and a cornerstone for pirates,” Mark Mulready, the vice president of cybersecurity services at Irdeto, told Forbes. “This consumer demand was evident during the recent Mayweather vs. McGregor boxing match where approximately 2,930,598 viewers tuned into 239 illegal streams of the fight across both traditional pirate streaming websites and social media channels. With thousands of sites providing illegal live sports content attracting millions of viewers, it is safe to say that consumers who are eager to watch this weekend’s Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin boxing match will have plenty of illegal viewing options at their disposal.”
HBO wouldn’t comment on how it plans to battle illegal streams—which can be found on a number of international websites dedicated to streaming sports along with Facebook Live and Periscope. Showtime, which broadcasted the Mayweather-McGregor fight on its PPV arm, also wouldn’t get specific, telling Forbes after the event that the network and its partners, “successfully blocked and removed the highest number of unauthorized streams for any event in the company’s history. We did this through cooperative efforts with our distribution partners and social media platforms during the live event, as well as with proactive court action blocking third party websites that offered illegal live streams.”
But Richard Schaefer has an interesting theory about illegal streams. The former CEO of Golden Boy Promotions who now currently runs Ringstar Promotions admitted that illegal streams are a battle you can’t win. Schaefer, though, also pointed to the idea that the Mayweather-McGregor event was still a massive success. And maybe the illegal streams aren’t such a terrible thing for the sport, simply because millions of people are watching.
“Boxing attracts eyeballs,” Schaefer told Forbes this week. “With all that online activity, illegal or illegal, hopefully it will open [potential] sponsors’ eyes. Then something good comes out of it.”
Rungvisai-Chocolatito II ratings: HBO presented an exciting night of boxing last Saturday as Srisaket Sor Rungvisai viciously knocked out Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, Naoya Inoue impressed in his network debut, and Juan Francisco Estrada and Carlos Cuadras engaged in one of the most exciting fights of the year.
And though most of the fighters on the card are not well known products, with the exception of Chocolatito, people certainly watched. According to Nielsen Media research, the Rungvisai-Gonzalez fight averaged 796,000 viewers with a peak of 835,000. It’s the third-highest rated boxing event on HBO this year, and though Gonzalez, who made a $600,000 purse, likely was the main reason so many viewers tuned in to the SuperFly card, fans also got to watch Rungvisai's power and boxing skills.
Assuming HBO wants to showcase him again, that’s good news.
Even better news: the fight between Inoue and Antonio Nieves drew an average of 735,000 viewers with a peak of 770,000. Inoue could be a star for years to come, and assuming HBO wants him for the long term, those early viewership numbers have to be pleasing to the network.
Joshua tickets going fast: In April, Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko drew 90,000 fans to Wembley Stadium in London for their heavyweight title showdown. For his next fight, Joshua will battle Kubret Pulev on Oct. 28 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, and apparently fans are just as hungry to see Joshua back in action.
As noted by reporter Michael Woods, 70,000 tickets were purchased the first day they went on sale, a record for that venue.
“Just under 80,000 will be inside the stadium when Anthony Joshua makes the fourth defense of his world title,” Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said, via RingTV.com. “Incredible to think of the journey so far. April 29th (Joshua’s knockout of Klitschko) was an incredible night. Everybody who witnessed the fight—which was virtually the whole country—will never forget that moment. But his career’s not about one night of boxing. This is a journey, creating a legacy in the sport.”
