The Business of Boxing | FT Scoreboard

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Elite boxing is flush with cash.

When you look at boxing, it's red hot.

Socially, boxing is huge. Huge.

Top boxers are among the highest paid athletes in the world. Some could earn tens of millions of pounds for a single fight, whatever the outcome.

With the Saudi arrangement, it's really going to be the best fight of the best.

But this is one sport where turning pro doesn't always bring big bucks.

They still need to work to be able to fund their life.

Not many reached that pinnacle.

You can be as talented as you want to be, but if you're not getting yourself out there, it's hard.

And making it as a boxer is about much more than winning in the ring.

A lot of boxing is pretty much the Wild West.

It's a blood sport. It's a prize fighting. Sometimes, pedigree and past results aren't the be all and end all.

This gym in Sheffield is home to the team of boxers set to compete for Great Britain in the biggest tournament on the amateur boxing calendar.

Around the world boxers are using programmes like this as a springboard to potentially lucrative professional careers.

I do have aspirations of turning professional, and an Olympic medal really changes that. There's no denying it. Your stocks rise considerably. If you win an Olympic medal slash win an Olympic gold medal. So there would be a lot of interest in me.

My name is Lewis Richardson. I'm a Team GB boxer, and I'm off to Paris '24 Olympics. I've gotten to the GB boxing team and I been on six years now, and it's been it's been a hell of a journey and one that I'm very, very grateful for.

You have to earn your way onto the programme. And I just feel like, from a natural sort of progression point of view in amateur boxing, Team GB is the greatest thing you can achieve. I feel like the Olympic games is the pinnacle of amateur boxing, and very few people reach that, and I've reached that now. I'd love to achieve big things in the professional ranks, become financially secure. It's a business, a professional side, so I'd like to have some financial security from it and also, yeah, win major titles.

Currently, we have about 50 boxers. It's normal for us to have a surplus. A lot of boxers that leave after an Olympic cycle will turn professional. Robert McCracken, performance director for GB Boxing.

The programme is really designed to give boxers an opportunity at GB Boxing to go to the Olympic games and have the possibility of travelling the world and learning and being supported and fulfilling your potential, really, in amateur boxing.

Lewis has a good shot at becoming an Olympic champion, but even that doesn't guarantee a well-paid living as a professional fighter. In the UK, there are around 1,100 active licenced professional boxers, but less than 10 per cent of those are making a full-time living from the sport.

Boxing is the only sport that I know of where professional status is not really professional because you're not being paid. It's not truly professional until you reach TV level. My name is Steve Goodwin. I'm a professional boxing manager looking after over 70 UK boxers that also does some promotional events.

The glitz and glamour shows of TVs that you see is a minuscule part of the boxing industry. Small-hall boxing accounts for probably in the region of 95 per cent of all boxing shows that take place in the UK. Small-hall boxing is basically boxing without any TV revenue or external revenue. The only revenue you get from small-hall boxing is from ticket sales at the door.

Turning pro isn't complicated. Fighters have to pass a medical evaluation and have amateur fighting experience. Giant arenas and big pay cheques are open to anyone with a professional licence. But almost all pro boxers fight their battles in town halls, leisure centres, and nightclubs around the country.

When a fighter starts off on the small hall, to me it's no different than an electrician that goes out and makes the coffee and does all the little bits and learns his trade and gets paid very little and these apprentices learning his trade. With boxing, to me, everybody - I say to them all - you're all serving your apprenticeship. And what we're trying to find here is, are you good enough? Because many of them aren't.

With no cash coming in from TV deals, which provide the largest income stream at the big shows, the opportunity to make money is slim, and the responsibility for selling tickets is on the fighters.

So you can earn money out of small hall, but you have to be a big ticket seller to earn that money. I always say to a boxer when they come to me, your job isn't fighting. You have two jobs. You have to fight and be a good fighter, but you have to market yourself. One without the other is no good. If you're a good fighter but you can't sell tickets, you really shouldn't bother.

Doing a show, for example, at York Hall in London, will cost you around £20,000 without paying any boxers at all. So anybody that's crazy enough to promote a show starts off minus £20,000. The venue may be £4,500. Security may be £2,500 to £3,000. Four doctors will cost you £2,400. Two ambulances, £1,300. Hire of the ring, £700. You've then got any production that you put in, a DJ, the people working the corners, the costs of printing tickets, etc, etc, etc...

They then try and recoup that by ticket sales. And the promoter might say to them, right, you need to sell 50 or 60 tickets at £50 a ticket. And then if you go over the 50-60 tickets, then the next so many tickets you can keep as your money. I've known fighters that have ended up fighting but not selling enough tickets and putting their own money in to fight. It's a tough time for some of them. A tough time.

When you turn pro, everything has to be on po:int learning the business of the game, getting your social media on point. So it's not just the fight that people see. There's so much before. You see the glitz and the glam, but people don't see the tears or the drive in or being exhausted, or the money that's gone into it or the money that you're getting paid. They just see the highlights.

For pro boxers, the big financial rewards come when they sign up with major promoters and broadcasters, but the need to generate sales isn't just for small-hall boxing.

You're not supposed to turn professional and be driving around in a Rolls-Royce with silver cutlery, you know? And there's supposed to be that struggle. And I like that, for a fighter, to experience that struggle when they start off, because when they get to the top they'll remember that journey. Eddie Hearn, world's biggest and greatest boxing promoter, chairman, also, of Matchroom Sport.

My job is to tell a story, to tell a story to fight fans to engage them in the fighter and make them excited about the event. And that's really the job of a promoter, to sell tickets, to drive viewership, to create narrative and interest in the event that you're putting on. When you talk about arena revenue particularly, it really depends what market you're in. Some markets, like the UK market, we rely on pure revenue, so ticket sales, TV revenue, commercial sponsorship.

When you go to international venues, sometimes - Vegas is an example - where a casino might say, we're going to pay you a site fee for bringing your event to us. Particularly in Saudi Arabia, that's almost a government position. It's saying, look, we want to drive tourism to Saudi. We want to create awareness for our country. So we're going to use sport as a vehicle to showcase that to the world.

The ticket revenue for a Saudi event is quite small in relation to a UK event, but it's subsidised by the government site or tourism fee.

Just because it is great...

When we go to Saudi and say it doesn't matter how many tickets we sell, obviously we want to make sure it's as busy as possible, but we've already effectively received the revenue to do the show. So we much prefer, really, to receive the site fees from the venues and the tourism departments. But the UK, you know, it's good fun, as well.

Boxing is a business, and a lot of people forget that. You can be as talented as you want to be, but if you're not pushing yourself or getting yourself out there on your own without your promoter, it's a lot difficult to kind of be seen, you know? Ticket sales, getting fans, publicity, interviews, anything that you can do to get yourself out there and raise your profile or lead you in good stead for that bigger prize money.

My name is Shannon Ryan. I am 27 years old, and I am a professional boxer. I did my homework before I turned pro. I learnt about the business side of it in my own time, just little things from getting a logo done and knowing about management. Where does the money go when you do get paid from fights?

So I was very fortunate enough to be kind of picked up by Anthony Joshua's company, 258. The next part of that was you now need a promoter. Where do we go? And that's obviously where your management gets involved to kind of look at who wants you on their platform. And that's when I did start off with Sky Sports with Boxer, and I had four fights with them.

So I was working at the O2 store in Watford, and I was an assistant manager. That's when it did become really hard. I would open the shop. I would have to close the shop and then go straight to training. So I was always a little bit late and my coach would always have a go at me, but I had no choice. When you love something and you're passionate about something, you'll get it done no matter how tired you are.

March 2022, I had my debut in London. After that I had to go back to work. That's when I was like, I can't. I can't do this. So prior to that, I did send O2 an email from myself and took the initiative, because I knew that if I was going to go the full way with boxing, I needed the financial backing to be able to do so. So O2 - there was a bit of push to begin with, and then they said, yeah, we will partner with you.

I think I stayed for about four weeks, handed in my notice, and I've been flying ever since. But if it wasn't for O2 financially backing me, I don't think, one, I would have improved as fast as I have. And two, I would still be working.

Instead of trying out for Team GB, Shannon secured a management team, which helped her get noticed by promoters after she turned pro. But signing TV and sponsorship deals is only the start of the process.

When a fighter starts their career, obviously the key is activity. So you're starting off in six-round fights. You want to be fighting five, six, seven times a year. A fighter will receive a purse for those. Obviously, that's a much smaller purse than when you're fighting in championship fights, but you are fighting more regularly. Commercially, they'll also rely on sponsorship. People don't realise that a fighter's expenses are quite considerable as well. It's an expensive sport.

Fight night earnings vary massively from boxer to boxer. Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk will have shared a prize pot running well into the tens of millions of pounds from their bout in Riyadh this year. But for many earnings are in the thousands of pounds, even with commercial and sponsorship deals included.

So you don't get paid until after the fight. When you have your first fight you don't have any money from boxing. So that's where, for example, for myself, is where the sponsors come in, because you have to pay for your strength and conditioning, your nutritionist. Your coach and management you pay after the fight a certain percentage. But then you've got your travel. You've got your sparring partners, if they need to be paid, if they're travelling down from anywhere. You've got your food, which is very expensive. To eat healthy is expensive.

So all of that at the start of camp. And then, yeah, once you've finished your fight you then pay your coach. You pay your management. And then is there enough left over? You've got to save it.

The transition from amateur to pro, it will be different, especially if I'm in a very new environment where I've got to build my team. I think the stability that being on the programme offers you, you have APA funding, so national lottery funding, which - although many argue it's not a lot - but the support you get from the programme, the money and the finances you save and don't have to spend is second to none. Medical expenses, travel expenses, food expenses: so much money that you don't have to worry about.

You know, as athletes, we train every day, twice a day, Monday to Saturday. So it is pivotal that you do get that rest and recovery. That's why I take my hats off to anyone still working whilst boxing, because it's hard.

For some boxers, the cycle of working, training, recovery, and self-promotion is their reality. Despite the financial struggle some professional boxers face, the sport itself is enjoying the buzz from the influx of Saudi money and a growing fan base, particularly among young people.

The value of sports rights as a whole continues to increase at a rapid rate, and that's really driven by demand. I mean, if you have new broadcasters entering the market that are willing to invest, be aggressive, and acquire sports TV rights, the price of those rights will continue to grow. And we've seen that in boxing.

What the broadcasters like is the interaction of fans in terms of conversation, opinion, arguments, build-up. Boxing's not just about the night. It's about the build-up, the confrontations at press conferences, the debates before, after, watching them train. And I think broadcasters like that because it is a very interactive sport, now with the numbers continuing to increase.

Matchroom has handled some of the sport's most profitable bouts in recent history. A single fight can earn a promoter and the boxers they represent millions of pounds.

There's no resume for this sport. It is a commercial sport. And it is a little bit of showbiz, as well. So we need something different from that fighter. We need that swag. Now, it doesn't just mean that we pick a random fighter out of a gym. Every fighter has to have pedigree. We're talking about ABA, which is national championships, getting in the GB team up in Sheffield, the performance centre, fighting in the world amateur championships, the European championships, and particularly the Olympic games. If you do that and you win medals in the Olympics, your profile already exists to a point where actually it's a natural progression to the professional ranks.

When you're young, you're naive. You just see the top. Not many people get there. My aspiration is to get to the top grade, to be world champion, definitely be world champion. There's not many that have become Olympic and world champion. Anthony Joshua was was one of them, James Degale. Lauren Price, also, who's on the squad now, who trains here also, she's one of them. So, yeah, it's a small group.

My name is Galal Yafai, and I'm a professional boxer, a former Team GB boxer. My accolades are Commonwealth champion, European medallist twice, and my biggest achievement, Olympic gold medal. I'm in a fortunate position, winning the Olympic gold. I think that's put me in unbelievable stead.

I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but not many people win Olympic gold for Great Britain and in the world. So it's a small group, and I'm glad to be in it. But I've got to keep going, promoting myself. I've got to do that. I've got to keep winning, mainly. I've got to keep looking good. Hopefully that carries on.

Off the back of his successful career with Team GB, Galal signed with a major promoter and is now earning enough to continue boxing full time.

It's a lot tougher as a pro. You're pretty much on your own. I have to watch what I eat, what I do, where I go. It's all around boxing. Boxing is my life. I have nothing else. It's how I earn my money. It's what I think about all day, every day. It's given me the life that I have now. I live comfortable. I live... I'm happy. I can do things that I probably couldn't have done before through boxing.

Boxing has been able to ride the wave of rising global interest in combat sports, boosted by the arrival of influential social media stars on the scene. But the sport's fragmented, often chaotic federation structure means boxers also need the right connections if they want a shot at those title fights and the big money.

A lot of boxing is pretty much the Wild West. It's pretty much who knows who, who can pull the strings. It's not like the Premier League where they go through a process. The best are picked. The others are dropped. This has got so many more bits to who gets picked and who gets chosen and who gets the big fights.

It is really not that straightforward. And I always say it is not the most talented fighters that get to the top sometimes. It's the best managed fighters that get to the top. So you definitely lose a lot of talent along the way.

The money comes in and it gets higher is when your kind of value goes up. You keep winning. You do the necessary stuff within the ring. If you're not winning, you're then going to go backwards. It's like snakes and ladders. But then again, it's how do you raise your profile on your own? So social media is a pivotal part. Let's say you didn't have your social media and you were just a talented boxer. You will, of course, get to where you need to get to - world title, all the belts. But it's how much is your value gone up within that?

The attitude of the big promoters has changed. It is really about the money that fighters can generate now. If a fighter who is not a big ticket seller loses, they bin him off straight away. They've just got to keep winning. Just got to keep winning. It's just easier to keep winning if you are a big ticket seller because they will put more things in your favour. It's really like that. It's just harder for you if you're not generating them cash.

I think the business model of boxing is in a good place. I think when you open up the revenues to a fighter, if they're not commercially a success, they won't receive the amount of money that they perceive to be correct. If you are a superstar and drive huge numbers, that is where you will get your maximum pay from that structure.

The problem comes is when someone's actually very good but doesn't have the commercial value with sponsors, with drive-in viewership and pay per view, with putting bums on seats in venues. And that's the hardest conversation because someone might be outstanding, but if they're not driving revenue to the show how do they warrant the major purses? They can push but something's got to click between the fighter and the fan base to get them there. And it doesn't always work.

The number of fighters eager to take a chance on turning professional continues to grow.

I believe that the way boxing is going is that a lot of fighters that will be headlining UK TV shows will now be moving on to the Saudi shows, which means that there will be a shortage of high quality fights in the UK, which is going to mean that everybody is going to uplift, and a lot of fighters that are on the small hall apprentice level are going to be given more opportunities. So I actually do believe that the future is looking more bright for the people, the apprentices, to get bigger chances in their careers.

We're seeing, now, more and more investment from other countries to bring major boxing events to their country or their territory. Obviously, Saudi is the most famous of that. But we stage events throughout Mexico, Monaco... Australia is another market where the government or state government will invest to bring boxing specifically to their territory because it's a hot sport, and they know that the eyes of the world will be watching when there's a major fight.

Time.

But whether all the new money coming into the sport will be felt in the lower ranks is yet to be seen.

In the last few years there's more chances for boxers to become financially secure. In my day, 30 years ago, there were probably be three or four boxers that were doing financially well. Everyone else was probably just getting by. That's changed, I think, with the broadcasters and the profile of boxing. You see more people coming through and being successful. So there's opportunities for everybody now. Obviously, you've got social media platforms and whatever. But there is good opportunities.

Some people ask why boxers do what they do. People hope they're going to be in that half a per cent, and they have a dream. So they pursue that dream. That's why they do it. It's a dream.

My end goal is to have my freedom. I feel like boxing allows me to be free. I am training every day, twice a day. But it's something that I love and I enjoy doing. I do believe and I will become the undisputed champion in the super flyweight division, and I just want to be the best in the game.

Hopefully earn some good money, win some titles, and, most importantly, get out of the game safe and, yeah, enjoy the rest of my life with my family.