Mikey Garcia reluctant to enter boxing’s slumping pay-per-view market
Mikey Garcia is an unbeaten world champion like Gennady Golovkin, but as the 29-year-old lightweight assesses boxing’s television landscape, he’d prefer exposure over the chance for a few extra bucks.
The boxer from Riverside is looking forward to scouting his future opponent Saturday when he serves as a guest analyst on the Showtime broadcast of the World Boxing Assn. lightweight title rematch between champion Jorge Linares and England’s Anthony Crolla in Manchester, England.
The winner is expected to fight Garcia (36-0, 30 knockouts), the World Boxing Council champion, in a bout that will likely be televised by Showtime or its parent company CBS.
While Garcia has been pegged as a future pay-per-view fighter, he said he’s content for now to continue building his audience organically as did newly unified welterweight champion Keith Thurman in drawing 5.1 million viewers to CBS for his split-decision victory over Danny Garcia on March 4.
Saturday’s three-belt middleweight title defense by Gennady Golovkin (37-0) over Daniel Jacobs on HBO pay-per-view generated only modest sales. One early report projected sales wouldn’t exceed 150,000 buys. HBO has not released the numbers.
“Pay-per-view is bit of a gamble. I know people say I could be the next big pay-per-view star. They say that about a lot of fighters,” Garcia said. “To reach that, it takes a lot. Not just fighting skills, but marketing, good promotion.… If [Saturday’s Golovkin-Jacobs] fight doesn’t do good numbers, it doesn’t mean they’re not stars.
“It’s just that the pay-per-view market is different. Right now, some fighters would rather be showcased on a free network to reach that bigger audience. That’s a guaranteed success in hopes of one day fighting the right guy and turn that into a pay-per-view.
“Out of the 4 or 5 million viewers who watched you for free, maybe 800,000 to 1 million will actually pay to watch you. That’s kind of what the strategy should be. Right now, a regular network is right for me.”
Following the backlash that came when Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao put on a boring fight in 2015 despite 4.6 million buys, the pay-per-view market has slumped mightily, with many fans employing Periscope posts of the broadcast for thousands to watch.
“Why take the pay-per-view gamble? I don’t need to do that,” Garcia said. “If anything, it probably hurts you because people [who see disappointing numbers] now think you’re not a star. Triple-G [Golovkin] is a great fighter, but his pay-per-view with David Lemieux [in 2015] didn’t do well and now if this one doesn’t do any better, people are going to say he’s not a star.
“So when he wants to negotiate a bigger fight like with Canelo [Alvarez], he’s the B side because his numbers aren’t great. It … hurts him.”
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