By Craig Page: Eddie Hearn believes the Ryan Garcia vs. Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford fights could get made if PBC were to make the right decisions.
In the Tank-Ryan case, if Showtime were to allow DAZN to be involved with that fight, it would get made “immediately.” Showtime wants to be the one that exclusively shows the fight.
With the Spence-Crawford match, Hearn says Spence should have agreed to the 25 million deal that Crawford told him was available for each of them from an outside company. Instead of going for the deal, Spence told his adviser Al Haymon about it, and he didn’t go for it.
Now, Spence could be fighting Keith Thurman next for a “quarter” of the money that he would have made had he agreed to the Crawford offer, according to Hearn.
“I think DAZN is willing to work with broadcasters to make sure the best fights are made,” said Eddie Hearn to Fight Hub TV. “I don’t know enough about the Tank – Ryan Garcia issue. It sounds like SHOWTIME don’t want DAZN involved, and if they did, the fight would get made instantly.
“When you look at Spence-Crawford after Crawford’s comments last night, it was, ‘We offered them more money than they could have made, but ultimately we couldn’t do it because it wasn’t a PBC fight, and they wouldn’t allow that.’
“That’s all you can do. Ultimately, our offer to Deontay Wilder would be just that. ‘Here’s an amount of money for the fight. If we have to work with cross networks, we have no problem looking to that.’
“Anthony Joshua is exclusive to DAZN. We can look to a dual broadcast; we can look to just making you an offer, and maybe contractually, you can just accept that offer.
“These fighters have to also look out for themselves and take the opportunities. If fights can’t get made in one way, they should look in another way. Contractually, sometimes that’s difficult, but if it’s not difficult contractually, you have to look at that.
“If Errol Spence was really offered 20 or 25 million to fight Terence Crawford, he probably should have taken it, but obviously was told not to take it. But now he’s going to be fighting for a quarter of that to fight Thurman or Stanionis or whatever it’s going to be.
“There’s a lot of bluff merchants in boxing. Not Terence Crawford, but people who will get in people’s ears. ‘I’ll do that, and I’ll pay that.’ Whatever you think about Al Haymon stopping fights and blocking fights. Al Haymon is also very intelligent. He knows the industry like the back of his hand.
“So sometimes people will come into the sport that he may perceive to be clowns or like, ‘I’m not working with those guys,’ and I understand that. So, I don’t blame Al Haymon too much, but obviously, if you can’t get a fight made. You got to look at it like this. With Al Haymon, he has a contract with FOX, with SHOWTIME.
“They’ve invested a lot of money into Errol Spence. If Al Haymon takes Errol Spence off FOX and off SHOWTIME, it’s going to be hugely detrimental to his business. That’s really not Errol Spence’s problem, but it’s on Al to make that fight.
“Now, Crawford is a free agent. They should have made that fight. The problem with that fight, and I’ll say it again; it’s not as big as people perceive it to be. The problem is when you’ve got people coming in looking to enter the market, paying inflated purses, i.e., 25 million, and Al Haymon is out there saying, ‘We don’t have a guarantee. It’s a split.’
“On the other hand, someone is in Terence Crawford’s ear, saying, ‘I’ll give you 25 million for the fight.’ Crawford’s thinking, ‘I’m not doing a split. What’s my guarantee?’ Al Haymon says, ‘There’s no guarantee.’ The problem with this fight is if a fight is big enough, you don’t need a guarantee.
“The reality is, no one believes enough in that fight to hit the numbers that the fighters believe is the right number for that fight. So if I’m doing that fight, I’m budgeting the fight at four and five hundred thousand buys. That’s where I’m comfortable to pay a guarantee.
“Now the fighters think, ‘It does a million’ because someone told them in the gym that it does a million. But the reality is, it doesn’t. It might do six hundred. It might do 700, but what if it does 350? Who is going to pay the price?
“So when you have an open book policy, i.e., a split, that’s the greatest position for a promoter because you have no guarantees, no risk. It does what it does, and you get paid what your worth. But we live in a world of boxing where fighters don’t get paid what they’re worth. They get paid a lot more than they’re actually worth and good luck to them.
“In that instance, if someone has told Terence Crawford that he should be getting 25 million, and there’s a guy who someone has phoned him up and told him, ‘I’ll give you 25 million.’
“It becomes very difficult for someone like Al Haymon. I don’t necessarily blame Al Haymon because Al knows the numbers, and Al wasn’t prepared to pay a guarantee because he doesn’t want to lose money.
“I keep going back to that fight. We live in a very small world in boxing where we think Spence-Crawford is massive. In my opinion, Ryan Garcia vs. Gervonta Davis is a bigger fight than Spence-Crawford.
“It’s a mix of fan bases. It’s a younger generational fight. For me, it’s the bigger fight. I would be backing, and it doesn’t matter if you think I’m right or wrong. If I’m putting up guarantees, I’m putting up a bigger guarantee for the Tank against Ryan Garcia than I do Spence vs. Crawford.
“I have more belief because of the fan bases that fight does better numbers. It’s just my opinion. It’s fascinating, really. Now, Terence Crawford gets 10 million to fight David Avanesyan, or rumored. Good luck to him on BLK Prime. The whole worlds gone mad, but good luck to the fighters.
“It’s alright [BLK Prime]; it’s a new platform. I don’t know who’s behind it. I don’t know nothing about it. But when you come into a market, as we’ve done with DAZN, you have to overpay to convince the fighters to fight on your platform.
“When DAZN came into the market, they were already operating in multiple territories with major rights deals with individual TV rights with football leagues. They’re a major organization. BLK have no real history in broadcasting, but a the same time, they’re coming in and have to do something outrageous.
“They can’t just come in and say, ‘We’re going to pay market value.’ No one is going to fight on BLK Prime. They have to come in and say, ‘Right, we’re going to throw some money around to get some people fighting on BLK Prime.’
“They’re doing it with Crawford-Avanesyan. The problem is with that fight is no one is going to watch it, and no one is going to watch it on BLK Prime. I’ve experienced that.
“I’ve been through this process with a bigger platform but still coming into the U.S with a brand that the fight fans ultimately hadn’t heard of in the U.S, and I’ve been through this whole process.
“Good luck to them, and good luck to them, and good luck to Terence Crawford because he’s getting outrageous money for a fight that he could fight Avanesyan 1000 times, and he wouldn’t lose once, and Avanesyan is a good fighter. But Terence is a pound-for-pound special fighter.
“I’m talking about Spence-Crawford. I don’t think you can’t blame, but if a fights big enough, it gets made because unless a fighter completely loses his mind in terms of what his value is in that fight.
“Also, we live in a world where fighters listen to people who have no f***ing idea about the reality and the numbers. Whatever you want to say about Al, he knows the numbers. I know the numbers. Sometimes a pay-per-view can outperform, but we’re rarely wrong in terms of five and ten-percent fluctuation.
“When you look at Wilder-Helenius, 70,000, 75,000? That was lower than I anticipated. Dan Rafael recorded some numbers about Golovkin-Canelo, totally wrong. So they might be wrong.
“I do think pay-per-view is becoming harder. In the economy and the world we live in, it has to be an event. This also transpires to the live gate. If it’s just an average show or a good show, it might not do the same number at the gate than it did last year.
“Now, if you create a great event that people have to be at, they will attend, and they will pay. But there’s more pressure to produce quality shows,” said Hearn.
