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The consequences of staging Saturday’s fight between Logan Paul and KSI as a main event at Staples Center in Los Angeles, despite it being the YouTube stars’ first bout without headgear, range between momentous and nightmarish.
Privately, officials at the 14-month-old streaming service DAZN hope the scheduled six-round cruiserweight match will challenge last Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight title fight in the number of new subscribers who commit to the service. If that happens, DAZN would pass its landmark 1 million-subscriber threshold.
Yet, there’s also some significant scoffing by those in the sport, suggesting it’s a mockery to place a glorified professional-debut exhibition atop a card that also features gifted new WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney’s first title defense and a super middleweight title defense by England’s Billy Joe Saunders.
“It sounds a little too glib, and it probably will come to no good end,” former longtime HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant said of Paul-KSI.
Visions of inflated profits and striking a better connection with a new audience fill the head of DAZN’s Joe Markowski, the company’s North American executive vice president.
The financial promise is rooted in the fact Paul and KSI produced 1.1 million pay-per-view buys at $9.99 on YouTube when they met in August 2018 in England, wearing headgear in a fight that produced 350,000 U.S. buys despite an unattractive 4 p.m. ET start time.
Matchroom Boxing’s U.K.-based promoter Eddie Hearn first brought the idea of DAZN pursuing a rematch to Markowski last fall at one of their regularly scheduled meetings at DAZN’s lavish skyrise office, high up One World Trade Center in New York City.
“I immediately latched onto it and saw it as a good idea that could help grow the audience,” said Markowski, 31, who has presided over DAZN’s $350 million deal with Alvarez, along with past success in broadcast deals for domestic sporting content in Japan and Germany.
“I’m not personally into these YouTubers,” Markovski said. “I hadn’t spent a lot of time before this promotion following them all, but I saw the numbers, saw the size of their social media influence, and I saw the need that U.S. boxing has to grow its audience and do new things that introduce a new audience to the sport. It made sense to me.”
The match was first broached to California State Athletic Commission Executive Officer Andy Foster on March 13 in an email from Cory Schafer, a man who has ties to karate and MMA organizations. Foster told Schafer that sanctioning such a fight would require medical and drug testing, adding, “If they pass the medicals and fight each other, then we’d be willing to sanction it.”
A follow-up call months later by Matchroom matchmaker Eric Bottjer brought the specifics of a request for no headgear.
“So they’re going to do this the full way?” Foster asked Bottjer.
When told that was the plan, Foster repeated the requirements, which have included a surprise drug test at the YouTubers’ September news conference in Los Angeles and another mandatory blood draw on fight night.
Foster wanted assurances the fighters would commit to intense training supervised by professionals and he spoke directly to Paul about the dangers of rapid weight cutting and taking unregulated health supplements. Satisfied, Foster then approved a fight expected to sell out the home of the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers.
“The financial implications of the fight — it’s something we look at, but it doesn’t go into the sanctioning decision,” Foster said. “I wanted to make sure they’d be training, and that’s been verified if you watch the documentaries they’ve been doing on this fight. They are taking this seriously and coming in better shape than many of the pro-debut fighters we get in California.”
“They are taking this seriously and coming in better shape than many of the pro-debut fighters we get in California.” – CSAC Executive Officer Andy Foster
Paul’s head trainer is former heavyweight boxer Shannon Briggs. KSI, born as Olajide William “JJ” Olatunji, is co-trained by Mayweather Promotions prospect Viddal Riley and respected conditioning coach Larry Wade, with Conor McGregor’s chef Eric Triliegi providing nutrition support.
KSI has 20.5 million YouTube subscribers, four-fold Weller’s total. Paul is not far behind at 19.9 million.
To those chiding the bout over its potential poor quality, Markowski downplays that. The draw isn’t fight quality, he said, rather that a popular, long-running feud will likely be settled.
“It’s a huge internet broadcasting moment,” Markowski said. “If there’s risk around it, I’ll bare the brunt of it. It’s the kind of risk you have to take when you’re in a position such as mine and it doesn’t scare me now.
“We’re serving a different audience with this fight and it has the potential to become our strongest subscription performer yet. I can’t answer (if it will surpass Canelo-Kovalev yet), but the two fights are similar. And that’s unbelievable, really. I expect people to come out, including core boxing fans, and see how seriously these guys took it. The show will go great.”
Original Source: Lance Pugmire / New York Times
