Bob Arum Predicts Over Two Million PPV Buys In The UK For Joshua vs. Fury
Top Rank Boxing promoter Bob Arum is expecting the Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury fight to be a major pay-per-view success in the United Kingdom.
The long-awaited heavyweight title unification clash between the two domestic rivals looks likely to take place in the summer with another fight between the pair expected soon after.
There is no location or date as of yet, but Arum — who promotes Fury — believes it will take place in June either in the Middle East or in Asia.
“The fight doesn’t belong in America, even though Tyson Fury has kind of Americanized himself with the events he’s done here,” Arum said in a recent podcast (via BoxingNews24). “Then the question is do you do it in the UK, and the answer from both sides was no because even if though it’s June, who knows where it’s going in the UK?
“So we’re looking at the Middle East and Asia. Those are the two possibilities for where the fight will happen. It could happen in Singapore, and it could happen in Macau [China] and in the Middle East in various countries.”
While it’s a big blow that a fight between Joshua and Fury likely won’t take place in the United Kingdom, Arum still expects it to be a blockbuster success when it comes to pay-per-view sales.
In fact, he is expecting over two million buys from the United Kingdom alone.
“It’ll be a substantial site fee if it’s done outside of the UK and U.S,” Arum added. “And it’ll probably be the biggest money fight in heavyweight history. It’ll be massive, but again, you can’t count the chickens before they’ve hatched.
“But I am optimistic at how well this fight well do, both at the site standpoint and the pay-per-view standpoint, particularly in the UK, where we predict we’ll do over two million homes. We’ve had a number of discussions and one of the discussions we’ve had is lowering the pay-per-view price. I advocated lowering the pay-per-view price across the board, and then the pay-per-view people said no.
“If the fight has exceptional name value, then the price doesn’t matter. In other words, ESPN+ was charging $60 for a UFC pay-per-view, and the McGregor fight [at UFC 257], which was exceptional because McGregor got a big audience.”
Two million pay-per-view buys seems like a good estimate especially given that Joshua and Fury are the UK’s two biggest stars.
Add in the potential PPV buys globally and it very well might be the biggest heavyweight fight of all time.
Will you be buying the Joshua vs. Fury fight if it’s booked?
