Let's remember how Riyadh Season started to gain momentum. Some big fights that should have been happening in boxing weren't. Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder were three of the biggest names in the sport and yet for whatever reason, Joshua had never fought either opponent. Oleksandr Usyk was crashing the heavyweight party, but he was a man without a home base. His risk vs. reward profile forced him to go the mandatory route for a championship, because the big players in the sport weren't putting their money behind him.
Furthermore, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev had been circling each other for years as fellow light heavyweight champs, but no one was willing to put up enough money for that fight to transpire.
In stepped Turki Alalshikh and the Saudi Arabian government to get these fights over the line. Fights like Fury-Usyk and Beterbiev-Bivol were vital for this era of boxing. They helped determine who was truly the best in their respective divisions. There's a tremendous value in providing a definitive outcome in boxing instead of leaving a generation of "what ifs."
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| Turki Alalshikh (center) at the Ring Magazine Awards Photo courtesy of the WBA |
As Riyadh Season has continued to gain prominence in boxing, the organization has designs on a complete paradigm shift in the sport. Recently, they announced a partnership with TKO Group Holdings, the entity that owns the UFC and WWE, to create a league for young developmental fighters. With most of the major promoters in the sport now feeding from their generous till, Riyadh Season is determined to bring even more big boxing events to Saudi Arabia.
This is where things start to get a little dicey. Alalshikh has already mentioned that he would like to have the Ryan Garcia-Devin Haney rematch as a featured event in Saudi Arabia later this year. Now their fight did solid box office numbers at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, although the pay per view buys were a little softer than expected. But still, with the controversy surrounding their first fight, the rematch was guaranteed to do big business wherever it would've been held.
And here is where the problem lies for those who want boxing to succeed. Taking important fights away from local markets can only hurt the sport's ability to generate new fans.
Although boxing has created a lot of fans from its televised product over the generations, ask anyone who has attended a great live fight and he or she will tell you that it's among the best sporting experiences that they've ever experienced. Seeing a live fight helps cement the bonds of fandom in the sport. It increases one's passion and devotion to boxing. As great as it is to watch a fight on television the rush of adrenaline in seeing a memorable live fight is incomparable.
And let's face it, not too many Americans will be traveling to Saudi Arabia for boxing. We're talking thousands upon thousands of dollars and the better part of two days of travel. That's a scenario for someone to do a couple of times in their life, instead of heading to Vegas or Los Angeles or Dallas or New York on a more frequent basis.
This is not to say that Riyadh Season shouldn't have a place in creating important boxing fights. Take the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch; that is the perfect fight for Saudi Arabia to host. The undercard heavyweight fight between Zhilei Zhang and Agit Kabayel should produce a lot of fireworks as well. That's another fight that looks great on paper but doesn't have a logical geographic location. It's a natural destination for Saudi Arabia. But why would light heavyweights like Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith need to fight in Saudi Arabia? That's a fight that would do solid business headlining in the U.K. That's subtracting a big fight from an important market.
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| Beterbiev-Bivol was a signature Riyadh Season event Photo courtesy of Mikey Williams/Top Rank |
Ritual is vital for spectator sports. Going to live events is shared by families, friends and co-workers. Live sporting events create indelible memories. They also reconfirm a commitment to a sport. If major home matchups were taken away from NFL fans or English Premier League fans, over time the level of interest would taper off. Fans want to see Cowboys-Eagles at the Big D or Liverpool-Manchester United at Anfield. By taking away the sport's showpieces, fans' excitement level and commitment to the sport would be lessened. The centerpiece sporting events are what people want to spend that hard-earned money on.
Boxing needs Los Angeles and London and Tokyo and Sydney. It requires a vibrant global marketplace so that fighters can be developed and built into champions. For all of the resources that Riyadh Season has, what they don't have are the generations of experience in scouting and developing fighters. This is the main job of promoters: identifying boxers who could be world champions and building them up not just as athletes but as marketable attractions. And without thriving local markets for boxing, where are the opportunities to do the kind of nuts-and-bolts development that is required to produce the next wave of talent?
Much is still to be determined. Who knows when and how the TKO deal will get off the ground? I'm sure that the developmental league will be armed with buckets of money, but so much about boxing is about connections. Fighters often follow the advice of their trainers and managers. They are looking for organizations with track records of success. How many will want to be guinea pigs for a new endeavor? Will their development fights be in their home country? How often will they be fighting? Who will be guiding them? These are paramount questions that aren't just solved with money. The smart ones know that when it comes to development, it's not always just about flashy per-fight guarantees.
Riyadh Season, like many who have come before them, believe that they can eventually dominate the sport. And let's face it, they have the purse strings and the negotiating muscle to facilitate many changes in boxing. Some of these changes are worthwhile. Promoters should be working together more. Fighters should be facing better competition. Higher risk deserves bigger dollars.
But there are potential downsides too. Boxing requires fan participation for its sustenance. On a more granular level, major boxing markets need big fights as well. Boxing will not be healthy if key fight cities only have B- and C-level product.
Alalshikh has stated his desire to increase Saudi Arabia's tourism, to diversify the country's GDP, so it becomes a little less reliant on the fossil fuels industry. Those goals are understandable. He sees boxing, and more recently a large investment in DAZN, as ways to help create more revenue that is less dependent on the spot price of crude oil.
Hopefully other key stakeholders in boxing realize that a little bit of moderation will be required. Yes, Saudi Arabia should remain an option for certain fights, and even certain big fights where there isn't a natural box office market commensurate with the talent of the fighters in question. There is a significant role for that Riyadh Season could play. But I hope that the other key promoters and broadcasters in the sport realize that their local markets must have a healthy boxing scene for the sport to thrive. Without butts in seats, the sport will whittle away even more of its current fanbase.
I'm not saying that all of these decisions are necessarily easy or straight-forward. Deals have to be made. Some horse trading will be inevitable. But I'm hoping that the key stakeholders involved understand that in addition to being profitable entities, that they also have a role as stewards for the sport. If there is to be big-time boxing around the world in future generations, they will have to take prudent stands every now and then to fight for what is best the long-term future of the sport. One also needs to hedge against the possibility that Saudi Arabia curtails its interest in the sport. If all the eggs are in one basket, what is left to come home to?
Boxing has always had a problem thinking long-term. The terrible decision to take the sport off of network TV in America for premium cable certainly led to shorter-term riches for generations of promoters. But over time, the survivors understood the long-term damage that was done to the sport. Boxing hemorrhaged fans and lost its grip in the broader cultural discussion.
Now is a chance for the wise actors in the room to understand the choices that they face. Saudi Arabia can be a vital source of revenue for the sport and also further the careers of many fighters, but without thriving local boxing markets, the sport could dry up like a desert mirage.
