Haney-Lomachenko Pay Per View Numbers Are Mostly In
It was a hotly contested, undisputed lightweight title fight last Saturday night in Las Vegas won by champ Devin Haney over challenger and former multi-division world champ Vasiliy Lomachenko. And, while the action was entertaining, the pay per view audience was only “lukewarm” through Top Rank Boxing and ESPN+ PPV.
Our insider Dan Rafael reported Wednesday night that the aggregate audience of Haney’s close, controversial decision win through ESPN+ service, and other forms of PPV, like our friends at PPV.com, etc., only totaled to around 150,000 buys.
From Dan’s Substack item:
“The event generated about 150,000 pay-per-view buys, multiple industry sources told Fight Freaks Unite. Another source said the fight did more than 150,000. The number includes streaming sales via ESPN+ as well as traditional cable and satellite services with around 115,000 coming via digital and another 35,000 to 40,000 via cable and satellite.
With a retail price of $59.99 for the pay-per-view that means it grossed about $9 million in domestic television revenue.”
As a reference point, the recent Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia pay per view in Vegas back in late April won by Davis on a TKO did massively well by present day standards. It’s believed that Davis-Garcia was in excess of 1.2 million purchases or over six times the buys, as Haney-Lomachenko in PPV audience.
Most non-heavyweight PPV’s are struggling to get more than 200,000 or 300,000 buys in the current boxing landscape.
It should also be noted that the Davis-Garcia PPV being offered via Premier Boxing Champions and Showtime was priced significantly higher at $84.99 creating a massive windfall over over $100 million in PPV revenue alone for the fighters and everyone involved.
Back to Saturday night, it was the first time that Haney or Lomachenko had been part of a main event PPV and clearly the event generated interest, as Top Rank announced the MGM Grand Garden Arena as a sellout of over 14,000 fans. However, Dan Rafael reports that the live gate generated a fraction of Davis-Garcia a month earlier at the T-Mobile Arena, which seats about 4,000 more for boxing.
Rafael has been told the live gate for Haney-Lomachenko was a “low seven figure gate,” while the Davis-Garcia bout was much more expensively priced on average and created over $20 million in live gate revenue.
We discussed further on our most recent “Fight Freaks Unite Recap” Podcast of Haney-Lomachanko that in terms of negotiation that Davis will unquestionably have more financial leverage in a proposed bout with the undisputed lightweight champ Haney. You can hear that debate/discussion by clicking below,
A veteran broadcaster of over 25 years, T.J. has been a fight fan longer than that! He’s the host of the “Big Fight Weekend” podcast and will go “toe to toe” with anyone who thinks that Marvin Hagler beat Sugar Ray Leonard or that Tyson, Lennox Lewis or Deontay Wilder could have beaten Ali!