Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images
Longtime boxing promoter, Bob Arum, was highly-confident in saying that the rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury — which went down last Saturday (Feb. 22) in Las Vegas, Nevada — would generate three to four million pay-per-view (PPV) buys. It appears to have fallen a bit short of those expectations.
According to Yahoo Sports, the championship rematch managed to snag up around 800,000 to 850,000 buys on the cable and satellite platforms due to an extreme amount of illegal streaming and online piracy, which deeply affected the highly-anticipated title fight’s profit margin.
From the report:
The main culprit is theft of the signal. According to Wayne Lonstein of VFT Solutions, which tracks signal piracy, there were between 10 and 20 million live views of the fight on the major social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and there were nearly 10 million more that were viewed as video on demand. Many of those latter views were only slightly delayed.
The news is especially disappointing for Wilder and Fury, who receive a portion of the PPV buys on the back end to go along with their respective $25 million purses. Still, the rematch managed to generate 500,000 more PPV buys than their original matchup.
Fury defeated Wilder via seventh round knockout (see it) to claim the WBC and The Ring, heavyweight titles. ‘Gypsy King’ dominated the bout from the start, eventually forcing Wilder’s corner to throw in the towel. That move, however, didn’t sit too well with Wilder, who stated that the corner man who actually threw the towel would no longer be a part of his team moving forward.
Furthermore, Wilder blamed his loss on the extravagant 40-pound costume he wore walking to the ring, saying his legs were shot due to the extra weight. “The Bronze Bomber” will get his chance at revenge as he pulled the trigger on the rematch clause, which means the two big men will likely fight a third time before 2020 is over.