Sports streaming service Fite has secured the pay-per-view distribution rights to the May 14 exhibition bout featuring PPV boxing champion Floyd Mayweather.

The event, which pits the retired, undefeated Mayweather against ex-boxer Don Moore, will retail for a suggested price of $29.99, according to the sports streaming service.

Mayweather, the biggest revenue generator in PPV boxing history, last stepped into the ring this past August in an exhibition fight against YouTube sensation Logan Paul. Mayweather's 2017 fight against mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor drew more than 4.3 million PPV buys, second in PPV boxing history to Mayweather’s 2015 fight against Manny Pacquiao, which garnered an industry-high 4.6 million buys.

FITE’s telecast will also feature former UFC fighter Anderson Silva against Bruno Machado in an exhibition bout, as well as a sanctioned fight between former world champion Badou Jack and Hany Atiyo, said the streamer. ■ 

Fox Sports enters the pay-per-view boxing ring Saturday (February 5) to distribute the Keith Thurman-Mario Barrios welterweight boxing match as it gears up for what could be a busy year in the genre, according to executives.

The fight, which marks the former welterweight champion Thurman’s return to the ring for the first time since a 2019 split decision loss to Manny Pacquiao, is the first of what Fox Sports and promotion company Premier Boxing Champions hopes to be quarterly PPV boxing matches featuring some of the most popular and successful fighters in the sport.

 It also comes on the heels of a busy end-of-the-year lineup of Fox Sports boxing events, which included a Christmas night fight card on Fox broadcasting and a New Year’s Day PPV event featuring heavyweights Louis Ortiz and Charles Martin. 

Fox Sports executive VP, head of Programming and Scheduling Bill Wanger discusses the Thurman-Barrios fight as well as the company's PPV boxing strategy for 2022 in an interview with Multichannel News/Broadcasting & Cable senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: What was most appealing to you about Thurman-Barrios from a pay-per-view perspective? 

Bill Wanger: With Keith, as one of the top stars in the sport, coming back from a bit of a hiatus and with Mario going up in weight class, I think it's a really intriguing fight. Also, the PBC put together a great undercard. 

PT: How do you see the PPV boxing landscape developing in 2022 and how aggressive will Fox Sports be in distributing PPV fights? 

BW:  I think there's room for a pay-view-event per quarter. In the ring [welterweight champion] Errol Spence is out there, as well as [middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez and [former heavyweight champion] Deontay Wilder, so I think that there are plenty of opportunities to develop PPV events. One of the things we're focused on is putting some of the young up and coming stars in front of a large audience on Fox. At the end of the year we featured [super middleweight] David Morrell, [lightweight] Frank Martin, [middleweight] Joey Spencer and [welterweight] Vito Mielnicki Jr.  Having those young up and comers on Fox really helps grow their profile and is good for the sport.

PT: With so many viewing options fans have to watch sports, Is the pay-per-view boxing model still viable?

BW: Yes I do because fans are accustomed to it. If you put out a good product, they will pay for it, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I think it has a bright future. I also see PPV buys from digital continuing to grow. We’ve seen that since we’ve started doing pay-per-views at Fox back in 2019. Our digital buys as a percent of our overall buy continues to increase, and I see it growing. But the traditional way that people buy pay-per-view events through their cable or satellite system is still a very viable option for people and still represents the majority of the buys. 

PT: Are there any new technological innovations that Fox Sports will look to feature during its upcoming pay-per-view boxing events? 

BW: From a technological standpoint, we're very much focused on audio enhancements, bird's eye view camera angles, super slow motion and great storytelling. Some of the things that we're doing from a digital perspective to allow fans to get very up close and personal with the fighters is something that we call All-Access. We have embedded cameras on fight night that, for example, will follow Keith Thurman and Mario Barrios from their hotel to the arena to the locker rooms and really give fans a fly-on-a-wall perspective. It helps with the [PPV] buys because people get interested in what's going on and learn about the fights and then click the button to buy. 

Halfway through 2018, many industry observers had written off the pay-per-view event category as a dinosaur whose best day were behind it and would soon be replaced by an emerging digital streaming platform that was going to outbid the industry for the biggest  sports events and properties.

Fast forward to the end of December, and the old school distribution platform looks to have picked itself up off the mat and positioned itself to fight again in 2019. 

Showtime’s Dec. 1 Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury PPV heavyweight championship fight ended a run of big events that kept the category relevant to sports fans.

In fact, the strong performances of four, fourth quarter pay-per-view events have shown that consumers are still more than willing to dish out big dollars to watch marquee events on their big TV screens despite the launch of several new, low-cost subscription sports streaming services like DAZN and ESPN+ that offer marquee sports events.

The PPV event category didn’t have a major PPV event until September’s Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin middleweight championship fight, but the rematch bout between the two warriors reportedly drew 1 million buys, the gold standard for the category.

Alvarez weeks later would sign an exclusive 11-fight deal with upstart sports streaming service DAZN, but his most recent PPV fights proved that there was life beyond PPV boxing revenue champions Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.

In October, the UFC would set PPV records with its UFC 229, which pitted arguably the mixed martial arts outfit’s biggest draw, Conor McGregor, against champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. The fight inside the ring – Khabib defeated McGregor – along with a post-fight melee helped the event draw a reported UFC record 2.4 million PPV buys. Next year looks promising with the UFC’s new media partner ESPN now both selling and promoting the mixed martial arts outfit’s PPV events going forward.

November welcomed golf to the PPV event category with the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson match. The event reportedly drew in the neighborhood of 1 million PPV viewers. (Most PPV distributors refunded the event’s $19.99 fee to subscribers after a technical glitch forced sports streaming service Bleacher Report Live to offer the event free to its subscribers.)

The reported 325,000 buys for the action-packed Wilder-Fury fight -- which ended in a draw -- helped the category set the tone for what it hopes will be a robust lineup of fights in 2019. Already two boxing shows are on the docket: Showtime’s Jan. 19 Pacquiao-Adrien Broner fight and Fox Sports’ March 16 Mikey Garcia –Errol Spence Jr. championship fight.

Further, industry executives say new content companies are exploring several non-ring PPV events that could further expand the category’s reach in the new year.

HBO will gather several boxing legends to discuss the May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight as part of new special debuting later this month.

The 30-minute special, Mayweather/Pacquiao: The Legends Speak premieres April 25 and features HBO boxing analyst Max Kellerman interviewing a number of ex-boxing champions to size up the matchup between arguably boxing’s two biggest pay-per-view draws.

Kellerman will interview former Mayweather and Pacquiao opponents Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosely, Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton about how to prepare for both fighters, said the network. In addition, the show will feature a panel of ex-boxing champions including George Foreman, Lennox Lewis and Bernard Hopkins discussing the upcoming event.

After years of on and off negotiations, Floyd Mayeather will finally meet Manny Pacquiao on May 2 in what is expected to be the biggest pay-per-view fight of all time.

The megafight was announced Friday afternoon by representatives from both Showtime and HBO. The two fighters have been talking about fighting each other since 2009, but over the last few months both sides have pushed to make the event happen.

HBO and Showtime will co-distribute the event, although details were not disclosed. HBO televises Pacquiao's fights while Showtime has two bouts left on a six-fight deal with Mayweather.

Also the suggested retail price for the PPV has yet to be set.

 The fight is expected to exceed the $150 million in PPV revenue set by the Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez PPV fight in 2013.

Showtime Sports president and general manager Stephen Espinoza said in a press conference that the network is “thrilled to be part of what is expected to be a record breaking event.”

HBO Sports president Ken Hershman added that the fight will be “the biggest boxing event of all time … it will be a spectacular night for the sport.”