In Troubled Economy, Boxing Dies While Wrestling Thrives

After a successful pay-per-view fight betwixt Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr. this weekend (and at least one even bigger fight on the way in a few weeks), you would think that everything would be coming up roses for the sport of boxing. Not so.
Spanish-language broadcaster Telefutura announced over the weekend that the ailing economy has forced it to cancel its popular weekly “Solo Boxeo” series due to costs. Following the recent cancellation of ESPN’s “Wednesday Night Fights” program, we now have one less place to go for televised fisticism.
Can any ring sport survive in this recession? According to the WWE, wrestling will do just fine.

The cancellation is a big setback for promotional companies Top Rank, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Don Chargin Productions, which had a lock on the roughly 48 dates each year that paid a license fee of about $60,000 a week. Top Rank put on about 24 shows a year while Golden Boy promoted about 18 and Chargin six.

Like many businesses, Telefutura and sister network Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the United States, have felt the impact of the slumping economy. The publicly held company run by business magnate Jerry Perenchio was sold for $13 billion in June 2006 to a private investment group headed by billionaire Haim Saban, but the downturn in the economy has battered the investment.

“Univision was acquired by a private investment group at the height of the market,” Schaefer said. “It was a highly leveraged transaction. They used a lot of debt to acquire Univision and this debt has to be repaid. They have to go through very significant cuts to keep the company afloat, so they have to cancel a host of shows where they do the production, which costs them money. To produce a boxing show where they travel all over the country every week is a very expensive proposition. It’s much more expensive than doing a show in a studio.”

It’s hard enough to get face time as an up-and-coming fighter, since so few networks dedicate any time and effort into covering all of the resume building that goes on prior to the big PPV. Aside from the financial hit this cancellation deals to the aforementioned promoters, they also take a serious marketing hit as well. It cannot be easy to grow a fan base for any sport when no one can see it. UFC is popular now, but during its infancy it was regarded as a sideshow, and you had to have DirecTV to get its PPV’s. Now it’s all over cable television, and all MMA is thriving for it.
In a stark contrast to boxing’s woes, the WWE took a few moments to brag about the strong success of ticket sales so far for the 25th anniversary WrestleMania show, set for April 5th in Houston’s Reliant Stadium.

With ticket sales already exceeding $4.8 million, fans from 24 countries, including all 50 states and 7 Canadian provinces, are expected to attend the event, making the 25th anniversary of WrestleMania an event only a state the size of Texas could handle.

WWE fans are expected to inject upwards of $50 million into the local economy with a weeklong schedule of activities, interactive experiences and events taking place in Houston leading up to the big event. The 25th anniversary of WrestleMania will also be seen by millions of fans around the world as they watch the broadcast in more than 90 countries.

The WWE claims that tens of thousands of fans so far have purchased tickets. That certainly sounds like a big number, but we are talking about the premiere wrestling PPV of the year. If ticket sales are just as strong for the local house shows, then we’ll know that sports entertainment is a recession-proof business.
Slumping economy behind cancellation of Telefutura’s ‘Solo Boxeo’ [ESPN]
WrestleMania®: Texas-Sized Ticket Sales [Business Wire]
Image [Obsessed With Sports]