Saturday, March 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Royce Feour

Pay per view not limited to megafights

Not all fights shown on pay-per-view television are blockbusters like Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson or Oscar De La Hoya-Fernando Vargas.

One of those megafights costs about $50 on pay per view, but promoters also offer cards featuring quality lesser-name fighters for about $30.

One such card, part of Top Rank's Latin Fury series, will be tonight at the Mandalay Bay Events Center and air on Showtime pay per view.

The card includes a WBC super featherweight elimination bout between No. 1 contender Jesus Chavez and Carlos Gerena and a lightweight fight between Julio Diaz and Ernesto "Baby" Zepeda.

But the most exciting matchup is the IBF mini-flyweight title rematch between Miguel Barrera and Roberto Leyva.

With a limit of 105 pounds, mini-flyweight is boxing's lightest weight class. But the action was dynamite seven months ago when Barrera won a unanimous decision over Roberto Leyva at The Orleans.

This type of a card serves a purpose for the promoter, fighters and fans.

There is a big gap, Top Rank president Bob Arum said, between the first level of televised bouts, for which networks such as ESPN, Fox and Spanish-language channel Telefutura pay rights fees of between $50,000 and $60,000, and the big HBO and Showtime cards, which start with a fee of $500,000 and go as high as $5 million.

Situations sometimes arise when a champion or a fighter who is a good attraction cannot get a bout because HBO and Showtime have a limited number of dates, Arum said.

"Do you tell these kids, 'Hey, I have nothing for you except the $10,000 or $15,000 that you made fighting on ESPN or Telefutura?' " Arum said. "That is just not fair.

"I then came up with the idea that I would take these fighters and these attractive fights and put them together in a pay-per-view package and have the fans pay the money so that the fighters can get paid decently. And I did it with the idea that I wouldn't make appreciable money on the shows. I might even lose some money, but I would be able to keep these fighters busy and getting purses not otherwise available to them."

By putting on smaller pay-per-view cards, Top Rank hopes to market its fighters so they can advance to bigger bouts.

"That strategy worked out on Feb. 1, because Juan Manuel Marquez made such a hit that HBO wants him on," Arum said. "I got a multifight contract for Miguel Cotto because of his performance on that show against Cesar Bazan.

"Even though that show lost money, it was an artistic success and Marquez and Cotto were big hits. In addition, Carlos Hernandez became the first San Salvadorian to win a world championship. I view that show as being very successful even though my books show that the show lost money."

The smaller pay-per-view shows don't need to put up great numbers to break even. The Feb. 1 card sold about 35,000 to 40,000 subscriptions, a third of them in Cotto's native Puerto Rico, Arum said.

"On that card, I needed 50,000 (subscriptions), so I ended up losing about $125,000," Arum said. "But I consider it a good investment."

Royce Feour's boxing column is published Saturday. He can be reached by phone at 383-0354, fax at 383-4676 or e-mail at rfeour@reviewjournal.com.