Hello boxing fans and dedicated haters. Here’s another week’s worth of my bulbous sack, bulging with gooey, salty truth, in your face. Enjoy. This week, we have comments/questions regarding Canelo’s move to DAZN/PPV and PPV on DAZN as a whole.
PPV on DAZN
Hey Paul.
So, DAZN is going to kick off their PPV efforts with the Canelo vs. Bivol fight. I have mixed feelings about this and it’s hard not to bee critical after they made a big deal about them killing off PPV, but it just may be a necessary evil in this market. What do you think– is DAZN PPV the best of both worlds or the worst of both worlds?
— Simon
Hey Simon.
It’s always a shitty situation when you talk big and just can’t back up your talk. With all the missteps, mistakes, and general idiocy in DAZN’s boxing efforts, there was no way they’d come out looking like anything other than morons. Signing Canelo to kick off their PPV brand is about as close to saving face as they’re going to come. It’s a bad deal, though, for those who had already come onboard as loyal subscribers under the premise of one price for all boxing action.
As things stand now, the Canelo Alvarez-Dmitry Bivol pay-per-view will be sold at a price of $79.99 to non-subscribers and $59.99 to subscribers (on top of their regular $19.99 charge for the month).
For existing customers, this is like going to McDonald’s and finding out that the Big Mac in their $7.99 Big Mac Meal is now going to cost them $6 extra– and then seeing a McDonald’s corporate press release about how this new pricing policy is actually a GOOD thing because it gives the consumers FREEDOM! After all, the consumer can always choose NOT to have the Big Mac in their Big Mac Meal!
If DAZN can live through the ill will and loss of confidence of their existing subscriber base, this PPV/subscription hybrid could be the best of both worlds. Really, it’s the business model they should’ve adopted from day one. The only way an all-subscription model succeeds in boxing is if a company has a huge roster of “name” fighters and plenty of bankable matchups available to them. DAZN had neither. They were doomed from the beginning and, perhaps, put their faith in boxing brains who were either not too bright or just there to blow smoke up the execs’ asses while fattening up their own bank accounts.
DAZN can make this PPV/subscription hybrid work, but they’re going to have to be smarter than they were before getting to this point. They face a slippery slope now of what, exactly, is PPV-worthy. Okay, the Canelo fights are clearly PPV-level events. But what else do they have for their PPV branch? They didn’t create that functionality to NOT use it as much as possible. I’ve heard that in some of their markets, Ryan Garcia-Emmanuel Tagoe on April 9 is going to be pay-per-view. That’s insane. Getting too PPV-happy– and there’s going to be a HUGE temptation to put that extra price tag on as much as possible– will be a death blow for their boxing efforts.
Smart Canelo, Dumb DAZN?
Canelo’s not behind a paywall, and there’s nothing preventing him from fighting Benavidez or Charlo. Stephen Espinoza just recently stated that Showtime offered Canelo more money than DAZN and he still refused to take their two fight offer.
Conversely, how dumb is DAZN? Seriously! Which leads to my true beliefs. Eddie Reynoso and Canelo knows that DAZN is gullible. Nonetheless, they keep throwing money around for fights that have little to no appeal to the American market. Therefore, even if the offer is slightly less than what the PBC offered, it makes sense, because those are sugar daddy deals. They only come around every now and then. Whereas the PBC deal is always on the table.
I recall you doing an article regarding “What If” Deontay Wilder took DAZN 3 fight $100 million deal instead of a rematch with Tyson Fury. Had he taken the 3 fight deal with DAZN he’d still have the Fury rematch on the Table whenever he wanted it. However, he turned the DAZN deal down and took the Fury rematch and now that sugar daddy deal with DAZN is gone.
I think Canelo is going after deals that won’t be around in the next year or more. I think he knows that Benavidez and Charlo will be kept away from one another and the fight will only grow in demand. But that’s just my opinion. What’s your take on Canelo’s preference of opponents?
– Nail Rahman
Hey Nail.
It’s smart business. As you said, those PBC fights will be there in 2023, after he picks up the sucker money over at DAZN.
Taking the DAZN deal also gives him a direct line to unifying the light heavyweight belts, as well as a chance to put the nails in the coffin of old rival Gennadiy Golovkin. If he beats Dmitry Bivol in May (and beats Golovkin in September), he could very well move on to face the winner of the upcoming Artur Beterbiev-Joe Smith Jr. 175 lb. 3-belt unification. Canelo is all about history/legacy and this course of action could lead to him becoming unified 4-belt champion in two divisions, simultaneously– something which has never been done before. There’s no way this wouldn’t appeal to the man.
Charlo and Benavidez will be there if/when he decides to face them, but the window’s only going to be open to a full 175 lb. unification (and last revenge on GGG) for a relatively short period of time. Plus, who knows how long DAZN will be around, throwing money into wood chippers? This move is just a testament to how smart Canelo Alvarez is.
PPV WTF?
Hey Paulie! Big fan, long-time reader here.
Please tell me, besides Canelo, who the f*ck, could DAZN possibly put on PPV? Devin Haney? Demetrius Andrade? Zzzzzzzzzzz. I guess it might be cheaper than a prescription of Ambien.
– Omar M. from TX
Hey Omar.
That’s the question, right? What could they put on pay-per-view without offending, alienating, and driving away existing subscribers? After seeing their general body of work up until now, I don’t have much confidence in their ability to successfully pull off this PPV plan of theirs. If I’m being a total optimist, though, I guess they could save something like Ryan Garcia-Devin Haney for PPV or Gennadiy Golovkin-Jaimie Munguia. But even something like that puts them in a tough spot. With the “regular” subscription service becoming a place for lesser fights and fighters, why pay 20 bucks for access to what essentially would be a dumping ground for what DAZN can’t sell otherwise? It’s going to take some real savvy to pull off this PPV/subscription hybrid. We’ll see how well these guys handle things.
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