Promoter Eddie Hearn expects one of the most intriguing British boxing fights in recent memory to yield concomitantly high pay-per-view tallies.
Hearn, the head of Matchroom Boxing, predicted that the highly publicized 157-pound catchweight bout between Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn will produce “one million” pay-per-view buys. The all-British fight, which will be streamed by DAZN, costs its subscribers in the United Kingdom £19.99. For non-subscribers, the cost is £27.98 in the UK. It is part of the regular DAZN subscription for subscribers in the US and Canada.
“I think it can do one million buys,” Hearn told iFL TV. (Hearn did not specify if he meant only buys in the UK).
Hearn believes the recent distribution partnership between Virgin Media and DAZN will help boost pay-per-view sales.
“I mean, you’ve seen the deal announced with DAZN and Virgin,” Hearn continued. “It’s also available to Virgin customers, which increases the reach drastically. I think it can do a million buys. I really do.”
Hearn was recently criticized for mischaracterizing DAZN’s pay-per-view figures generated from Canelo Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin III in September, as it appears the total number (per DAZN, 1.06 million buys “worldwide”) also included DAZN subscriptions and not just pay-per-view sales.
Citing the metrics for the pre-fight publicity, Hearn believes Eubank Jr.-Benn will produce some genuinely strong numbers at the box office.
“I think it’s absolutely huge … across DAZN and Virgin, which is the pay-per-view,” Hearn said. “It’s not like, ‘Now, he’s including other numbers.’ How big is this fight? It’s massive. Even on Matchroom’s YouTube channel…Well over a million for the “face to face” (interview) numbers. The BBC documentary on Wednesday —This fight is huge.”
