Bob Arum foresees a big night at the box office for Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter.
The Hall of Fame promoter and founder of Top Rank is pleased with the increased interest in the upcoming WBO welterweight title fight, which takes place November 20 exclusively on ESPN+ Pay-Per-View. At last count, less than 100 tickets remain as a sellout crowd has become the expectation at Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas.
Crawford (37-0, 28KOs) has pulled strong attendance figures and linear TV ratings in the past, though has struggled to establish himself as a PPV star. Top Rank is eagerly expecting that trend to drastically change in the right direction for this fight, optimistically anticipating among the best-selling PPV events of the year, if not the very best.
“The other platforms don’t do particularly well on PPV. We thought, and I’m sure it’s going to work, going on ESPN+ exclusively, we will do UFC kind of PPV numbers,” Arum insisted during a recent Zoom media conference call to discuss the upcoming event. “[It] can be as low as 500,000 and as high as a million and a half.
“That’s our goal. I really believe these fighters, Terence and Porter, are in for a big, big surprise when they see the PPV results.”
Many in the industry will be surprised by such a turnout as well. Porter (31-3-1, 17KOs) boasts a reputation for taking on all comers but has never established himself as a box-office blockbuster. His lone PPV headliner was a successful commercial venture, though playing the B-side to the higher profile Errol Spence in their fantastic September 2019 WBC/IBF welterweight title unification bout atop a Fox Sports PPV event which reportedly sold roughly 300,000 units.
Crawford has headlined two PPV events, neither producing numbers to remember. It can also be argued that he was never paired with the right opponent to properly drive such an event. That dynamic changes with Porter, against whom Crawford is favored to win but who finally faces a top welterweight—one with the best resume in the division.
Landing such fights at welterweight has proven problematic for the three-division titlist and pound-for-pound entrant since his arrival in 2018. Top Rank and Crawford have previously blamed the development on a lack of cooperation from Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), who houses Spence, Porter and nearly every other top welterweight in recent years. The two sides have since found a way to work together to do big business together, specifically in the second and third installments of the heavyweight championship trilogy between Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 22KOs) and Deontay Wilder (42-2-1, 41KOs).
Crawford-Porter was ordered by the WBO, with the fight threatening to head to a purse bid before a deal was reached. Both boxers are expected to earn career high paydays as a result.
“Both companies saw that we could really work well together,” notes Arum. “They greenlighted Porter. It was easy to put the fight together. One of the real reasons that the fight could be made was ESPN. ESPN+ has a platform now that has 19,000,000 subscribers. When ESPN+ has the exclusive PPV rights, they can publicize it and email constantly to their subscribers, they’re doing huge numbers.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox