You don’t have to be a die-hard boxing fan to recognize a face-off: Two fighters standing very close, often holding up their fists, sometimes talking trash, refusing to look away for several minutes, or even slapping their opponent in the face.
There might be others on the stage, too, like the people meant to keep athletes from fighting too soon or camera crews aiming to capture the action up close. In the case of fights put on by promoter Matchroom Boxing, there’s also Eddie Hearn, the chairman of UK-based Matchroom Sport.
Hearn has promoted some of the biggest stars in boxing, including Anthony Joshua, Canelo Álvarez, and Katie Taylor, for fights around the world, and he recently found himself stateside promoting the April 12 title fight for both the IBF and WBA welterweight belts between Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The venue used to host iconic boxers like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, Hearn said, and while Ennis vs. Stanionis was a significant match-up, Hearn and other boxing promoters are facing a fight of their own: Boxing isn’t quite as popular in the US now as it was back in Ali’s day.
Ahead of a big bout between Ryan Garcia and Rolly Romero coming up in Times Square on May 2, Hearn spoke with Marketing Brew about why he thinks boxing needs to punch above its weight—and how he’s working to attract audiences beyond the superfans to the sport.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Why do you think boxing doesn’t have the same level of mainstream popularity as sports like football and basketball in the US?
Potentially, it’s a lack of superstars of American boxing. I think that when you’re growing a sport, you need those star figures, and I think you particularly need those star figures in the flagship division, which is the heavyweight division. For a little while, Deontay Wilder came through, but I feel like there was a real lack of promotion around Deontay Wilder. America had a world heavyweight champion that was knocking people out that was very exciting to watch, he had a big personality, but the promotion behind him, I thought, was quite limited…The sport has also taken a back seat behind a paywall quite a lot…When you watch a massive NFL game or a massive NBA game, you’re not paying $90 to watch one game like you would be for a major boxing event.
What are some of the ways you’re promoting fights, not just among the people who are already closely following boxing, but to more casual fans?
The casual fan is a very, very important element of the ecosystem of the audience. The way that you create big fights is to engage the casual fan…For me, that audience is captivated by content. I think that it’s very naive to think that you can just go around with a billboard around Atlantic City, all over New York, with Jaron Ennis against Stanionis and think that’s really going to drive interest in the event. It’s old-school, and we never betray those old-school tactics, but for me, the investment now is across the digital conversation, the narrative, and the content that’s created around those events. We make huge investments in terms of our promo material. Every fight has got to have a story. Every fighter has got to have a narrative.
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Women’s boxing has especially struggled with having rivalries and star power. What’s your take on the growth of the women’s side of the sport?
Narrative is very important in the building of a fight, but ultimately, the post-fight success will be driven around the quality of what you watch, the product. Every time you watch Katie [Taylor], especially Katie and Amanda [Serrano], you will be blown away. There’s never gonna be a bad fight. As a promoter and someone that puts on, effectively, a product for fight fans and spectators, you can sit there in that fight and you don’t even have to worry—you know everybody in the arena is going to get the most incredible night. The reason that Katie has changed the game is because you can do that. You can roll her out in any arena, any city in the world, and everyone will go, “Wow.” That’s not always the case for women’s boxing. By the way, that’s not always the case for men’s boxing. [Women] are always going to get criticized faster for a poor fight than the men would, because there’s always the naysayers, the old-fashioned people, the moaners, that want to go, “Oh, that wasn’t very good.”
What have you seen in terms of the trajectory of brand and sponsor interest in boxing over the years?
We’ve actually seen a huge increase in sponsorship revenue over the last two years, but definitely the last 12 months, just because of the buzz of boxing. I feel like it’s an underrated sector for sponsorship…From a branding perspective, it’s incredibly strong. You have two cameras, but you have, really, a static branding opportunity that’s huge in boxing. But marketing officers and commercial teams are massively moving away from just the benefit of a static branding shot on screen. It’s the activation that is key, and that’s something that we work very hard at as a team. Boxing sponsorship is very well priced, and when you get it right and you’re part of a big event, I think the value to a sponsor is huge. The partnerships and packages that are available in boxing are so much more cost-effective than other major sports, but obviously it’s got to be right for the brand as well. I feel sometimes there might be a little bit of a nose turn-up of boxing…but the reality is when you create big moments and big fights, everyone wants to go. Everyone wants to watch.