Why Did Pay Per View Die?

By Scoop Malinowski

According to boxing insiders, the pay-per-view business model is dead. The new innovation method to maximize selling premier boxing events is via phone app subscriptions. The latest news that the heavily promoted Deontay Wilder vs Luis Ortiz WBC Heavyweight title fight was a financial disaster, only generating 138,000 buys, according to veteran insider Rick Glaser of Buffalo, NY, indicates the doom and gloom will continue.

Just four years ago the Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather contest drew about 4.5 million buys but the business has been steeply downhill ever since.

An industry nosediving in profits after an all time high is not a coincidence.  Occurrences like this happen due to reasons. I have a theory on why the PPV model has died. Floyd Mayweather was a fraud and all of his fights were fixed in one way or another, to maximize revenues for himself and his controller Al Haymon. Any man who calls himself “Money” would surely do ANYTHING for money. And it’s no stretch to believe Mayweather and Haymon would fix all of his fights to maximize their profits.

Boxing is contemporary greed. It has always been about greed.

Mayweather supposedly beat Pacquiao by decision, in a “fight” that looked like a rigged sparring session, with the judges all in Haymon and Mayweather’s pocket. Mayweather boxed to win on points, not to win decisively or convincingly, the way true, authentic champions do.

Instinctively, the public awakened to realize they were conned by Mayweather and Haymon and will not allow those crooks to confiscate their hard earned money anymore.

Compounding this problem for boxing in America is that there just are no American stars worth buying anymore. The American establishment just does not have any sensational, spectacular stars to sell anymore. America stopped producing generational star talent years ago. Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones, Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali, Bernard Hopkins were the last American boxing heroes. Mayweather was just a pretender backed and protected by the establishment. Canelo Alvarez is another installed, manufactured product that appeals to Mexicans and a few, scattered Americans. Deontay Wilder? He’s a total protected fraud with a career of choreographed set ups and fake knockouts. Despite a flashy record of over 40 knockouts against mediocre opposition, the marginally talented Alabaman still can’t sell on his own. He has no endorsements and never gets invited onto TV network talk shows.  In other words, he’s another pretender. But this time the public isn’t buying.

And with the lack of star power, boxing in American continues on a downward spiral to irrelevance.

Until American boxing gyms and trainers can again start producing star talents, who are so electrifying that they sell themselves, boxing in America will continue to nosedive.

Until boxing powers that be like Al Haymon stop blocking all the big fights the public is demanding – Joshua vs Wilder, Spence vs Crawford, Pacquiao vs Floyd rematch, Lomachenko vs Davis – the sport will continue to drive away it’s fan base to other entertainment options such as UFC.