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Added to Calendar: 05-18-24

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Arum: The Problem In Boxing Is We Can't Sell Tickets To Fights

NEW YORK – Bob Arum understands why boxing fans haven’t exactly expressed an abundance of interest in the Terence Crawford- Egidjius Kavaliauskas fight his company is promoting. Crawford is listed by most Internet and Las Vegas sports books as at least a 16-1 favorite to defeat the unbeaten...
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Arum: The Problem In Boxing Is We Can't Sell Tickets To Fights

NEW YORK – Bob Arum understands why boxing fans haven’t exactly expressed an abundance of interest in the Terence Crawford- Egidjius Kavaliauskas fight his company is promoting.

Crawford is listed by most Internet and Las Vegas sports books as at least a 16-1 favorite to defeat the unbeaten Lithuanian contender Saturday night. Their 12-round welterweight championship match is widely viewed as a fight Crawford can’t lose – partially due to the undefeated Crawford’s considerable skill, yet also because Kavaliauskas fought to a 10-round majority draw with unheralded Ray Robinson in his last fight.

Fans’ disinterest in the main event has hurt ticket sales for this seven-fight card at Madison Square Garden. The famed Manhattan venue can accommodate more than 20,000 fans for boxing, but multiple sources have informed BoxingScene.com that Arum would need extremely strong walkup sales Saturday to approach a crowd of 10,000.

The 88-year-old Arum acknowledged boxing’s ongoing struggle to sell tickets in the United States, particularly when main events involve elite talents making mandated title defenses against fighters they wouldn’t otherwise oppose. Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) is the mandatory challenger for Crawford’s WBO 147-pound championship.

“Look, here’s the problem in boxing,” Arum told a group of reporters this week at The Garden. “We have good, good [viewership] on the television [on ESPN], a lot of subscribers for boxing [on ESPN+]. We’re doing OK there. We can’t sell tickets to fights. Now, why can’t we sell tickets to fights? One, because I tell everybody if the Chicago Bears were playing the Tennessee Titans in L.A., in The Coliseum, it would barely be half filled. Because they’re not teams that Los Angeles fans care about. So, when you have two fighters, no matter how good a fight it is, it’s very hard to sell tickets.

“Now, you take Terence Crawford [to] Omaha, in a week we sell out, or virtually sell out. Because the fans there root for him like he’s the Nebraska Cornhusker football team. Now, the only way you change that is if you make 50-50 fights. Why? Because 50-50 fights, people are inclined to bet on them. Now people have a reason to go to the fight in person, because they bet on the fight, so they have a rooting interest in the fight. If not, it’s very hard to get a guy off his ass, when he can watch it on television or on a streaming service. Very, very hard. That’s the problem. So, we’ve gotta – I tell my matchmakers, I tell everybody, let’s shoot as much as possible for 50-50 fights. You can’t do it all the time. You’ve got these mandatories, where [they’re] never 50-50. But you’ve gotta try.”

Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs), who’ll headline at The Garden’s main arena for the third time, is commonly considered one of the best boxers, pound-for-pound, in the sport. His hometown appeal has helped Crawford draw crowds in excess of 11,000 for six cards either in his native Omaha or nearby Lincoln, Nebraska, since June 2014.

Tickets typically are cheaper in a small market like Omaha. Face value for tickets to the Crawford-Kavaliauskas card range in price from $56 to $506.

While Crawford-Kavaliauskas isn’t a marquee matchup, ESPN’s three-bout broadcast also includes a highly anticipated lightweight title bout between IBF champ Richard Commey (29-2, 26 KOs) and emerging star Teofimo Lopez (14-0, 11 KOs), Commey’s mandatory challenger. The undercard will feature such popular local prospects as Edgar Berlanga (12-0, 12 KOs), a super middleweight from Brooklyn, Julian Rodriguez (18-0, 12 KOs), a junior welterweight from Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, and Josue Vargas (15-1, 9 KOs), another 140-pounder from the Bronx.

Arum is especially eager to watch how the ambitious Lopez fares against Ghana’s Commey, a dangerous puncher who’s much more experienced against championship-caliber opponents.

“It is a 50-50 [fight],” Arum said. “It’s 6-5 either way. The odds have fluctuated. That’s what makes it a fantastic fight. Now, you take Crawford and Kavaliauskas – I’m not saying how it works in the ring. I think Kavaliauskas is being underrated. But it’s a 10-1 fight, a 12-1 fight. So, there’s not much interest in it as a 50-50 fight.”
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Terence Crawford Plans in 2020 - Fully Detailed By Bob Arum

WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs) will take on Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) at the Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday immediately after the Heisman Trophy presentation on ESPN. If Crawford comfortably passes his mandatory test against Kavaliauskas...
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Terence Crawford Plans in 2020 - Fully Detailed By Bob Arum

WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs) will take on Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) at the Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday immediately after the Heisman Trophy presentation on ESPN.

If Crawford comfortably passes his mandatory test against Kavaliauskas, Top Rank head Bob Arum has his sights set on landing the star of his stable a more meaningful fight in 2020.

He mentioned a growing willingness to work with Al Haymon given the fact that he and the PBC head have been in daily communication working together to stage the anticipated rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury on Feb. 22.

“If you look at the PBC group, they only have one interesting fight there now that Spence is shelved for a while and that is Shawn Porter,” Arum told BoxingScene.com in an interview. “There is nobody else really that resonates as a big fight. Porter would be interesting. The public looks forward to big fights, and Porter certainly would be one of them. Other than that, who does PBC have to do any business?

“Danny Garcia is a little past his sell date. We’re not interested in Danny Garcia. That’s a license to lose money. That fight makes no sense. It’s not economically feasible.

“Manny Pacquiao would never fight Crawford, and that goes back to when I was promoting Pacquiao. Pacquiao versus Crawford is not a very competitive fight. Forget Pacquiao. We offered Pacquiao a sh-tload of money to fight Crawford and he didn’t want to fight. But I was promoting him, so I wasn’t going to put it on Manny, I put it on me. I was covering for Pacquiao.”

Another scenario Arum introduced was Crawfrod climbing up to super welterweight, even though the fighter was non-committal himself for a future at 154.

“He may want to go up to 154 to fight WBO champion Patrick Teixeira,” said Arum. “Then, there are terrific junior welterweights who want to move up to fight him, like Jose Ramirez, Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis. That’s where we’re looking for big fights for him.”

The ultimate option is Errol Spence Jr., and the super fight “could be done in less than an hour,” Arum noted, once the WBC and IBF champion is ready to resume his career following a devastating car accident.

“Al Haymon and I discussed Crawford-Spence before the accident and we were well on our way to making that fight,” said Arum. “While we never agreed, we were in effect circling around the same terms that we have for Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury. But realistically, we can’t count on it because we can’t count on when he’ll be available.

“If you take Spence out of the mix, you have to talk about what [PBC] has left. Other than Porter, I don’t know where they have a big fight.”

When told that Vergil Ortiz Jr., Golden Boy’s undefeated touted knockout artist, would like to try his hand at Crawford at the tender age of 21 if he’s presented the opportunity, Arum said he’d take it, even if they have a clear advantage over the game yet raw fighter.

“Oscar De La Hoya and Eric Gomez know enough that it would be suicide to put Vergil Ortiz Jr. in the ring with Terence, but if they want to do it, we’re happy to work with them,” said Arum.
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