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Associated Press
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer speaks with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 | 2:51 p.m.
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If You Go
- What: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) vs. Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs), 12 scheduled rounds
- When: Sept. 19
- Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena
- Tickets: $150-$1,000, mgmgrand.com
- TV: HBO pay-per-view, $49.95
Sun Archives
- Statement match (9-3-2009)
- Floyd Mayweather Jr. says distractions won't hurt him fight night (9-2-2009)
- Breather from bravado (9-2-2009)
- Mayweather-Marquez puts boxing back on the big screen (8-24-2009)
- Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s car found at shooting, search warrant served (8-24-2009)
- Judah, John-Juarez rematch highlights big Mayweather-Marquez undercard (8-19-2009)
- Police: Mayweather uncle arrested in Vegas scuffle (8-4-2009)
- Oddly, marquee fight’s catch weight still unknown (7-24-2009)
- Mayweather badmouths MMA, Pacquiao's promoter (7-21-2009)
- 'Money' talks Manny (7-14-2009)
- Records suggest Mayweather Jr. owes IRS (7-2-2009)
- Mayweather fight rescheduled for Sept. 19 (6-26-2009)
- Mayweather Jr. with injured cartilage, can't train (6-15-2009)
- Mayweather Jr. fight postponed (6-14-2009)
"Boxing is dead."
It’s a statement that nearly every fan has run across in articles, radio shows, social networking tools or discussion forums.
At some point in the last few decades, the sport lost the casual fan. The 2007 fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. that became known as "the fight that will save boxing" didn’t get the job done.
Over the last 18 months, Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions, has been working on nothing but turning this perception around.
And he believes that by the time Mayweather fights Juan Manuel Marquez on Sept. 19, he’ll have pointed the entire sport back in the right direction.
“I was delivering presentations to Fox Sports and Bloomberg Television recently,” Schaefer said. “And to be able to deliver the kind of news with the kinds of sponsors I was, I was proud to be associated with the sport of boxing.
“Some people think that the sport is under attack but it really isn’t. We are doing what we do best and that is working these events and bringing new sponsors to the table.”
It’s hard to recall any other time in boxing history where plans to market and deliver the sport were as ambitious as they are in the weeks leading up to this fight.
Marketing tools range from utilizing the newest social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to arranging promotional spots to be shown in fast food restaurants.
All have the goals in mind of bringing back the casual fan and landing new sponsors.
“When Golden Boy Promotions got involved five years ago, there were virtually no sponsors left in the sport of boxing,” Schaefer said. “Besides a few beer brands there were no significant other sponsors. We needed to develop those relationships and get companies interested in our sport again.”
Schaefer has been successful in persuading big spenders back to his events, earning financial support from the likes of Cerveza Tecate, Quaker State, AT&T, Dewalt Tools, Affliction Clothing and Southwest Airlines for Mayweather v. Marquez.
While it’s been typical in boxing that sponsors are linked to specific one-time events, Schaefer is hoping that relationships with the biggest companies could lead to signing sponsors to contracts for long-term projects.
“We have people in the audience that are not sponsors yet,” Schaefer said. “It will hopefully lead to sponsorships in the future with companies like McDonalds that we can use to build up young fighters on network television again. It’s not just going to happen though, we need to show them the reach the sport has.”
To increase that reach, Schaefer is depending on networks like HBO to successfully promote the sport through various platforms.
No other promotional tool has been more successful or hyped as the HBO series "24/7," a four-episode documentary series on its sixth installment that takes fans into the personal lives and training of fighters.
According to Mark Taffet, senior vice president of HBO Pay-Per-View, promotional spots such as "24/7" have the opportunity to reach an unprecedented number of fans due to the new technology consumers use in their everyday life.
“There has been an explosion, there’s no other way to describe it, of powerful distribution outlets that creates tens of millions of ways to reach consumers,” Taffet said. “Particularly the younger audience we need to continue the growth of boxing.”
Those outlets include making the series available on HBO On Demand, music videos, live streaming of the pre-fight weigh-ins, 30-minute preview shows on all Fox Sports regional networks, mobile video delivered on AT&T and fighter playlists available on iTunes.
“Basically we are providing a 360-degree, consumer surround sound. Anywhere they eat, shop, drive, text, tweet — they will be surrounded by over 700 million impressions about the fight with over $20 million dollars of marketing value.”
Taffet also believes that the sport of boxing itself has the kinds of fighters that could make the growth they are hoping for possible.
The retirement of De La Hoya after losing his last fight in December 2008 may have temporarily left boxing without its ambassador, but the strength of its current welterweight division reminds Taffet of previous golden ages of the sport.
“Oscar was the engine of the sport and when he retired, it really gave a number of us motivation to prove that his sport can continue to be vital and grow with the current cast of athletes,” Taffet said.
“I think we can be proud of the fact that less than a year after he announced his retirement, there is a welterweight division with Mayweather, Marquez, Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Ricky Hatton, Antonio Margarito. They are lighting up the sport as we had in the great eras of the past with Marvin Haggler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran. We know we’ve got a special group of fighters here to reach a new, young audience and we’re confident we’ve got the right formula for success.”
Considering its increased efforts to reach the average consumer, it appears the boxing community has overheard it may be dead.
This month’s upcoming fight and its recent efforts should go a long way in telling whether or not the rumors are true.
Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or brett.okamoto@lasvegassun.com.
Boxing is not dead.
It is only Mayweather's irritating character that seems to be dead.
GBP really needs some new marketing and programming tools to promote Floyd's fights.
His fights are not selling well.
His loudmouth and trashtalking style are turning off fight fans. He recently said that he's an entertainer so fans dont believe the seriousness of the matchup and what theyre telling about it.
There's no excitement anymore in Floyd's attention-getting antics.
did you know who made boxing dead? its the Golden Boy! did you see his fights against Hopkins and Mayweather? watch them! especially the Hopkins fight! He was acting there.. you see people have spent their time and money watch those fights and what they did was like WWE match! they shoudnt have done that, they've just wasted a lot of things! they make people look like a fool! You see Oscar was my Idol before but after that Hopkins fight, he was nothing..
Corrupt officials and sanctioning boards killed boxing, my beloved sport.
In my opinion, Pay-Per-View killed the sport. When was the last time someone could watch a quality fight without coughing up $50?
You're not going to build a fan-base if the price of admission is that high:
- The passionate boxing fan may pay it, or may lose interest.
- The casual fan (myself included) likely isn't interested enough to pay that kind of money, and is not going to GET interested enough if they can't watch a few fights and follow the sport for free first.
In a way, boxing promoters could take a page from the WWE and UFC marketing books: build a fan base with events on free TV (typical undercard fare), and then charge them for the big marquee title fights.
Boxing has always been a poor man's sport. The post below is correct. "Pay-Per-View killed the sport."
When boxing had a sensation like Mike Tyson, they took advantage of it by moving the fights to pay per view, because they knew people would pay anything to see Tyson. Now you have that same strategy in effect with every decent fight.
Mixed Martial Arts also played a hand in the decline of boxing. I can't even have a conversation with anyone about boxing anymore, everyone under 35 only wants to talk MMA.
Boxing has a personality problem also. Not enough Cotto's and Gatti's and too many Mayweathers and Hopkins.
On Paper the Mayweather/Marquez fight looks great, but both them are pretty uninteresting people. Marquez has been fighting in the states for two decades and can still barely utter a word of English and Mayweather is some loud mouth - always flashing money - wanna be rapper.
Boxing needs to be moved to free local channels to bring the fans back. We will never see that though, because of the greed factor.
they should put on the survey "who could give crap" only well rounded fighters are what I want to see boxing is boring.. great skillto have but boring to watch and the guys dont fight.. they dance... floyd is your poster boy and he' an idiot period no one cares about his money lots of people have money...I would'nt pay 10 bucks to see his fights i see better fights at the the 3rd rate MMA fights at the indian casino. so pay up chumps and cling to your dying sport