Bob Arum has outlined the problems faced by launching Pay-Per-View fights in the United States and sees Amir Khan being out of action.
The Top Rank boss spoke to WBN after being asked about potentially staging every event on a paid platform during the coronavirus outbreak.
WBN argued that the lack of event fans could mean asking those under lockdown to fork out a smaller PPV fee to help the fighters.
Arum suggested this model wouldn’t work during what is as much an economic crisis as it is a public health one.
Even staging the bigger show, which commands fees of up to $89.95 per purchase, would be tough to justify as everybody struggles.
Bob Arum
“Well, the answer to the questions is it’s very hard to do a massive fight without the revenue from the gate,” Arum exclusively explained to World Boxing News.
“If you can’t do it with spectators. And unless the fighters are willing to take on significant cuts, how do you suppose to do those fights?
“Problem one is you can’t just bump up the Pay-Per-View prices up. People have been going through economic hardship with not being able to work and so forth.
“How are they going to afford to spend extra money to watch Pay-Per-View?
“Secondly, here in the United States, we have been used to charging very big fights and prices on PPV.
“The reason we are able to do that is how the fans have paid for those big PPV fight events.
“They would have something like twenty people over at their house. Notably in the Hispanic community.
“You get ten couples together, and everybody would put in ten dollars. They would have a great night. It wasn’t that expensive.
“But when we are up and running, are people open to going in close quarters in other people’s homes? – Probably not.
“So again, it’s very hard to look at what happened before. To say well, you know, let’s replicate it now.”
Amir Khan
Boxing is certainly going to find it hard. Even with the in-house shows, Arum is laying the blueprint for right now.
As the Hall of Famer pointed out, the lesser-name fighters could be seeing action at first by using Amir Khan as an example.
“The likes of Amir Khan, if he’s only looking for paydays, will be on the sidelines to a kid who wants to build his career. A kid who is not so concerned about his purse.
“I’m sure he will have a lot of suiters. That kid will get a lot of activity,” concluded Arum.
June remains the potential date for a boxing return.
