The Key Reasons Why Boxing Tickets Are So Expensive
Boxing tickets can be extremely expensive. In 2015, when Floyd Mayweather faced Manny Pacquiao, tickets were traded on StubHub for at least $35000 prior to the event. In the world of combat sports, this is relatively unheard of. You would never find judo, wrestling or even MMA tickets going for anywhere near this price, even if it were the fight of a millenium.
Therefore, this shows that boxing has something which is far beyond that of any other combat sport when it comes to big fights. The tickets for elite boxing events are astonishingly expensive when compared to other sporting events, and even when making an absolute comparison to any other everyday life costs.
Table of Contents
Promotion & Storylines
Believe it or not, the average boxing fan does not want to watch a technical fight. Instead, they want to see two fighters who hate each other bury the hatchet. This kind of storyline is what makes shows like WWE wrestling popular due to the promotional shoots.
In the world of combat sports, no other style of fighting comes close to boxing in terms of fight promotion. There are hours of TV build up with sit down interviews and arguements for the biggest fights. Most of this is smoke and mirrors, since we often see fighters embrace after a tough fight and congratulate their opponent. But there is no doubt that this strategy helps build up a fight and push the price of tickets upwards.
As a result of this soap-opera themed build up to a fight. You can expect many fans to be emotionally invested in a fight, often picking a side of good guy against bad guy. This allows ticket prices to become much more expensive. In a sport such as Formula 1 or NFL this simply does not happen. There is rarely a fan favourite against a “bad” opponent.
Supply & Demand
Within a boxing arena, the limit of seats is capped. The reasons for this are both space and safety. There is only so much room seats can be physically packed in to and regardless of this, fire departments will not allow unsafe venues to open to the public.
Even the MGM Grand in Las Vegas only has a seated capacity of around 17 000 spectators. Compared to an NFL stadium, this is not a lot of seats at all. Not only this, but given that boxing fights are somewhat rare at the high level, 17 000 people is not a lot of tickets, given that if the venue were 80000 seats, it would still very likely sell out.
This causes demand for tickets to outstrip supply by some way and prices to go through the roof. Even when official sources sell out of tickets, you will still find that 3rd party demand bids up prices even higher on the free market. This is proof that supply is far lower than the demand for a truly one of a kind event.
Rare Matchups & Fights
Unlike other sports, boxers do not fight often. If you’re familiar with the NBA or MLB, these teams play more than once per week. Even though the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant are international superstars, everyone has a chance to see them live in the flesh many times per year.
On the contrary, top boxers are fighting at most twice per year, with the elites fighting a lot less than this. Fights take a long time to become organised since there is no league structure and negotiations can last a very long time. This results in interesting and fan-wanted matchups being somewhat rare, so when they do actually happen, people are willing to pay a lot more money to see the result.
Put simply, if you miss out on a big fight such as Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao. The chances are that you will never see it again.
Boxers Pay
Whilst boxing is poorly paid at the low levels of fighting, this could not be further from the truth the higher up the ladder a fighter is able to climb. As soon as a boxer reaches main event status, a 6-figure payday is the absolute minimum. At the very highest levels of boxing, pay for a single fight can reach as high as 8-figures.
This alone should show you where a large percentage of the ticket sales are going. If two boxers are earning $10 million each for a single nights work, then you can rest assured knowing the ticket price is going to be high.
Also worth mentioning is the undercard of big boxing events. Although these fighters are typically paid considerably less money than the main event, salaries still add up when there are several fights on a single card.
Promoters & Other Networks Pay
When it comes to a large scale boxing event, there are a lot of companies involved after the boxers are paid. TV deals, agreements with the venue and minority interests all get cuts of what is left. Even pay-per-view TV deals see a large percentage of sales go to networks, not just promoters and boxers.
If a fight is taking place at a large venue such as MSG or the MGM, it is not uncommon for the arena to take a cut of ticket sales. Secondly, if tickets are being sold online through a 3rd party platform, the company supplying this service will also need to get paid.
Lastly, the original promoter who put on the event and anyone else who has a smaller financial interest in putting together the fight needs paying at the very end. Often this is the best share of the profit, but comes last after everyone else is paid – therefore it is inherently more risky.
In short, there are a lot of different organizations which need to get paid, this does not help keep ticket prices down.
Staff Salaries
Hosting a boxing event is obviously not cheap. There are a lot of staff which you won’t even think about when watching a match, however, without them it would not be able to go ahead.
Medics, doctors, cameramen, security guards, announcers, door staff, lighting and sound specialists all make up part of a crew that puts a boxing match together. This does not even include people who may not be there on the night such as the people who put the ring together, cleaned up the stadium and checked everything was OK before the doors opened.
All of these people need to be paid for their roles in putting together the event. Some of these salaries are a lot more than others, depending on the job. Even so, when you add everything together, the costs add on to the overall ticket price.
Venue & Behind The Scenes Costs
Paying a venue to host your boxing event is extremely costly. Whilst exact numbers are not disclosed, a 6-figure minimum is well known arenas within the United States.
Not only this, but promoters must factor in security, lighting, cameras, insurance and all other kinds of expenses that you wouldn’t immediately think of. Putting on a boxing event is not cheap at all and costs add up very quickly. All of these expenses are typically paid in advance of the fight, which is not a good thing for the promoter. Thankfully for them, they are also able to sell tickets in advance to recoup some of these initial losses.
Of course, the higher the expenses, the more tickets are going to cost.
Advertisements
Even with relatively free advertising on the likes of social media, promoting a boxing match is not cheap. Before this existed, promotions had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars upwards promoting events on TV. Typically, advertising for a boxing match is not cheap, since you want as many eyes to see it as possible during prime TV network hours. It would not be unusual to see an advertisement for a boxing match during half time of a big NFL game. These are some of the more expensive advertising slots and not cheap late night commercials that will never be seen.
In summary, you have to spend a lot of money up front in order for people to know about a fight. This outlay of costs will be months in advance before you can ever recover any profit from when the fight actually happens.
Of course, if a boxer gets injured prior to a fight, advertising money may well be lost and never recovered if the bout doesn’t happen.
Summary
Putting on an elite boxing match takes a great deal of time, effort and money up front. Given the risks involved and that a fight can fall through at any moment, this creates a high risk, high reward scenario for the promoter.
Ultimately, it is the promoter who makes the lions share of the profits, but they need to be compensated for their risk and initial investment. Therefore, when selling a boxing event, the promoter will ensure that they are making the maximum amount of money possible, especially when the event goes according to plan. This is not the best for boxing fans, since ticket prices become expensive as a result of this process.
