Women pro combat-sports fighters are punching their way to the top of high-profile pay-per-view and televised fight cards as the familiarity of top female athletes in boxing and mixed martial arts, along with the quality of their fights, clicks with both distributors and fans.

Once considered a novelty, industry observers said female fighters are now garnering an unprecedented level of acceptance and respect. “Women fighters used to be a big joke, but now people look at them and say they actually can fight,” said Tony Paige, a former boxing broadcaster and sports-talk host on WFAN New York. “No one’s running to the fridge anymore because a women’s fight is on TV.” 

Women have been in the boxing game for decades, with such names as Laila Ali, Christy Martin and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde bringing attention to female fisticuffs back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Martin’s 1996 bout against Deirdre Gogarty was among the first women’s bouts to appear on a major PPV telecast as an undercard fight to Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno. Ali and Frazier-Lyde, the daughters of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, respectively, fought in 2001 in what is considered to be the first PPV event headlined by a women’s boxing match, according to ESPN.

Paige, who currently writes sports stories for the New York Daily News, said back then there weren’t enough good women fighters to keep female boxing competitive and interesting. Also, past and current critics of female boxing point to the specialized rules set for participants — including 2-minute rounds compared to 3 minutes for men’s matches, as well as larger glove sizes for women — as a detriment to putting women fighters on par with male boxers.

Today’s crop of female boxers are plentiful, talented, and not afraid to fight each other in very competitive matchups, Paige said. 

Taylor-Serrano Stirs Interest

Indeed, Netflix will stream one of the biggest bouts of the year between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano as a co-main event on its November 15 Jake Paul-Mike Tyson card. Taylor and Serrano’s 2022 fight, streamed by DAZN, was the first ever to feature women headliners at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Taylor’s split decision win over Serrano was named Sports Illustrated’s 2022 fight of the year.  

This past July, multiple world women’s boxing champion Claressa Shields headlined a DAZN pay-per-view boxing telecast as she defeated Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to win the women’s heavyweight title.

DAZN has put female fighters at the forefront of its boxing cards for years, according to VP of marketing Alfie Sharman. He would not provide specific PPV numbers for the Shields Lepage-Joanisse event but said it surpassed purchase expectations. 

“If you put two people at the top of their game in any field, even if you’ve never heard of them, you’d be hard-pressed not to be impressed by them,” Sharman said. “The more these talented athletes want to fight at the top level, the more the consumer is going to enjoy it irrespective of gender because at the end of the day, it’s good, quality action.”

Women fighters also fight on major UFC mixed martial arts PPV and televised events. This past July, ESPN’s UFC Fight Night featured as its main event a women’s strawweight bout between Amanda Lemos and Virna Jandiroba, one of four female-led cards the network televised this year. 

Female fighters have appeared on UFC PPV and in televised events since 2013 when Ronda Rousey fought Liz Carmouche in the first-ever women’s UFC fight. 

UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter has also prominently featured women. The recently completed 32nd season of the ESPN Plus-distributed reality show, where 16 male and female prospects fight in an elimination tournament, was coached by UFC stars Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko. 

The show’s 30th season also featured two female fighter coaches in Julianna Pena and Amanda Nunes. 

Other female fighters such as Profess­ional Fighters League (PFL)-owned Bellator women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg and UFC fighter/two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison are also advancing the awareness and appeal of women’s combat sports.

ESPN VP of acquisitions Matt Kenny said shows like The Ultimate Fighter as well as live, televised fight cards that feature marquee female fighters tend to draw both hard core fans and casual viewers — including women — to the sport.

“Those events featuring female athletes have the ability to cut through the clutter, whether you’re a diehard mixed martial arts fan or not, so we know that it’s going to attract a huge audience,” Kenny said. “We know that combat sports also skews younger, so there’s so much that we’re bullish on with respect to the category.” 

Women fighters are scheduled to appear in several high-profile events through the fall. Along with Netflix’s November Taylor-Serrano boxing match, ESPN’s September 27 fight card will feature as its main event a bout between welterweight champion Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer. 

In the octagon, UFC flyweight champion Grasso will defend her belt against Shevchenko as part of the highly-anticipated September 14 UFC 306 in Las Vegas. Also, Bellator’s Cyborg is set to co-headline an October PFL PPV fight card.

It’s inevitable more women combat athletes will gain exposure from marquee televised events, according to Kenny. “The beauty about combat sports is there’s no shortage of compelling storylines, so there’s really no ceiling,” he said. “The women’s division continues to be a prominent aspect of the UFC and we’ve had a number of PPV events on our platforms that have featured women athletes, including Amanda Nunes and Claressa Shields. For us, it’s about covering and celebrating the absolute best in the sport.” 

Popularity Outside the Ring

The growing interest in female combat sports athletes can also be seen on screens big and small. Movies like Netflix’s 2021 Halle Berry starrer Bruised and documentaries like HBO’s 2024 The Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez have chronicled the lives of both fictional and true-life fighters.

This December, MGM’s film The Fire Inside will follow boxing champion Shields’ life through her difficult childhood to her eventual gold medal-winning performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Shields would also win gold in 2016.

The growing interest in all women’s sports, including the WNBA, softball and soccer, has helped lift the profile of women combat sports beyond the ring and octagon, said Mark Taffet, Shields’ promoter. 

“The values of society have changed and progressed, and that has created opportunities for these talented athletes to excel within the sports and entertainment space,” Taffet, a former HBO Sports executive, said. 

In a major move for the pay-per-view business, industry PPV event aggregator In Demand will close its doors at the end of 2025.

In Demand CEO Dale Hopkins in a Friday memo to staffers said the company, owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, will close at the end of 2025 and transition services to its owner companies over the next 18 months.

“We will do everything in our power to minimize any disruptions to our partners, owners, affiliates, and most importantly, the customers who have always been our North Star," Hopkins said in the memo. "It's never easy to make the decision to close a company, but with the rapidly evolving media landscape, the board determined this was the most sustainable outcome.” 

Formerly known as Viewer’s Choice before being branded In Demand in 2000, the company has served as the distribution liaison between event promoters and MVPD’s for hundreds of major pay-per-view boxing, wrestling and concerts, including the 2015 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, which drew a record 4.6 million PPV buys.

In 2022 the company launched the PPV.com app, allowing viewers to order and watch PPV events digitally. The app will continue to operate beyond the In Demand shutdown, said the company.   

“Over the last four decades, the innovative, talented, and dedicated employees of In Demand took a groundbreaking concept and built a solutions-driven company that is the gold standard of our industry today,” she said.” I am proud of our continued achievements and service over the years.”

In Demand’s decision follows Showtime’s 2024 departure from the PPV boxing business.   

Hopkins told Multichannel News that despite the decision to close In Demand in 2025, the PPV transactional business on both the linear and digital platforms is still strong. Indeed, the PPV event category is coming off a strong 2023, which delivered its first 1 million buy boxing event in more than two years with Showtime’s Ryan Garcia-Gervonta Davis event. 

“Keeping boxing and other [PPV events] on linear cable and also on the PPV.com direct-to-consumer app continues to be a very important goal for the industry,” she said. 

As for In Demand’s legacy, Hopkins said the company helped revolutionize the industry’s transactional business. “We were able to develop a turnkey, soup-to-nuts solution of VOD and PPV delivery for the entire cable industry from the early days of video delivery to now,” she said. “Our partners will continue to deliver these products to consumers and support the companies that supply the content.”

In Demand will distribute legendary rock band KISS’s final concert via pay-per-view on December 2.

The live KISS: End of the Road PPV concert from New York’s Madison Square Garden will retail at a suggested price of $39.99 and will feature the band's final stage performance, according to In Demand. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees have sold more than 100 million albums worldwide during a more than 50-year career. 

In Demand will distribute the event to its affiliate MVPDs and satellite service DirecTV, as well as through its PPV.com streaming service.

The Kiss concert joins In Demand/PPV.com’s upcoming list of PPV events, which includes the November 18 AEW: Full Gear pro wrestling event and Showtime's November 25 David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade boxing card. 

Saturday’s Errol Spence-Terence Crawford fight delivered a big punch for the pay-per-view boxing category by drawing an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 buys, industry sources said. 

While the July 29 event will most likely fall short of the industry standard 1 million PPV buys, the fight — which Crawford won with a convincing ninth-round TKO of the formerly undefeated welterweight champion Spence — is expected to finish as the second-biggest PPV boxing event of the year so far, following Showtime’s April Tank Davis-Ryan Garcia bout, which drew a reported 1.2 million buys.

Despite Crawford’s one-sided win, the two fighters could meet later this year in a rematch. After the loss, Spence indicated that he would look to exercise a rematch clause in the contract that could put the fighters back in the ring as soon as December. A rematch would likely be fought at the 154-pound junior middleweight division, which is seven pounds heavier than Saturday's welterweight division fight.

Prior to Saturday’s event, Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza said he thinks the Spence-Crawford bout will boost the PPV appeal of both fighters. “These two gutsy fighters will emerge as bigger stars [after the fight] then they are going into the fight,” he said.

The PPV boxing category will now turn its attention to the August 5 event between YouTube star Jake Paul and former UFC champion Nate Diaz. The DAZN-distributed event will stream on DAZN PPV, ESPN Plus and PPV.com

The pay-per-view boxing category will look to continue its strong 2023 campaign Saturday (July 29) with the much anticipated Errol Spence-Terence Crawford fight from Las Vegas. 

The Showtime-distributed welterweight unification bout is the seventh major event for the PPV boxing category this year, with Showtime’s April 22 Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia event setting the mark as highest-performing fight the year so far with a reported 1.2 million PPV buys.

Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza said the Spence-Crawford bout pits two of boxing’s most popular and best pound-for-pound fighters together in a rare unification championship fight. The event, which retails for a suggested $84.99, is expected to finish among the top-performing PPV boxing events of the year, although Espinoza would not predict a specific buy number. 

“It will be one of the two or three biggest PPV events of the year,” he said. “This is a bigger fight than anything else we've seen in the sport and should be one of the biggest [PPV] fights of the year.”

While Spence-Crawford may not break PPV records, industry observers said the fight will continue to boost the appeal of the category that still has several more big events scheduled.  

“Davis-Garcia was certainly about what was going to happen in the ring but was also about the social media circus that preceded the fight, which helped its performance,” In Demand and PPV.com senior VP of programming and marketing Mark Boccardi said. "The Spence-Crawford fight will sell itself on what happens in the ring as opposed to a lot of other pay-per-view events that are sold during the marketing and promotional period leading up to the fight.”

As for what's next, the PPV boxing category will be back in play on August 5 with a fight featuring YouTube star Jake Paul and former UFC mixed martial arts champion Nate Diaz. In September, Canelo Alvarez will put his undisputed super middleweight championship on the line against former champion Jermell Charlo in a blockbuster PPV boxing event. 

Saturday’s Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia boxing event delivered more than 1 million pay-per-view buys as the category prepares for a May 6 fight featuring top PPV boxing draw Canelo Alvarez.

Showtime‘s April 22 Davis-Garcia bout drew 1.2 million PPV buys, according to CBS Sports, making it the first boxing match to surpass the industry-standard benchmark since 2021. The fight, in which the undefeated lightweight Davis knocked out the previously undefeated Garcia with a body blow in the seventh round, also garnered about $22.8 million in ticket sales from a sold-out T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, CBS Sports reported.

The PPV fight was the second for Davis in 2023, following a January 7 bout against Hector Garcia that drew more than 200,000 PPV buys. It was also Showtime’s third PPV boxing event of the year, which also included a March bout between super middleweights David Benavidez and Caleb Plant. 

The PPV boxing category will continue its busy 2023 in May with Canelo Alvarez, arguably PPV boxing’s pound-for-pound champion, fighting contender John Ryder for Alvarez’s super middleweight championship. The May 6 bout is Alvarez’s first since he beat Gennady Golovkin last September in the third bout between the two fighters. Alvarez’s last three PPV fights, including a November 6, 2021, bout against Caleb Plant and a May 7, 2022 fight against Dmitry Bivol, averaged more than 600,000 PPV buys, according to industry sources. 

Showtime will step into the pay-per-view boxing ring Saturday with a fight card highlighted by the super middleweight bout between undefeated contender David Benavidez and former champion Caleb Plant. 

The fight, which retails for a suggested price of $74.99, is Showtime’s second PPV boxing event this year following Gervonta Davis-Hector Garcia on January 7. The premium network has also scheduled an April 22 event with Davis and Ryan Garcia. 

Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza recently spoke to Multichannel News regarding the Benavidez-Plant event and Showtime’s overall PPV event strategy for 2023. Espinoza also addresses Showtime Sports’s immediate future in light of parent company Paramount Global’s decision to combine Paramount Plus and Showtime under one brand. A lightly edited version of the interview appears below.

MCN: What makes Benavidez-Plant a strong pay-per-view boxing match? 

Stephen Espinoza: Both Benavidez and Plant have been built up as main-event fighters for a number of years. Plant, in particular, got a big boost in his (2021) mega-fight against [undisputed super middleweight champion] Canelo Alvarez, and Benavidez has headlined a number of boxing telecasts. They are two of the best fighters in the division, so for us this is one of those situations where two plus two equals a lot more than four because each of them brings their own respective fan base, and there’s a lot excitement about the quality of the matchup itself, which will bring in even more interest from viewers. When you offer top-tier fights, you get an exponential return.

MCN: Are you already looking ahead to developing another pay-per-view event with the winner of Benavidez-Plant?

SE: Yes, as I mentioned these are two of the three or four best guys in the division. Benavidez has been someone that boxing experts have identified for a couple of years as a very exciting and marketable fighter with a really high ceiling. For him, this is a signature fight that hopefully will lead to even bigger events with some of the division’s top fighters, whether it’s Canelo or [middleweight champion] Jermall Charlo. For Plant, he’s been at the top of the mountain as champion, and he gave Canelo a very tough fight. To be able to get another opportunity at the title he’s going to have to go through David Benavidez. There’s a lot of high stakes in this one because of what the fight could lead to in the future. 

MCN: The fight is the second PPV event already this year for Showtime, with a third scheduled for April. Why is Showtime so bullish on the PPV events category? 

SE: It’s more about the fights that are available and what it takes to make them. We've seen a lot of change and disruption in combat sports generally, and in boxing in particular over the last four or five years and we’re at the point now where the dust has settled a bit. We love the position that we as Showtime Sports are in. Our talent is deeper than ever, and we’re doing as many events as we've ever done. So when you see a matchup like Benavidez-Plant or a matchup like Tank Davis-Ryan Garcia next month, it's not so much a result of us wanting to be in pay-per-view. We want to do big fights, and as those big fights are getting made some of them will naturally require pay-per-view in order to make them happen. 

MCN: Given Paramount Global’s plans to merge Paramount Plus and Showtime, are you concerned about Showtime Sports’s ability to remain aggressive in the combat sports space? 

SE: I think everybody in the media business is somewhat concerned. Some people have called it a market correction, and some think it’s just an economic downturn. Certainly this is a period of transition as companies are adjusting their spend and trying to optimize business models. So there certainly may be change in the future, but our activity level and the quantity and quality of our output I think is a testament to the recognition of the quality that we bring. The fact that we’ve been given the green light to continue doing what we do best, which is delivering big-time boxing matches and high-quality documentary programming, is a recognition that we’re delivering value to our subscribers and to the corporation as a whole, and we look forward to being able to do that for the foreseeable future. ■ 

Showtime on April 22 will step back into the pay-per-view boxing ring to distribute the highly anticipated pay-per-view boxing match between undefeated fighters Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia.

The fight will take place in Las Vegas and will pit the 28-0 former super lightweight champion Davis against the 23-0 former lightweight champion Garcia. The fight marks Showtime’s second 2023 PPV event featuring Davis, following its January 7 Davis-Hector Garcia fight card. 

Showtime will also distribute a March 25 pay-per-view event featuring a super middleweight bout between David Benavidez and Caleb Plant.

Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinzoa said during Thursday’s Los Angeles press conference for Davis-Garcia that the fight will have special appeal to longtime boxing fans. “This is a throwback fight – it’s a fight and a rivalry as big as any in this sport,” he said. “Two young fighters in their prime who are the most exciting young fighters in the sport.”■  

The National Football League Divisional Playoffs lead a busy weekend of live TV sports action.

NFL playoffs action kicks off Saturday with the AFC Divisional Playoff game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Kansas City Chiefs on NBC, followed by a NFC Divisional Playoffs primetime matchup between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles on Fox.

Sunday’s action begins with CBS’s coverage of the Cincinnati Bengals-Buffalo Bills AFC playoffs game followed by Fox's coverage of the Dallas Cowboys-San Francisco 49’ers NFC playoffs contest.

In the octagon, ESPN Plus will offer via pay-per-view the UFC 283 fight card featuring a main event bout between Glover Teixeira and Jamahal Hill for the UFC light heavyweight championship. 

In men's college hoops, second-ranked Kansas plays 14th-ranked TCU on CBS, while fourth-ranked Alabama travels to play Missouri on the SEC Network and fifth-ranked UCLA battles 11th-ranked Arizona on ABC. Other games include No. 7 Texas-West Virginia (ESPN), No. 8 Xavier-Georgetown (FS1), No. 9 Tennessee-LSU (ESPN) and No. 10 Virginia-Wake Forest (ESPNU).

On Sunday, college basketball games include top-ranked Houston taking on Temple on ESPN and third-ranked Purdue facing Maryland on FS1.

On the soccer field, NBC, USA Network and Peacock will combine to offer nine live Premier League game telecasts throughout the weekend. ■ 

Integrated Sports has teamed with SVOD company BLK Prime to distribute the December 10 pay-per-view boxing event between welterweight champion Terence Crawford and David Avanesyan.

The fight, which will retail at $39.99, will also feature the U.S. boxing debut of mixed martial arts champion Cris Cyborg. In Demand, DirecTV and Dish will make the fight available to linear cable viewers, while BLK Prime.com and PPV.com will stream the live event, according to Integrated Sports president Doug Jacobs. 

"We wanted to make the Crawford vs. Avanesyan PPV available for the masses, so we made the decision to go the traditional route with cable and satellite, in addition to our BLK Prime app," BLK Prime's Sam Katovski said in a statement. "Integrated Sports has been in the business for many years and has the experience to hit all corners of the United States. We are happy to be partnering with them and we look forward to a great night of boxing on December 10." ■

The pay-per-view industry will help kick off the upcoming college basketball season with an October 28 charity game between top-ranked teams Gonzaga and Tennessee.

PPV content aggregator In Demand and its digital service PPV.com will exclusively distribute the inaugural Legends of Basketball Classic exhibition game pitting the No. 2 Bulldogs against the No. 11 Volunteers in a charity event, with the proceeds benefiting the McLendon Foundation, according to the company. The event will retail at a suggested PPV price of $9.99.

While the PPV event category has historically featured ring sports including boxing, mixed martial arts and pro wrestling, In Demand senior VP of programming and marketing Mark Boccardi said the college basketball game helps expand the breadth of programming offered via the PPV platform.

"This is a tremendous tip-off to the unofficial start of this year's college basketball season," Boccardi said. "Having this game on PPV gives fans a unique opportunity to see a fantastic pre-season exhibition game between two of the highest-ranked teams in college basketball. It’s got a March Madness feel and we’re only in October."

Basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla will serve as play-by-play announcer for the game along with Gonzaga college basketball broadcaster Tom Hudson and Tennessee alum and college basketball analyst Dane Bradshaw. Fans purchasing the event on PPV.com will be able to participate in an interactive live chat during the game with reporter Andy Katz, said the company.

“We’re really excited for a new fan base of college basketball fans to watch on our platform,” Boccardi added.

Also on PPV this weekend is Showtime’s October 29 boxing card headlined by a bout between YouTube star Jake Paul and former UFC mixed martial arts champion Anderson Silva. ■

Pay-per-view content aggregator In Demand will look to sink its teeth into cable’s annual July shark-themed programming stunts with a special airing of Syfy’s original Sharknado movie.

In Demand on July 26 will distribute Sharknado: The Critics’ Roast, in which the first Sharknado film will feature new commentary from online film critics The Cinema Snob and the Nostalgia Critic, according to In Demand. Sharknado: The Critics’ Roast will be available exclusively to In Demand affiliates including Comcast Cable, Charter Communications and Cox Communications for a suggested retail price of $5.99, according to In Demand.

In addition, In Demand will make available for rent or purchase the full Sharknado movie catalog, including Sharknado, Sharknado 2: The Second One, Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, Sharknado 3: Extended Edition, Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time, as well as the mockumentary Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness.

In Demand’s Sharknado: The Critics’ Roast comes amid National Geographic’s four-week, 10th annual SharkFest programming stunt currently on-air, and Discovery Channel/Discovery Plus’ Shark Week event which premieres on Sunday (July 24). ■

Lightweight boxing champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will headline a May 28 pay-per-view boxing card on Showtime, part of an extensive network lineup of televised boxing shows over the next four months.

Davis will defend his title against Rolando Romero on a pay-per-view fight card distributed by Showtime. The fight follows the network’s April 16 PPV boxing event featuring welterweight champions Errol Spence and Yordenis Ugas.

Other high-profile fighters set to appear on Showtime through July include middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, super middleweight champion Jermell Charlo and former champion David Benavidez, said the network. 

“When you consider the competitive nature of these fights, the star power of fighters like Errol Spence Jr., ‘Tank’ Davis, David Benavidez, the Charlo brothers, and the youthful vitality of Stephen Fulton Jr., Jaron Ennis and Brandun Lee, it’s never been clearer that Showtime is the destination for the most compelling fights and will be for years to come,” Showtime Sports & Event Programming President Stephen Espinoza said in a statement.   

Also: Errol Spence, Tyson Fury, Canelo Alvarez to Step into PPV Boxing Ring This Spring

Showtime's upcoming TV boxing schedule featuring main event fights is as follows:  

• March 26: Tim Tszyu-Terrell Gausha, super welterweights. 
• April 9: Erickson Lubin-Sebastian Fundora, super welterweights. 
• April 16 (PPV): Errol Spence Jr.- Yordenis Ugas, welterweight championship unification. 
• May 14: Jermell Charlo-Brian Castano II super welterweight championship unification. 
• May 21: David Benavidez-David Lemieux, super middleweights.
• May 28 (PPV): Gervonta Davis-Rolando Romero, lightweight world championship. 
• June 18: Jermall Charlo-Maciej Sulecki, middleweight world championship.
• July 9: Mark Magsayo-Rey Vargas, featherweight championship. 

Showtime’s Dec. 18 pay-per-view boxing card will now feature a Jake Paul-Tyron Woodley rematch fight. 

The network announced Monday that Woodley is replacing Tommy Fury -- who withdrew from the event due to a “medical issue” -- as the opponent for YouTube star Paul in the main event of the PPV fight card. Woodley and Paul fought on an Aug. 29 Showtime PPV event in August, with Paul generating a split decision win over the former MMA fighter. 

The first Paul-Woodley PPV event generated a reported 500,000 PPV buys.

The fight is the second PPV boxing event for Showtime in December, following its  Dec. 5 Gervonta Davis-Issac Cruz bout in which Davis retained his lightweight championship with a close but unanimous decision.■  

The pay-per-view boxing category will look to draw some rare summertime revenue as two marquee events are slated for the typically slow month of August. 

Fox Sports will distribute a Saturday, Aug. 21, fight between eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao and WBA welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas. Ugas is a late replacement for undefeated welterweight champion Errol Spence, who pulled out of the fight after he was diagnosed with a retinal tear to his left eye. 

Pacquiao is among the top PPV performers of all time. His 2015 fight with Floyd Mayweather stands as the biggest PPV event ever. 

While not a traditional boxing event, Showtime’s Sunday, Aug. 29 PPV event between YouTube star Jake Paul and former UFC mixed martial arts fighter Tyron Woodley is aimed at younger, non-fight fans as well as boxing aficionados. Paul’s brother Logan Paul’s June 6 exhibition fight against Floyd Mayweather drew more than 1 million PPV buys, according to industry observers. 

In Demand senior VP of programming and marketing Mark Boccardi said both fights could draw significant PPV business despite falling in late summer. “There is so much pent-up demand for good, entertaining boxing events,” he said.

Boccardi said the two fights are a launchpad for what is shaping up to be a busy fall PPV boxing schedule that already has an Oct. 9 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III heavyweight championship fight in place. Cards featuring Canelo Alvarez and  Anthony Joshua, as well as exhibitions featuring Oscar De La Hoya and Mike Tyson, are in the works, per published reports.

The highly anticipated Aug. 21 Manny Pacquiao-Errol Spence pay-per-view fight is officially off after Spence was diagnosed with an eye injury, according to Fox Sports.

Pacquiao will instead fight World Boxing Association welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas in the PPV event, according to Fox. Ugas was scheduled to fight on the undercard of Pacquiao-Spence, but his opponent Fabian Maidana recently suffered a sparring injury and had to pull out of the fight, according to ESPN.com. 

Spence was diagnosed with a retinal tear to his left eye during a recent medical exam. In an Instagram post the undefeated welterweight champion expressed his disappointment in having to pull out of the fight but vows to return from his injury.

The Pacquiao-Spence fight is the latest PPV boxing event in recent months to be altered due to fighter injury/sickness. The scheduled July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder trilogy fight was postponed to Oct. 9 after Fury tested positive for COVID-19. The June 19 Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos lightweight championship PPV fight was postponed after Lopez was diagnosed with COVID. The fight has yet to be rescheduled.

Read Also: Fury-Wilder III PPV Fight Rescheduled for Oct. 9

The WWE will add a New Year's Day pay-per-view event to its current lineup of monthly premium shows.

The show, slated for Jan. 1, 2022, will take place in Atlanta and will be available on the Peacock streaming service as well as through traditional PPV distributors, according to the pro wrestling outfit.

Also Read: WWE Network Content Available on Peacock 

The New Year's Eve event was announced during Fox's SmackDown telecast Friday night.

The event will feature WWE superstars from both the SmackDown and Raw franchises, including WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, SmackDown Women's Champion Bianca Belair, Raw Women's Champion Nikki A.S.H, WWE Intercontinental Champion Apollo Crews, and Raw Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Omos, said the WWE.

“State Farm Arena is a phenomenal venue with a long history of hosting world-class events,” said Scott Zanghellini, WWE senior VP, revenue strategy & development in a statement. “We’re excited to deliver this pay-per-view to the people of Atlanta and the many that travel to the city to celebrate New Year’s.”

Also Read: WWE to Showcase 'SummerSlam' Event On Movie Screens

Just months after the major pro sports leagues resumed play after the pandemic forced an unprecedented shutdown of live sports for nearly a year, COVID-19 is still having an adverse effect on the live sports event business.

While the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines has paved the way for a return of most pro sports events in 2021 — and has allowed fans to attend events at full capacity in many venues — observers said the industry has not yet declared victory against the virus.

“We’re not out of the woods yet with COVID,” sports analyst Lee Berke said. “The industry still has to be cautious. There will be these outbreaks that will cause last-minute switches and cancellations.”

Indeed, last Thursday (July 15), several New York Yankees players tested positive for COVID-19, forcing a postponement of the Yankees-Boston Red Sox game two days after Major League Baseball's high-profile All-Star Game. Fortunately the series was able to be completed, but baseball and ESPN missed out on a chance to showcase one of baseball’s fiercest rivalries in a primetime window with very little sports competition. 

Two marquee pay-per-view boxing matches — the scheduled June 19 Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos fight and the July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder trilogy bout — were postponed after fighters Lopez and Fury tested positive for COVID-19. Both fights have been rescheduled. 

As NBC Sports kicks off its live coverage of the Tokyo Summer Olympics coverage today (July 20), several high-profile U.S. Olympians will not participate in the two-week event due to positive COVID tests. Tennis sensation Coco Gauff and U.S. gymnastics alternate Kara Eaker both recently tested positive for the virus and will not participate in the games. U.S. men’s basketball stars Bradley Beal, Zack LaVine and Jerami Grant were placed under USA Basketball’s health and safety protocols and will not travel with the team. 

The men’s basketball team cancelled an exhibition game against Australia last Friday out of an abundance of caution.

Berke says while the COVID-19 vaccines have allowed live sports producers and programmers to entertain the prospect of returning to a sense of normalcy, he says that for now the industry has to remain vigilant. 

“We’re still in this new normal,” Berke said. “We’re not out of this yet.” 

 Showtime will re-air Saturday’s Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis-Mario Barrios pay-per-view fight as part of its July 3 live Showtime Boxing card headlined by the Chris Colbert-Tugstsogt Nyambayar super featherweight championship fight. 

The June 26 PPV fight saw Davis move up two weight classes to defeat previously unbeaten Barrios to capture the super lightweight championship belt. The July 3 live boxing telecast will also feature the Michel Rivera-Jon Fernandez lightweight fight.

Read Also: Mayweather-Paul PPV Performance Set to Deliver Bigger Punch Than Fighters

The July 3 live boxing telecast will be followed by a boxing special, All Access: Davis-Barrios epilogue that will take a behind-the-scenes look at both Davis and Barrios before and after the fight, said the network.

This morning Showtime announced it will air a replay of last night’s Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul pay-per-view exhibition boxing match on June 12. Given some of the negative reactions from spectators at the fight and some PPV buyers after the eight-round event went the distance and produced no knockdowns, it’ll be interesting to see how many viewers actually tune in.

Neither Mayweather nor Paul were declared the victor of the much-hyped event because there were no judges to score the fight round-by-round other than Logan Paul’s brother Jake, who gave his very unofficial and biased scorecard halfway through the exhibition event. When the official PPV numbers roll in however, many observers believe that both fighters and event distributor Showtime will be the big financial winners. 

Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza told Multichannel News prior to the event that Mayweather-Paul could top the 1 million PPV buy mark, a figure that Mayweather has surpassed several times during his undefeated boxing career. In fact, Mayweather fights account for the top two performing PPV events of all time -- his 2015 bout with Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV buys and his 2017 fight with UFC star Conor McGregor notched 4.3 million PPV buys. 

Also Read: Showtime Hoping to Expand Boxing Fan Base with a Pair of Paul PPV Fights 

Add to Mayweather’s PPV pedigree Paul’s millions of social media followers, and the event had all the ingredients to generate huge PPV business. Showtime even struggled early with demand for the PPV event, acknowledging on social media last night that its online services and apps had technical difficulties delivering the PPV event to purchasers. The network today instructed viewers who couldn’t stream the fight to request a refund.

Showtime went out of its way not to label Mayweather-Paul as a legitimate boxing match but as an exhibition and spectacle, both in promotion leading up to the event as well as during the telecast.

“I certainly think it's important for our credibility that we be honest about what this is -- it isn’t a championship level, elite boxing competition,” Espinoza told Multichannel News. “This is a spectacle and an event featuring a retired Floyd Mayweather coming out of retirement to do an exhibition.”

The PPV industry is closely watching the growing emergence of the exhibition boxing category. Last November an exhibition bout between former champions Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. -- which also featured musical performances -- drew more than 1.8 million PPV buys. Other retired champions such as Evander Holyfield and Oscar De La Hoya are planning exhibition ring returns later this year.

Meanwhile, fans of true pro boxing will also have the opportunity to watch several quality PPV boxing matches later this summer when such current boxing champions as Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence and Tyson Fury step into the ring.

Read also: PPV Boxing's Summer Bonanza  

Last night, boxing fans were able to see two official boxing matches on the PPV telecast. Beyond that, anyone looking for a competitive, action-packed fight between a 44-year old former champion and a YouTube star looking to further build his social media following were disappointed.

With Logan Paul’s brother Jake set to step into the ring this August in a Showtime-distributed PPV event against UFC fighter Tyron Woodley, the industry is still trying to see if the PPV boxing ring is big enough to support legitimate as well as "spectacle" exhibition events.

Super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez is looking to unify the division belts this fall after securing a technical knockout win Saturday night against former champion Billy Joe Saunders.

Alvarez -- arguably the best pound-for-pound champion in boxing -- defeated Saunders after the former undefeated champion refused to come out his corner for the ninth round due to an eye injury caused by an Alvarez punch. The fight, which was distributed via pay-per-view and was streamed on DAZN, set a U.S. boxing attendance record with more than 73,100 fans filling AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

Read Also: Canelo Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather Lead Busy Spring PPV Boxing Schedule

Alvarez now holds all but one of the four major super middleweight championships, with the International Boxing Federation belt held by Caleb Plant the only one Alvarez does not hold. Alvarez has intimated that he wants to fight Plant in a September PPV matchup, but no deals have been completed.

Two pay-per-view boxing matches have changed dates and venues to allow for in-arena fan attendance. Showtime has moved its Oct. 24 Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz championship fight to Oct. 31. Instead of the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut, where Showtime held its Sept. 26 PPV fight in front of no fans, the fight will take place at the Alamodome in San Antonio, which will host in excess of 10,000 fans, said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime Networks president and general manager of sports and event programming. 

The fight will join Dallas Cowboys home games and the Los Angeles Dodgers-Atlanta Braves National League Championship series as events staged in Texas before in-person crowds. Espinoza expects 10,000 to 15,000 fans to attend the bout in an arena that can hold 75,000.

 “The promoters were interested in exploring whether the event could be staged with limited fans in attendance,” Espinoza said. “They eventually settled on San Antonio, since Texas has been holding sports events with limited crowds for several weeks. For combat sports in general and boxing in particular, the fan energy and the electricity of the crowd is part of the event, so it’s a great development that we’ll have some of that back in a safe way for this event.” 

Showtime isn’t the only network to rearrange its PPV fight-card schedule to accommodate a live audience. Fox Sports will distribute the Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight PPV fight on Dec. 5 from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the Cowboys, according to ESPN. The fight was originally scheduled to take place Nov. 21 in Los Angeles without fans.

 Espinoza would not reveal the number of PPV buys it generated for its Sept. 26 event, which featured world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo in separate bouts, although The Atlantic reported that the card garnered 100,000 buys. Espinoza did say the event met expectations given the pandemic and the stiff competition from a UFC PPV event and a Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers NBA Western Conference Finals game. 

“We had modest expectations given the fact that the headliners were making their first appearance on PPV and the fact that we’re still in the midst of economic duress in the country,” Espinoza said. “Boxing has to rely on PPV to get the big fights done. Without big license fees from networks and live gate revenue, these big events couldn’t happen.”

AXS TV will look to build momentum for its Oct. 24 Impact Wrestling pay-per-view event with a series of specials and events.

The Bound For Glory PPV event will be supported by "Impact Week" featuring such specials as talk-themed show Talk'n Shop: Full Keg (premiering Oct. 20) and documentary This Is Bound For Glory (Oct. 24).

In addition, the network will offer an one-hour pre-show, Live Countdown to Glory, prior to its Oct. 24 event.   

“Impact Week on AXS TV demonstrates the strength of the individual Anthem brands coming together organically under our Anthem Sports & Entertainment banner,” said AXS TV General Manager Frank Tanki in a prepared statement. “This first year of IMPACT! on AXS TV proved that Impact has some of the most passionate and loyal fans in the world, and we wanted to deliver to them in a big way as we continue to grow the IMPACT brand.  We worked across Anthem to create a week on AXS TV focused on providing the ultimate preview of this huge PPV event.  And in addition to serving Impact's fans, we are working to deliver to our affiliates and sponsors as well."

Basketball fans will get some pay-per-view hoops action before the NBA returns to the court in a new tournament set to premiere July 19.

The inaugural 5 Tournament will feature several former NBA players participating in a six-team, three-on-three elimination tournament that will take place from The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, NV, according to Doug Jacobs, president of Integrated Sports, which will distribute the PPV event.

The 10-day tournament will debut July 19 with the first of five tournament rounds before the semi-finals take place on July 27 and the Finals on July 29, said Integrated Sports. Teams will be based in New York, Chicago, Miami, Sacramento, Toronto and Texas and will feature such former NBA stars as Mario Chalmers, Mike Bibby, Jermaine Taylor, Brandon Rush and Carlos Arroyo.

FITE TV will distribute the 5 Tournament's early rounds at a suggested retail price of $12.95 per round, and the semi-final and final rounds for $19.95. In Demand and DirecTV will also offer the $19.95 semi-final and final rounds, said the company. 

The UFC this past Saturday (May 9) held its UFC 249 pay-per-view event, becoming one of the first sports organizations to hold a live event in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ESPN+-distributed PPV fight card from Jacksonville, which featured no fans in the auditorium, generated in the neighborhood of 700,000 buys according to Sports Business Daily, and set the stage for two other live UFC events this week -- one on Wednesday (May 13 on ESPN+) and Saturday (May 16 on ESPN).

I had a chance to speak to UFC chief operating officer Lawrence Epstein regarding the operational strategy behind the mixed martial arts outfit’s successful UFC 249 event -- including dealing with a fighter on the undercard that tested positive for the COVID-19 virus -- as well as whether the UFC has created a blueprint for other sports to follow in the midst of the pandemic. An edited version of the interview appears below.

From your perspective, did Saturday’s UFC 249 event meet expectations?

Absolutely. It was really a product of five plus weeks of work as we drafted and re-drafted an operational health and safety game plan for the event. All things considered we had tremendous cooperation from the Florida State Athletic Commission as well as a robust testing plan, and our fighters delivered what I thought was one of our best cards in UFC history.

Can you confirm published reports that the fight generated 700,000 PPV buys?

I can’t confirm it, but I will echo what (UFC president) Dana White said, which is that the fight did incredibly well and exceeded our expectations. Our partners are really happy.

Is UFC 249’s strong PPV performance due to a pent up audience demand for live sports programming in general or UFC fights in particular?

I think it's definitely both. In this new world that we live in it's so hard to figure out what the consumer is going to do and what expectations should be. Maybe we were a little conservative in our projections, but clearly the event exceeded those expectations. I do think people are starved due to the lack of live sporting content, but I know our fans were really, really hungry for live UFC action because they’ve told us so.

Did you have to make any technical tweaks in how you presented the fights due to the lack of a live audience?

Sure there were some things that we did, but we do have experience in producing fights with limited or few people in the audience, from Dana White’s The Contender series to The Ultimate Fighter. With those shows you could hear the announcers and a lot of things that were said in the corners because of the limited audience. So we had the experience producing those types of events, and we use that experience to produce quality content for UFC 249. Overall even though the experience felt different in the arena, it still had that UFC energy.

Did the UFC ever consider cancelling the event when one of the undercard fighters (Ronaldo Souza), tested positive for the COVID-19 virus?

No. The procedures we put in place worked properly -- we got the test results back before the event took place. We prevented an athlete that tested positively for COVID-19 from participating in the event, so things worked out well. He was isolated for the vast majority of the time he was in Jacksonville -- we feel it worked out exactly as planned.

Do you know when the next big UFC PPV event will take place?

We’re working on a number of different dates and locations … I’m going to leave it to Dana White to make those announcements. I’m just focused on executing the fights tomorrow and Saturday.

Based on the success that you had for UFC 249, do you feel that the UFC has created a template for other sports to follow as they get back to live events?

Absolutely. We are already sharing our experience and plan with regards to COVID-19 testing with all of our partners and friends in the entertainment world. We’ve had a tremendous amount of teams and organizations reach out to us, and we’re looking to share everything we’ve learned. We’re incredibly proud of our plan, but we also want to share our experiences with everybody in the sports world so they can get back to work as well. 

Fox Sports and ESPN will again team up to co-promote a third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder pay-per-view fight which will take place later this year, according to Fox Sports executives. 

The announcement comes two weeks after the two popular heavyweight boxers fought for a second time in what turned out to be one of the biggest PPV heavyweight fights in decades. A reported 800,000 to 850,000 PPV viewers watched Fury defeat Wilder via a seventh round TKO. The fighters’ 2018 inaugural fight ended in a controversial draw.

RELATED: Tyson Fury Defeats Deontay Wilder in Big PPV Heavyweight Fight

Fox Sports would not disclose a date for the third bout, which was set after Wilder -- as the loser of the second fight -- exercised a rematch clause in the Feb. 22 fight contract.

I recently talked to Fox Sports executive VP and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger about the performance of Fury-Wilder II as well as prospects for the third fight. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Will there be a third Fury-Wilder III fight and if so, when would it take place?

The rematch clause has been triggered. The parties involved are still discussing the date.

Do you think Fury’s dominating performance in the fight hurts the PPV appeal for a third fight?

No, we think the third fight will be just as popular. There will be some time between the second and the third fight, but it just wasn’t Deontay’s night. We expect there to be a different fight.

Can you confirm the reported 800,000 to 850,000 PPV buy figures for Wilder-Fury II?

We’re not going to get into the numbers. We view the success of the event based on the great promotion we had. We had a great partnership with ESPN and [boxing promoters] PBC and Top Rank, and that’s how we judge a successful event. From our perspective the outcome didn’t work out in terms of Deontay losing, but hats off to Tyson Fury -- he fought a great fight and there will be a trilogy fight.

A third Fury-Wilder fight would bring together Fox Sports and ESPN as co-promoters. Will the industry see the same promotional commitment for the third fight from the two TV sports powerhouses?

The thing that made [Wilder-Fury II] feel big and have a lot of gravitas was the combined talent effort between Fox and ESPN. We thought it worked well and served the viewers quite nicely.

Did the massive promotion for Wilder-Fury II put boxing back on the TV sports map in terms of the sport’s awareness and excitement among sports fans?

I think so. You had two of the biggest sports companies out there talking about, analyzing and promoting this fight for months, along with spots in the Super Bowl [and] the College Football Playoffs Championship game. You had the fighters on [Fox broadcasting’s music competition series] The Masked Singer. I think it elevated boxing to another level with the cooperation that we had with ESPN in the promotion. At the end of the day it's good for the sport and great for the long-term health of the sport.

Is Fox Sports looking to distribute any other PPV boxing matches in the interim?

There’s nothing to talk about right now. We have a bunch of fight cards coming up and dates that will be filled, but no PPV boxing events that we can talk about right now. 

Combat sports fans will be treated to two, high-profile pay-per-view events to kick off the New Year.

ESPN+ on Saturday (Jan. 18) will distribute the return of popular UFC fighter Conor McGregor to the octagon in a main event match against Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone. The fight, which will retail at $64.99 -- up from $59.99 the UFC charged for its PPV events in the first year of its exclusive PPV distribution deal with ESPN+ -- will be McGregor’s first appearance since October 2018 when he lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The fight is expected to generate major buys for ESPN given the past PPV success of the popular McGregor. His fight with Khabib drew a reported UFC record 2.4 million buys, and he nearly set an all-time PPV buy record in 2017 when his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather generated 4.3 million PPV buys.

In February the PPV category steps into the squared ring for the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight boxing championship rematch. The Feb. 22 bout is arguably the most anticipated PPV heavyweight boxing event in a decades -- their first fight in 2018 ended in a draw -- and the combined ESPN and Fox Sports promotional machines will make sure that both hard core boxing fans and causal sports fans are well aware of the first major PPV boxing event of the year.

Both ESPN and Fox Sports have individually stated their intention to deliver several PPV boxing events throughout the year. Add ESPN’s monthly UFC PPV events into the mix, and the PPV combat sports category should generate some knockout business in 2020.

Heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s exciting one-punch knockout of top contender Luis Ortiz during their Nov. 23 pay-per-view event effectively concluded In Demand’s 2019 boxing campaign — a year in which the PPV content aggregator survived some early programming body blows from emerging sports streaming services.

Despite losing monthly UFC mixed martial arts events to ESPN+ this past March — and still reeling from the loss of marquee boxing matches from draws such as light heavyweight champion Canelo Alvarez to DAZN in late 2018 — In Demand officials said the company has found its footing in an evolving PPV events ring and is poised for a breakout year in 2020.

In Demand, owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, has reached multi-event distribution deals with Premier Boxing Champions and All Elite Wrestling that will provide at least eight PPV events for its cable affiliates, representing more than 60 million subscribers. With negotiations for other high-profile events currently ongoing, In Demand executives said the reports of the PPV industry’s death at the hands of growing sports streaming services is highly exaggerated.

Money Still to Be Made

“The pay-per-view model is still a good business,” said In Demand president and CEO Dale Hopkins. “For big events, the greatest profits are still in pay-per-view.”

RELATED: Fox Sports Cornering the PPV Boxing Category

The Wilder-Ortiz fight was the sixth major PPV boxing event In Demand distributed in 2019, with four of those fights coming from PBC and Fox Sports. The new multiyear boxing output deal calls for PBC/Fox Sports to distribute a PPV boxing event each quarter, via In Demand. Bruce Binkow, president of Integrated Sports, a sports marketing and operations agency that represents PBC, said the company is bullish about In Demand and the PPV event category.

“Boxing has a long and successful history with the PPV platform … fighters have long known that becoming a ‘pay-per-view attraction’ is the ultimate achievement in terms of notoriety and earning potential,” Binkow said. “Additionally, fight fans are accustomed to gathering friends and family for a communal viewing party when a big fight comes around on PPV.”

For In Demand, the deal solidifies a lineup of marquee PPV fights in 2020 that offer revenue opportunities for affiliates. One of 2020’s first major events of the year could be a potential Feb. 22 heavyweight title rematch between Wilder and Tyson Fury. Their 2018 fight ended in an exciting draw.

“The matchups on PPV are stronger than those on the streaming side,” In Demand executive vice president of programming and general counsel Michael Berman said. “Not only are we getting a large number of fights over the next few years, but we know we’re going to get some great matchups as well.”

In Demand’s long-term output deal with AEW brings a former event staple back to PPV. (It’s unclear if the events will be made available on Turner’s streaming Bleacher Report Live service, as was the case with prior AEW events.) World Wrestling Entertainment had moved its monthly PPV events to its in-house streaming service, WWE Network, back in 2014.

The deal calls for AEW — which launched earlier this year and currently airs the weekly AEW: Dynamite on TNT — to distribute a minimum of one PPV event per quarter through June 2021.

AEW president and CEO Tony Khan said the deal with In Demand is a perfect complement to the wrestling franchise’s basic-cable series.

“PPV is still available in millions of homes, and it's still a convenient and easy way to order events,” Khan said. “In Demand has a great history in delivering big PPV events, and we’ve been able to connect with our fans already through events on In Demand.”

Mark Boccardi, In Demand senior vice president of programming and marketing, added that two previous AEW PPV events performed well for the company, although he would not reveal specific results. “[AEW] has a very energetic leader in Tony Khan; they have a very good stable of wrestlers; they have a Turner deal; and they have the industry's support,” he said.

“They have a lot of ingredients to make a successful PPV run.”

Early Blows in ’19

In Demand’s PPV event prospects for 2020 look a lot more promising than they did in early 2019. The move of UFC’s PPV events to ESPN+ in March was a big loss, particularly since $19.99-per-month subscription service DAZN had already picked off several popular boxers with pay-per-view appeal, including Alvarez, former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, to air exclusively on the streamer.

Fox Sports and Showtime helped filled the PPV event void with several marquee fights in 2019. While none of those events reached the gold standard of 1 million PPV buys, each event generated between 200,000 and 500,000 buys at suggested price points ranging from $65 to $75, according to industry sources.

Fox Sports executive vice president and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger said the PPV industry remains a viable option for the distribution of its biggest boxing cards.

“A lot of people forget that ESPN+ is doing PPV under a different model that doesn’t use traditional MVPDs; we think it's important to have traditional MVPDs selling the fight,” he said. “We also have a strong digital buying apparatus, where people can buy our events on a phone or tablet or however they want to watch it. We think we have the best of both worlds.”

Showtime, which distributed a Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner fight in February, will look to distribute two to four PPV events in 2020, according to president of sports and entertainment programming Stephen Espinoza.

“It’s undeniable that the market is going through a lot of changes spurred in large part by technology, but proclaiming the end of PPV is premature to say the least,” he said. “The best strategy for a content owner is to make the content available on as many platforms as possible whenever and wherever the consumer wants it.”

Sports analyst Lee Berke said there’s room for In Demand and the PPV category to coexist with upstart subscription sports services in today’s multiplatform sports TV marketplace, given that both platforms offer quality content.

RELATED: Wrestling Flies High on TV Again

“Purchasing a PPV event and subscribing to a streaming service is just another way of phrasing the same concept,” he said. “Combat sports continues to have strong appeal, but you need enough fighters that are deemed to be quality fighters to maximize revenues.”

Boccardi said the streaming services actually give boxing, MMA and wrestling a boost by exposing more up and coming fighters to fans who will hopefully go on to become major PPV draws.

“I don’t think it's all a negative that you have all of these distribution outlets,” he said. “If you’re a fan of the sport, you can go and watch fighters that you wouldn’t otherwise see.”

In Demand chief technology officer John Ward said the best platform to view high-profile PPV sports content continues to be through traditional pay TV. Current technologies like voice-enabled remote controls and online ordering — as well as new technologies like 5G — will continue to enhance the PPV experience for cable viewers.

“We want to give the consumer as many options and opportunities to get the content as possible,” he said.

This story was updated on Dec. 3. Showtime will look to distribute two to four events in 2020, not 2019.

Events on streaming and traditional TV services are shaping up for the fall in the important boxing genre, with current and former heavyweight champions stepping into the ring and Fox Sports continuing to ramp up its pay-per-view boxing forays.

Lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will step into the ring Sept. 14 to fight undefeated challenger Otto Wallin on ESPN+. That fight is likely a tune-up for Fury before a potential 2020 fight with World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder — a rematch of their 2018 bout, which was scored a draw.

The Fury-Wallin fight will be the second Fury bout streamed on ESPN+, following the June 15 Fury-Tom Schwarz fight that Fury won in a second-round knockout.

“Tyson Fury is arguably the top heavyweight and most entertaining fighter in the world,” said Russell Wolff, executive vice president and general manager, ESPN+. “He put on a show the last time he was on ESPN+ and we look forward to another with this fight.”

Wilder is reportedly finalizing negotiations to fight Luis Ortiz sometime in November, with industry sources saying Showtime would distribute the fight on payper- view. The bout would be a rematch of their competitive March 2018 matchup on Showtime, which Wilder won by a technical knockout in the 10th round. Showtime officials would not comment on a potential November Wilder-Ortiz rematch.

Recently crowned World Boxing Association, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. will defend the belts he won from former champion Anthony Joshua in a Dec. 4 rematch, slated to take place in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, Joshua’s promotional company, Matchroom Boxing, said.

Ruiz stunned the boxing world by knocking out the formerly undefeated champion Joshua in the sixth round of their June 1 fight. DAZN, which streamed the first Joshua-Ruiz bout and has a multi-fight agreement with Joshua, is likely to stream the rematch.

Industry sources also said DAZN is finalizing streaming rights to a potential Oct. 5 bout featuring former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. It’s also locking in a potential Nov. 2 fight with current middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez. DAZN officials would not comment.

Outside of the heavyweight division, Fox Sports will continue to showcase welterweights with a Sept. 28 PPV fight between WBC champion Shawn Porter and IBF champion Errol Spence Jr.

That will be Fox Sports’s third trip to the PPV ring, following its March 16 Spence-Mikey Garcia fight and last month’s WBA welterweight tilt between WBA champion Manny Pacquiao and former welterweight champion Keith Thurman.

Fox Sports wants to distribute as many as four to five PPV matches before the end of the year, executive vice president and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger said.

Fox Sports continues its busy summer of televising live, marquee sports programming events this Saturday (July 20) as it steps into the pay-per-view boxing ring with the Manny Pacquiao-Keith Thurman welterweight championship boxing card promoted by Premier Boxing Champions. The company is hoping to build on the performance of its March Errol Spence-Mikey Garcia inaugural PPV boxing event, which drew more than 300,000 pay-per-view buys, according to company executives.

Fox Sports executive vice president and head of programming Bill Wanger discusses the company’s strategy in distributing the PPV boxing event, including using its lineup of high-profile summer sports events like the FIFA Women’s World Cup, baseball’s All-Star Game and the U.S. Open Golf Championship to promote Pacquiao-Thurman, which retails at a PPV suggested price of $74.99.

Why does Fox Sports consider the Pacquiao-Thurman fight a marquee pay-per-view event?

Obviously it starts with Manny Pacquiao, who is a living legend in the boxing world, going up against a legit competitor in Keith Thurman. Before [Thurman] was injured [Thurman had elbow surgery in May 2018], he was considered one of the best welterweights in the world. We consider this a heavyweight matchup of welterweights.

What are your PPV buy expectations for Pacquiao-Thurman?

We’re going to do better than Spence-Garcia, our first pay-per-view, which was in the 330,000 [buy] range. We’ll definitely be above that, although we’re not going to release any sort of estimates. To the boxing world -- and even to the casual boxing fan -- Manny versus Keith is a true 50-50 fight where you really don’t know who is going to win. That doesn’t always happen in boxing, so it's pretty special.

The summertime hasn’t been an ideal time to schedule a big pay-per-view fight -- does that concern you at all?

Quite frankly a little bit, but it just worked out in terms of timing from when Manny and Keith’s last fight was [both fighters fought this past January]. We’re coming off of out most-watched month ever across the Fox Sports networks with the [Women’s] World Cup, The US Open, NASCAR and the baseball All-Star game, so we feel we've had a pretty strong promotional platform. We’ve been running the sprockets off of our promo for the fight in those big sports events. We actually ran seven [promotional] elements for the fight during the All-Star Game. On fight night we’re going to have Caleb Plant fighting Mike Lee in a super welterweight fight that will air on Fox broadcast prior to the pay-per-view event starting, so we’re going to have a significant amount of people watching boxing on free television on Fox while promoting the pay-per-view card. That’s fairly unusual for a boxing event.

Is Fox Sports still looking at doing as many as six PP boxing cards in 2019?

Right now we’re looking in the four to five range which could go up. There's been some exciting things that have happened over the past couple of months in boxing where we could do some more potential pay-per-view events, including Andy Ruiz Jr.’s win over [former heavyweight champion] Anthony Joshua, which shocked the world and really attracted alot of casual fans back to boxing. We’ll see how things play out, but I think the future is really bright.

There’s been alot of boxing events distributed on various platforms so far this year. Does the increased exposure of the sport help or hurt Fox Sports’ efforts to develop marquee pay-per-view events?

I think it helps. Just on the various Fox Sports distribution platforms alone we’ve reached close to 20 million people through our live [boxing] events, studio shows and original programming. I think that we’re bringing attention to boxing, and we’re not so concerned about the competition. We’re growing our portfolio of boxing -- on Fox [broadcasting] alone, our [boxing] ratings are up 50% versus what they were a year ago. We’re in a good position. 

When unheralded fighter Andy Ruiz Jr. stunned the boxing world June 1 with a knockout of then-undefeated world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on upstart sports streaming service DAZN, it ended speculation about a potentially lucrative fight between Joshua and undefeated heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder that arguably would have put the division back on the pay-per-view boxing map.

While a Joshua-Wilder fight is currently on hold, industry observers say the heavyweight category — once the marquee division in boxing — is generating a lot of buzz that could bode well for potentially attractive fights later this year and into 2020, ones featuring Wilder, Ruiz, Joshua and former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.

“Instead of one mega-fight you may have three or four mid-range mega-fights,” sports consultant Lee Berke said. “You now have four fighters in the division that will be of great interest going forward.”

How a Loss Is a Gain

The loss initially felt like a devastating body blow to DAZN, which was streaming its first live Joshua bout as part of a multi-fight deal with the U.K.-born boxer. DAZN had made inroads into boxing by signing marquee pay-per-view attractions such as Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin to multi-fight agreements.

But it became clear in the fight’s aftermath that Joshua’s unexpected loss only fueled interest in a contracted rematch projected for later this year, DAZN executive vice president of North America Joseph Markowski said. No details on the fight have been announced, though.

Markowski pointed to the fight’s strong appeal on social media, where highlights posted to YouTube drew more than 11 million views within a 48-hour period.

“I didn’t have a particularly good mood after that night, but by the time Monday rolled around I was in a much better headspace about it,” he said. “The swell of social-media interest, as well as the knowledge that we would broadcast the rematch, turned around my blues. For us win, lose or draw, there will always be interest surrounding Anthony Joshua.”

Berke said Joshua’s loss — and the emergence of Ruiz as a likable and legitimate champion — helps to not only build the awareness of the DAZN brand but also the appeal of the heavyweight division. “This was supposed to be a tune-up fight for Joshua and was anything but,” Berke said. “Now DAZN controls the rights to both these guys, and that only helps DAZN and boxing.”

Showtime president of sports & event programming Stephen Espinoza added that Ruiz’s Mexican-American heritage could bring Hispanic boxing fans to the heavyweight division, which, unlike the lower weight classes, has lacked a marquee Hispanic fighter.

“The emergence of Andy Ruiz is a huge positive for the sport,” he said. “He has a great personality and is an underdog story, and it opens up the Mexican-American market in a way that hasn’t been the case before [around the heavyweight division].”

Ruiz’s victory came weeks after Wilder’s impressive first round knockout of Dominic Breazeale on Showtime’s May 18 boxing telecast to further solidify his claim as arguably the best heavyweight in the world. Espinoza said Wilder has a signed deal to fight Luis Ortiz in a rematch of their competitive March 2018 fight, although no fight date or distribution outlet has been announced. Showtime distributed the first Wilder-Ortiz fight.

When Wilder Meets Fury (Again)

Espinoza added that Wilder is also looking to meet Fury in early 2020 in a rematch of their December 2018 Showtime-distributed PPV fight, which ended in a draw.

Fury, who on June 15 knocked out contender Tom Schwartz in two rounds in a match carried by ESPN+, is also expected to take another fight this fall before potentially meeting Wilder in a mega pay-per-view fight. ESPN vice president of acquisitions and programming Matt Kenny said the network is working with boxing promoter Top Rank to determine Fury’s next moves, but would not disclose specifics.

“The big picture is that there continues to be an interest in the heavyweight division, and that’s fueling interest in boxing overall,” Kenny said. “The narrative is different, but the interest is still there.”

The pay-per-view event business is taking a standing eight count after UFC landed a body blow by moving its monthly mixed-martial-arts events exclusively to direct-to-consumer streaming service ESPN+.

Distributors such as In Demand, DirecTV and major MVPDs must now replace at least 12 UFC-distributed PPV events while fighting off increasing competition from services like ESPN+, DAZN and Bleacher Report Live, which are looking to siphon major sports events from traditional television. “The traditional linear PPV business is threatened, and these deals certainly portend problems and issues for companies like In Demand,” sports analyst Lee Berke said.

The new, two-year extension of ESPN and UFC’s three-year, $1.5 billion distribution deal that launched in January makes ESPN+ the only place to view the UFC’s monthly PPV events through 2025, beginning with UFC 236: Holloway vs. Poirier 2 on April 13.

That means fans will no longer be able to purchase UFC fights through In Demand — which licenses events for most cable providers — or services such as DirecTV or Verizon Fios TV. Only subscribers to the $4.99-per-month ESPN+ service will be able to view the UFC PPV events, which will cost an additional $59.99 each.

New ESPN+ subscribers can opt to pay $79.99 for one year of the service as well as one UFC PPV event, ESPN said.

Representatives from In Demand could not be reached at press time.

This leaves boxing as the PPV event category’s highest-profile offering, albeit one in flux as the sport develops a new generation of fighters who can headline a major card. There have been two PPV boxing events this year — Showtime’s Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury fight in January and Fox Sports’s March 16 Errol Spence-Mikey Garcia bout — with ESPN and Top Rank set to offer the Terence Crawford-Amir Khan welterweight title fight on April 20.

None of these events are expected to come close to the PPV event gold standard of 1 million buys, observers said.

On Saturday Fox Sports will distribute its first pay-per-view boxing event featuring the Errol Spence Jr.-Mikey Garcia welterweight championship fight.

The PPV fight card, which will take place at AT&T Stadium in Dallas and retail at a suggested retail price of $74.95, is the second PPV boxing event for the industry in 2019, following Showtime’s Jan. 19 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner, which garnered a reported 400,000 PPV buys.

RELATED: Showtime, ESPN+ Land Big Punches With Competing Premium Ring Sports Events

Fox Sports’ fight coverage will begin at 8 pm with FS1’s live coverage of several undercard fights before the PPV event launches at 9 pm. More than 3.1 million viewers have already sampled shoulder programming surrounding the Spence-Garcia bout, according to Fox officials. 

I recently spoke to Fox Sports executive vice president of live operations and research Bill Wanger about Fox’s decision to jump into the pay-per-view boxing ring with Spence-Garcia as well as performance prospects for the fight.

Why did Fox Sports choose this fight as its inaugural foray into the PPV boxing arena?

This is a unique fight. You have two of the top pound-for-pound best fighters on the planet, so we think it’s can’t miss TV. Plus, we have the intrigue of Mikey Garcia going up two weight classes to face a bigger Errol Spence. They are both undefeated and world champions

Areyou confident that the name recognition of the two fighters is strong enough to attract both hardcore and casual boxing fans?

I think that’s where our marketing and PR teams come in, and they are working hard to promote this fight. We have the power of Fox behind this, so we think it will attract the casual boxing fan. We’ve been airing quite a bit of shoulder programming to help promote the fight that’s run on Fox broadcast, and that’s been a great way to capture the interest of the sports fan. We’re also using all of our cable channels, including Fox News and FX, to promote the fight. We also have an extensive media buy outside of the Fox family to promote the fight across all platforms.

Will the fight be available on a digital streaming basis?

Yes, the fight will be available for purchase on FoxSports.com where you could watch it on any device. History tells us that [online buys] fall in the neighborhood of 8% to 10% of the overall buys typically.

Having said that, do you have any general predictions on the PPV performance of the event?

We don’t generally comment on potential sales figures for pay-per-views.

How many PPV boxing events are you looking to do this year?

We’re going to have approximately four to five pay-per-view events a year. They’ll be an announcement shortly on our next PPV card.

In general, how important is boxing to the Fox Sports brand?

I think you can see by all the marketing that we’ve been doing since we started our new deal with [Premier Boxing Champions] in December that the sport is important to Fox. We felt that some of these great fighters, particularly in the glamour divisions like heavyweight and welterweight, were really underexposed. We felt that with the power of Fox and the Fox Sports brand we could elevate these great PBC fighters. We’ve already had a couple of fight cards on the broadcast network that have done over two million viewers. We’re very invested in Premier Boxing.

ESPN will throw its hat into the pay-per-view boxing ring in April when it teams with boxing promoter Top Rank Inc. for the Terence Crawford-Amir Kahn welterweight championship fight.

The April 20 Crawford-Kahn fight marks the first time ESPN and Top Rank have co-promoted a major PPV boxing card since the two reached a distribution agreement in 2017. It’s unclear how much the fight will cost consumers, or how viewers will be able to access the PPV event.

“Showcasing Crawford-Khan as the first pay-per-view event under the Top Rank on ESPN banner is truly a cause for celebration. Crawford is a world champion, a global phenomenon and perhaps the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport and Khan is a fighter that everyone wants to see every time he steps in the ring,” said ESPN executive vice president, programming and scheduling Burke Magnus in a statement. “This is what boxing needs, more big-name showdowns, and this fight is a perfect example of the vision that we had when we teamed up with Top Rank.”

The Crawford-Kahn fight is the third PPV boxing match scheduled thus far in 2019, following this Saturday’s (Jan. 19) Showtime-distributed Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner fight and Fox Sports’ March 16 Mikey Garcia-Errol Spence Jr. fight. 

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.

The now infamous technical glitches that ultimately made the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson Black Friday pay-per-view golf event a free-per-view event weren't a total bogey for the industry.

Yes, the match failed to deliver reported millions of dollars from PPV buys for the category after most PPV distributors offered refunds to viewers purchasing the event due to OTT streaming service Bleacher Report Live's decision to put the $19.95 event in the clear for its subscribers after suffering through technical issues delivering the live golf match. 

But the silver lining for the Turner Sports-distributed event-- which pitted two of the most popular and successful golfers of this generation against one another -- is that it ended up generating better than expected PPV orders from both the traditional cable and digital streaming side, according to sources close to the situation. No official PPV buy tally for the event was available at press time. 

While the PPV numbers for Tiger vs Phil will not come anywhere near that of 2015's industry record- setting Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, industry observers say the performance does bodes well for the much-needed expansion of the PPV event category beyond boxing and mixed martial arts in terms of the category's ability to attract viewers to a non-ring sports event.

Traditional cable, satellite and telco distributors did not report any technical glitches offering the event, in which Mickelson defeated Woods in 22 holes of golf competition. Nevertheless, most distributors provided rebates to consumers after Turner Sports’ upstart Bleacher Report Live streamed the event free to its subscribers due to technical glitches that kept paying viewers from watching the golf competition.

The streaming of live pay-per-view sports events is still in an infancy stage, so inevitably technical problems can and will occur. PPV event distributors say a small percentage of overall PPV buys for big events are generated from streaming services, but when technological issues pop up during marquee events like Tiger vs. Phil or last year’s Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor mega fight, the category’s growing pains are magnified.

Unfortunately, Bleacher Report Live’s glitch and Turner’s decision to pull the event from behind B/R Live’s pay wall -- and the subsequent refunds offered by cable, satellite and telco distributors -- all but wiped out any chance of the event generating significant revenue from PPV transactions.

Once the smoke clears however, the PPV industry might eventually view the Tiger vs Phil PPV event as a success in bringing new viewers to category. That will hopefully encourage Turner Sports and other content producers to consider offering unique and potentially attractive sports events to the PPV category. 

Boxing promotion company Premier Boxing Champions is betting fans will continue to watch fights on traditional television, even as some prominent cable networks exit the ring and digital competitors such as DAZN and ESPN+ look to siphon away aficionados of the sweet science.

PBC — which arguably features the sport’s most attractive stable of champions and contenders, including welterweights Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter and middleweights Anthony Dirrell and Jermall and Jermell Charlo — will offer a multitude of championship boxing matches on pay TV, premium cable and pay-per-view in an effort to expose the sport to a large swath of viewers.

PBC has distribution deals in place with premium service Showtime, along with broadcast network Fox and its sister cable network FS1, to offer more than 10 live boxing cards in the first three months of 2019 alone. Most of those fights will air on Fox and FS1 as part of PBC’s recently announced four-year deal with Fox Sports.

In addition, Showtime and Fox will both step into the pay-per-view arena during the first quarter in an effort to maximize revenue opportunities featuring some of boxing’s biggest attractions. Showtime last week said it would distribute a Jan. 16 welterweight championship fight between champion Manny Pacquiao and former champion Adrien Broner.

As the next crop of fighters matures and becomes more well-known among sports fans, there will be more opportunities to develop marquee PPV events in the future, Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza said. However, he wouldn’t say if the network is looking at any other PPV fights beyond Pac-quiao-Broner and the Dec. 1 Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury event.

The PBC-Fox deal allows for four to six PPV events a year, including the March 16 welterweight championship fight between current titleholder Errol Spence Jr. and four-division world champion Mikey Garcia, which gives the parties flexibility to offer PBC’s best fights on traditional television.

Tim Smith, vice president of communications for Heymon Sports (which owns PBC) said Fox’s aggressive approach to televising boxing will help re-energize the sport. “It [the Fox Sports deal] is a game-changer for the sport,” he said. “Boxing is a star-driven business, and network telecasts in the past are how you got the Sugar Ray Leonards, Marvin Haglers and Roberto Durans to become superstars.”

The PBC/Fox Sports/Showtime first-quarter 2019 push into televised boxing comes as digital OTT services such as DAZN and ESPN+ continue to secure rights to marquee fighters that formerly fought on traditional television.

DAZN, which launched this past September, has already streamed several high-profile boxing matches, including the Sept. 22 Anthony Joshua-Alexander Povetkin heavyweight championship fight. The OTT service will also stream a Dec. 15 fight between middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez and Rocky Fielding — the first of 11 straight Alvarez fights the $4.99-per-month service will offer.

Most of Alvarez’s previous fights have been distributed by HBO or on a PPV basis.

ESPN+ will feature 12 exclusive primetime boxing events from boxing promoter Top Rank Inc. in 2019 as part of an exclusive, seven-year agreement between the two parties. It also comes as boxing mainstay HBO pulls out of the fight game after 45 years, due in part to increased competition for TV rights.

Outlets Grow for Boxing

While the upstart digital networks are formidable competitors in the sport, Showtime’s Espinoza said there’s room for numerous distributors of boxing content. “There was a lot of surprise and disappointment surrounding HBO’s exit, but from a pure numerical standpoint, there are more entities and players in boxing and more boxing being made available to consumers,” he said. “In general, that’s a good thing.”

PBC’s Smith said the Fox deal would provide marketing opportunities for the fighters on high-profile sports events like Fox’s National Football League telecasts. “If you look at the quality of boxers that we have, it’s very attractive, and now you’re going to see those guys showcased in potentially 120 million Fox broadcasting homes,” Smith said.

Fox Sports National Networks president Mark Silverman added the new deal will put Fox Sports in the middle of the boxing ring. “We’re thrilled to have Premier Boxing Champions’ brightest stars coming to Fox Sports, reaching the biggest audiences on broadcast television,” he said.

After a slow 2018, the pay-per-view boxing category is expected to come out swinging in 2019.

Already two fights are positioned to vie for boxing fans’ dollars in the first quarter of next year, which would match the number of marquee fights distributed in all of 2018. Fox Sports will join the ranks of PPV distributors when it offers its first ever PPV event in March.

Fox and fight promoter Premier Boxing Champions will distribute the March 16 welterweight championship fight between current titleholder Errol Spence Jr. and four-division world champion Mikey Garcia, part of 10 televised fight cards to be carried by Fox Broadcasting and FS1 in the first three months of 2019. Fox and PBC announced the fights -- part of a recently signed, four-year agreement between the two companies -- during a Tuesday afternoon press conference. 

Fox Sports’ PPV distribution of the Spence-Garcia PPV fight is significant for a category that will lose one of its most dependable partners in HBO Sports, which after a 45-year run will stop airing live boxing matches beginning in 2019. If successful, Fox’s first PPV boxing event could set up the possibility of future big ticket PPV events featuring some of the top fighters in the sport, including welterweights Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter; and middleweights Anthony Dirrell, Jermall and Jermell Charlo.

The Spence-Garcia fight is expected to be preceded in the PPV arena by a proposed,  Showtime-distributed fight between current PPV boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and former four-time champion Adrien Broner. The fight would mark the return of Pacquiao -- the second-most lucrative PPV fighter in history behind retired boxer Floyd Mayweather – to the PPV ring in more than two years.

The fight would also mark Showtime’s second PPV bout in as many months, following its scheduled Dec. 1 Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight championship fight. 

Turner Sports Thursday released a new video showcasing its upcoming Nov. 23 Capital One’s The Match: Tiger vs. Phil pay-per-view golf event.

The “Destiny” video short features golf legends Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as they discuss their storied careers and on-course meetings over the past three decades through a mashup of highlights. The PPV event will feature the two golfers as they face off against each other in an 18-hole golf match.

Tiger vs. Phil will be available on PPV through Turner’s digital SVOD sports service Bleacher Report Live as well as to MVPD providers through through In Demand and Vubiquity, according to Turner.

Turner Sports’ Nov. 23 Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson pay-per-view golf match highlights what has been a very unique and successful fall for the PPV event category.

The Capital One’s The Match: Tiger vs. Phil event – the first live, head-to-head golf event ever carried on PPV -- will retail at a suggested price of $19.99, according to Turner executives. Turner is treating the event, in which the winner will receive a $9 million prize -- like a big, boxing match. It has commissioned sister premium service HBO to offer its 24/7 sports documentary series – which is usually associated with marquee boxing matches – to follow the two iconic golfers leading up to the big event.

Golf fans can buy the match through traditional companies like In Demand and Vubiquity, as well as through new entrants like Turner’s Bleacher Report Live streaming sports service.

Tiger vs. Phil adds to what has become a very fruitful period for the PPV event category.

For the first eight months of the year, the pay-per-view event industry hadn’t had a lot to cheer about. Then in September, Canelo Alvarez and Genaddy Golovkin stepped into the boxing ring for a rematch of their highly controversial November 2017 fight, which ended in a draw. Along with being an action-packed fight -- won by Alvarez in a close decision -- the rematch drew approximately 1.1 million PPV buys, according to ESPN.

The Oct. 6 UFC 229 Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov fight will be remembered mostly for the wild, post-fight melee that took place both inside and outside the octagon. Yet the event is trending to become the most successful PPV event in UFC’s history with more than 2 million buys, according to published reports.

Showtime will step into the PPV ring Dec. 1 with its big heavyweight championship fight between Deontay Wlder and Tyson Fury.

Looking ahead, the PPV category will certainly face some challenges beginning in 2019 as upstart streaming services like ESPN and DAZN compete for mid-sized combat sports events. DAZN’s deal to stream current PPV boxing champion Alvarez’s next 11 fights is a major body blow to the category.

But for now, the PPV category is enjoying a very event-filled and lucrative end to 2018. 

In a major boxing distribution deal, OTT streaming sports service DAZN has secured rights to distribute boxing matches featuring middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez as part of a five-year deal between the two parties.

Alvarez, touted as the industry’s current pound-for-pound pay-per-view boxing champion, will now fight his next 11 fights on the DAZN streaming sports service beginning with Alvarez’s Dec. 15 fight against Rocky Fielding, according to DAZN executives.

The deal also calls for DAZN to stream up to 10 fights per year from Alvarez promoter Golden Boy Productions.

Most of Alvarez’s previous fights have been distributed by HBO, which last month announced it will stop airing live boxing matches beginning in 2019. 

RELATED: HBO Sports' EVP Peter Nelson Details Network’s Departure from TV Boxing Ring

Alvarez’ last two fights against Gennady Golovkin were distributed via pay-per-view, with their first bout in November 2017 -- which ended in a draw -- averaging more than 1 million PPV buys. HBO has not released PPV numbers from the fighters’ Sept. 15 PPV fight, which Alvarez won in a close decision.

“This gives us an opportunity to demonstrate our world class streaming platform to US sports fans,’ said DAZN Group chairman John Skipper. “We expect to announce additional high-quality content across a wide variety of popular sports to the US service in upcoming months and years as we lead the way in transforming global sports viewing to affordable and flexible over the top services.”

RELATED: How OTT Services Are Scoring Wins Against Pay-Per-View with Ring-Sports Viewers

Showtime will conclude its 2018 boxing schedule Dec. 1 with its first pay-per-view event of the year, the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight championship fight. Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza details the upcoming fight and the network’s overall commitment to boxing. Espinoza also addresses potential emerging competition from new, OTT streaming services. An edited version of our conversation appears below.

Why did Showtime decide to offer the Wilder-Fury fight via PPV after not distributing a PPV event all year?

When you get to the heavyweight championship of the world, that's something where pay-per-view is a consideration. Given the financial parameters, the decision was made, but other factors played in as well. There's a great deal of casual fan interest in the heavyweight division, and sports fans who don't usually follow boxing will get drawn in by a big heavyweight fight. These two fighters, Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury, have two of the biggest personalities in the sport. There's always a little bit of risk when you are launching a fighter -- or in this case two fighters -- on pay per view for the first time, but we are much more comfortable given these fighters’ personalities. They are two of the most charismatic and likable fighters in the sport, and they can generate a tremendous amount of media just by themselves.

The Tyson-Flury fight caps what has been a busy year for Showtime with regards to boxing. Has 2018 been as successful as you expected from a business standpoint?

We were thrilled with how this year is gone, especially given that we knew we would be facing a new challenge with the retirement of Floyd Mayweather after the McGregor fight. We knew we needed to lean on some new stars to drive the Showtime business and potentially launch back into pay-per-view. Overall, we had a tremendously strong year, with more events and more world championship fights than any other outlet by far. Up to and including the December 1 pay-per-view event, we will have done more than 70 live fights across nearly 30 separate, distinct events, which includes linear TV as well as some of the fights that we made available via streaming on social platforms. So regardless of how you slice and dice it whether it's quality of fights or volume of fights across a variety of platforms, we've been very happy with the product this year.

How would you define the state of boxing on television?

We've seen one notable departure [HBO recently announced it will not offer live boxing events after 2018] and some some new entries from new networks getting into the sport or getting back into the business. Competition remains very, very strong in the sports media business, and the fact that there are multiple, new entrants into boxing shows that this sport is very healthy and presents a very valuable opportunity for distributors. The streaming players have generated a lot of attention, but from our perspective it really isn't particularly about the method of delivery. We've been delivering our boxing content and all of our content via streaming for several years, whether it's through our [Showtime] OTT direct-to-consumer product we launched in 2015, or via the live feed as part of our authenticated product, which dates back to 2010. So the delivery of high level boxing content via streaming is something we've been doing for several years -- what is key is high-quality content, and for boxing fans we know we have been delivering the highest quality content of any U.S. outlet.

Has Showtime’s boxing telecasts translated into increased viewership and subscribers?

When we asked our subscribers how important Showtime Championship Boxing is in their decision to continue subscribing to premium TV, 29 percent of respondents said it's very important and 54 percent considered it important or very important. So any time you have half of the audience saying that something is either important or very important, what it says to us is that boxing remains a valuable commodity for our network. It attracts subscribers; it drives business, and we know we're delivering it well. So we are bullish about the sport of boxing; we've been in it for over 30 years and we're not leaving anytime soon. 

Pay-per-view boxing legend Manny Pacquiao will once again step in the ring Saturday night for a fight that boxing fans will have to dish out a fee to watch.  

Yet instead of paying upwards of $50 on PPV to watch Pacquiao go for his 60th career win against hard-hitting Lucas Matthysse, fight fans will only have to pay digital streaming sports service ESPN+'s $4.99 monthly fee to catch the fisticuffs.

Pacquiao is the second most lucrative fighter in PPV boxing history, and his 2015 fight with all-time PPV boxing champion Floyd Mayweather remains the most-purchased PPV event of all time with 4.6 million buys. Even at 39 years old and well past his prime, Pacquiao's fight with Matthysse could have done decent PPV business, especially since the category hasn’t had a major fight through the first seven months of the year.

Yet the Malaysian-based fight—part of a full day of live boxing content that will air on ESPN and the ESPN app prior to the main event – will instead mark the highest-profile boxing match to stream live on the upstart digital service, which launched in March to much fanfare. 

ESPN’s multi-year, multi-media deal with boxing promotion company Top Rank Inc. reached last year will provide the subscription service with several marquee boxing matches to offer in the near future, including last month's Terence Crawford-Horn welterweight title fight. 

Pacquiao's last fight -- a 12-round loss to Jeff Horn in 2017 -- aired on ESPN and drew more than 3 million viewers, according to published reports.

“Saturday’s boxing lineup gives us the ability to own the night with boxing fans, and the Manny Pacquiao-Lucas Matthysse match is a perfect example of the world-class caliber of events we envisioned for ESPN+,” said Burke Magnus, executive vice president of programming and scheduling. “The match also provides us with an incredible opportunity to generate compelling storytelling across all our platforms.”

With new digital sports services like ESPN+, Turner’s Bleacher Report Live and combat sports-themed service DAZN seeking to secure rights to live boxing content along with traditional premium cable services Showtime and HBO, it’s not that far-fetched to question whether the PPV fight business is on the ropes.

The scheduled Sept. 15 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin rematch will be the first major PPV event to be offered to fight fans in 2018 (the bout was initially scheduled for May 5 but was cancelled after Alvarez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs).

The last major PPV boxing match was Alvarez-Golovkin I last November, which drew approximately 1.3 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. That fight, combined with the 4.3 million buys generated by the August 2017 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor PPV fight, made 2017 one of the more successful years in PPV history.

While the PPV boxing category is closely watching the increasing competition from digital sports services, executives say the category remains very viable. PPV boxing historically has been cyclical, and executives say the category is in a downturn right now.

“The PPV industry is only as good as the fighters it can draw, and right now there’s no doubt that there’s a lull with respect to fighters that can carry a PPV event,” said In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi. He also said the industry has been spoiled in recent years by the likes of Mayweather, Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez, who often fought multiple times a year on PPV.

“Even though there are some great fighters in the sport, right now there are fewer PPV draws than we’ve had over the past few years,” Boccardi added. “We’re confident that the  big PPV's will remain tentpoles for the industry in boxing and in MMA.”

Meanwhile, HBO is still bullish on boxing and PPV. The network is confident that fight fans will ante up $74.99 in September for Alvarez-Golovkin despite the lack of marquee PPV boxing events this year.

“I actually think boxing is in great shape when you look at the people who all of the sudden want to be involved in boxing in a big way,” HBO pay-per-view vice president Tony Walker said. 

SES Video and InDemand are teaming to offer a 4K feed of the first Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) set for June 2 at 9 p.m. from the Cheyenne Ice Events Center in Wyoming.

SES said the 4K event, produced by Multivision Media, will be available nationally to cable and IPTV service providers that are signed on for its pre-packaged 4K offering.

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Based on those partners, the following MVPDs would be eligible to provide the 4K feed of the bare-knuckle PPV card: Armstrong Utilities, Aureon Network Services, Dish Network, enTouch Systems, EPG Chattanooga, Foothills Communications, Guadalupe Valley (GVTC), Highlands Cable Group, Hotwire Communications, Jackson Energy Authority, KPU Telecommunications, Sjoberg’s Cable TV, Buckeye Broadband, Margaretville Telephony Company, Marquette Adams, Midco, Midwest Video Solutions, Oneida Cablevision, Service Electric Cable TV, Skitter Inc., Wherever TV, and WideOpenWest. Verizon Fios and Frontier Communications are also testing 4K TV with SES.

RELATED: SES Touts 4K Progress

SES didn’t announce which MVPDs are on board for tomorrow’s 4K offering, but noted that the 4K version of the event will be delivered on the SES Events channel, one in a lineup that is hosted on the SES Ultra HD platform. SES has used that channel to deliver other sporting events in 4K, including Bellator: Sonnen vs. Silva Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and select coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games from PyeongChang.

“The SES Events channel is readily available for live events to virtually every Pay TV operator across North America,” Steve Corda, VP of media platforms, SES Video in North America, said in a statement.

Brian Ricco, executive producer for MultiVision Media, told Multichannel News R. Thomas Umstead that all major cable distributors, as well as DirecTV and Dish Network, will offer the event. “This is not an underground event; this is going to be in big arenas featuring full-blown productions,” he told Umstead.

The BKFC’s first card, featuring 12 bouts, is retailing for $29.99. SES has been asked if the 4K version of the PPV event will be offered for the same price.

“Events like the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship are immersive building blocks toward an exciting future in Ultra HD television,” noted John Schultz, VP of broadcast operations for InDemand, which is co-owned by Comcast, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications.

Other channels in SES’s pre-packaged Ultra HD lineup include Fashion One 4K, NASA TV UHD, 4K Universe, Insight TV, C4K360, Funbox UHD, Travelxp 4K, Nature Relaxation 4K, The Country Network, UHD1, and the SES 4K channel (a developmental incubator for emerging content producers). 

HBO will distribute the first pay-per-view boxing match of the year in May with the rematch fight between Canelo Alverez and Gennady Golovkin.

The May 5 fight from Los Vegas will pit the two middleweight champions against each other eight months after their first fight, which ended in a controversial draw. That fight drew more than 1 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. 

“It’s a special moment for the sport when two of boxing’s most accomplished competitors-both in their prime- agree to meet again in the ring to settle who is the man in the middleweight division,” said Peter Nelson, Executive Vice President, HBO Sports in a statement “Canelo vs. GGG2 is the boxing event of the first half of 2018 and we are pleased to present it live on HBO Pay-Per-View.”

HBO is not worried about the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight undercutting what it hopes will be a blockbuster on Saturday, Sept. 16, featuring middleweight champions Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin.

HBO pay-per-view vice president Tony Walker told Multichannel News that Mayweather-McGregor was more of an event, whereas Alvarez-Golovkin should appeal more to traditional boxing fans. HBO even hopes to piggyback on the Mayweather-McGregor hype, having marketed its event during the run-up to that Aug. 26 bout, in which boxer Mayweather defeated mixed-martial-arts specialist McGregor.

“There’s some distance between the two fights,” Walker said. “I fully expect a lot of people who purchased [Mayweather- McGregor] to come back and buy [Alvarez- Golovkin] on Sept. 16.”

In addition to the hard-core boxing crowd, more Hispanic viewers are expected to buy the HBO fight, due to Alvarez’s popularity among those viewers. Walker said the Aug. 26 premiere of HBO’s 24/7 Canelo-Golovkin preview show drew an impressive 350,000 viewers despite going directly up against the Mayweather-McGregor PPV event.

HBO will run promotional spots for the fight during high-profile sports events like National Football League, Major League Baseball and college football games.

Walker would not project how many PPV buys HBO expects to generate from Alvarez-Golovkin, but said he thinks it could surpass Alvarez’s best PPV performance. Alvarez’s May 6 fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. generated 1 million buys, according to fight promoter Golden Boy Promotions.

NeuLion said it live stream the upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight for several global rights holders, including the UFC, Sky Sports, Sky New Zealand and Eleven Sports Network.

RELATED: Gearing Up for a Pay-Per-View KO (subscription required)

Those partners will use NeuLion’s Digital Platform for the live streaming of the four-fight Showtime PPV event, set for Saturday, Aug. 26 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

NeuLion said its platform will handle authentication and purchasing of bout for each of the four partner offerings, including UFC.TV, Sky Sports Box Office, Sky Fan Pass and the Eleven Sports Network’s OTT service.

RELATED: Sling TV to Offer Mayweather-McGregor PPV

NeuLion, which will deliver and monitor the live event from its technical operations centers in New York and London, said it also designed and developed the consumer experience for its respective streaming partners.

On Saturday (June 24) mixed marital arts organization Bellator MMA will step into the pay-per-view arena with its Chael Sonnen/Wanderlei Silva-headlined fight card.

TheBellator NYC: Sonnen vs. Silvaevent, originating for New York City’s Madison Square Garden, will feature a rare 4K PPV feed for fight fans with a 4K-ready television. The 4K feed will cost $59.99, $10 higher than the fight’s suggested PPV retail price, said company officials.

I recently spoke to Spike TV senior vice president of sports and specials Jon Slusser about the upcoming PPV event as well as Bellator’s future PPV aspirations. And edited version of the interview appears below.

Thomas Umstead: Why did Bellator decide now was the right time to jump into the PPV arena?

Jon Slusser: Pay-per-view events at their core are about the fight, and when you have the fights that are good enough to support a pay per view then you can start down that path. Not only has Scott created an incredible card with title fights featuring some of the biggest names in the history of the sport, but also we're doing it in a place that is right down the street from our offices in the media capital of the world. This is our biggest show ever and we're bringing everything we got. We have fantastic pay-per-view partners in people like In Demand, DirecTV and Dish, and we have long-standing, multi-year relationships with these companies. This is one more way not just to build and develop our business but to strengthen our relationships with those PPV providers.

RTU: The Bellator event will be offered in 4K … how important is that for Bellator in its attempt to draw in viewers for the PPV event?

JS: We pride ourselves on our broadcast and our ability to entertain our fans both inside the cage and out. Sports fans always want things in the highest resolution that they can get it. The first adopters for new resolution technologies are people who watch sports. We want to give them the action in the highest resolution possible and to be on the cutting edge of providing the best experience possible for our fans and for our consumers. We always try to deliver as much as we can in and around our fights, so whether that's the entertainment in the arena or delivering something like 4K we try to do as much as we can to make the viewing experience great.

RTU: Will Bellator look to do more PPV events in the future?

JS: Absolutely. This isn’t just a one-off for us – it’s a new line of business. Like I said earlier the only way that's possible is to have a roster of talent so deep that you can support multiple pay-per-view events per year. So this is the start of a line of business; it's the start of this relationship with our great paper providers and partners, and its the start of what Scott Cocker's going to be providing to the fans.

RTU: Having said that, is there a possibility fans will see another PPV event before the end of the year?

JS: We have not announced what our next one will be but there is a next one coming soon.

The curious proposed boxing match between retired boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and UFC mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor seemingly moved a step closer to reality last week.

UFC president Dana White has given his blessing to the fight, announcing last Wednesday on TNT’s Inside The NBA post-game show that the mixed martial arts outfit has reached an agreement with arguably the UFC's biggest star, allowing McGregor to step out of the UFC octagon and into the squared ring to face Mayweather (pictured) in a straight-up boxing match. White however, refused to predict that the fight will actually happen.

Mayweather, who last fought in 2015, has yet to sign on the dotted line to fight McGregor, but the undefeated fighter was quoted by ESPN.com over the weekend saying that if he were to return to the ring it would be against the UFC champion.

"If I do fight, there's a 90 percent chance it's against Conor McGregor," Mayweather said. "The only sort of numbers I worry about are pay-per-view numbers. I have to see what the next move is."

Indeed, while some hardcore boxing and UFC fans might bristle at the prospect of a Mayweather-McGregor “fight,” there’s no doubt that the event would create a lot of interest from fight fans as well as non-sports aficionados. That could potentially translate into a big pay-per-view payday for fight distributors. 

As the PPV boxing category’s undisputed pound-for-pound champion, Mayweather is almost certain to draw close to 1 million buys or more every time he steps into the PPV ring, even with his prolonged absence from boxing. Mayweather’s pursuit of his 50th straight win against McGregor – also a bona fide PPV draw in his own right – could post some knockout PPV numbers if the fight happens. Mayweather’s 2015 fight against Manny Pacquiao holds the all-time PPV event record with more than 4 million PPV buys.

Four marquee boxing and UFC pay-per- view events over the next two months could salvage what has been an otherwise weak year for the category.

After generating more than $500 million in revenue last year — some $400 million from just the May 2, 2015 Floyd Mayweather- Manny Pacquiao welterweight title fight — the live PPV-event category has garnered less than half of that take through the first 10 months of 2016, industry sources said.

Distributors hope a flurry of big PPV events in November and December will help pad the category’s revenue take. The latest addition to the PPV category is the Dec. 30 return of UFC star Ronda Rousey to the octagon, more than a year after her shocking loss to Holly Holm in last November’s UFC 193.

UFC CARRYING THE LOAD

The show joins UFC’s Nov. 12 PPV event from New York’s Madison Square Garden, which will feature popular UFC fighter Conor McGregor. In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi said that the appearance of Rousey and McGregor in two of the final three UFC PPV events -- the MMA outfit will also distribute its UFC 206 event on Dec. 10 -- will cap off what has been one of the most lucrative years for the UFC in terms of PPV revenue, although he would not disclose specifics.

“Clearly, this is a year where the UFC is helping the entire category,” Boccardi said. “Everyone sees that boxing is down — we had no Mayweather and one Pacquaio fight so far [this past April against Timothy Bradley Jr.] — so the UFC’s really strong performance is good for the overall health of the business. The events feature two tentpole athletes for PPV in Rousey and McGregor — the two are by far the biggest UFC PPV stars — and the crossover appeal that Ronda has you can’t overstate.”

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Two high-profile PPV boxing events will also take place within two weeks of each other in November. This Saturday ([Nov. 5) Pacquiao will step into the PPV ring for a fight against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas, while Nov. 19 will pit Sergey Kovalev against Andre Ward in a battle of undefeated light heavyweight boxers.

Boxing promotion company Top Rank, which is distributing the Pacquiao-Vargas fight, isn’t concerned about cannibalization, given the back-to-back-to-back marquee PPV events, company president Todd duBoef said.

DAILY DOC SERIES KICKS OFF

Top Rank recently turned to the Web to promote the fight. The network last week launched ALL IN: Pacquiao-Vargas, a daily documentary series on Top Rank’s Facebook page and Twitter feed that it said will give boxing fans an inside look at each fighter’s daily preparations.

Related > Building Boxing's Next PPV Champ [subscription required]

HBO will push the lion’s share of its promotional efforts for the Kovalev-Ward fight to the week before the event in an effort to avoid the marketing noise from the Pacquiao-Vargas and UFC 205 events. While there is a concern about potential cannibalization of viewers, HBO vice president of programming Tony Walker said the network is confident its event would appeal to boxing fans looking for a competitive matchup between undefeated fighters.

“There are some [cannibalization] concerns, but we think our fight is of a quality that will make people watch it,” Walker said.