Rumored Saudi’s looking to buy Boxing Promotions …Saudi Boxing League incoming ?

[MMALOPEZ]

 

[Noveltymortar]

Oh great, I guess my hands will get cut off if I get caught streaming.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

Holy shit

 

[MMALOPEZ]

 

[MMALOPEZ]

Matchroom/Golden Boy and Queensberry would be the first wave of fighters to join the “Saudi League” if they move forward with this …

 

[Gas121]

Well this would be interesting..

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

I'm not a fan of full centralization or monopolization but the Saudis could give us the best of both worlds. By acquiring all of the major boxing promotions we would get to see the best fight the best regularly. It would eliminate all of the hurdles (promotional & network politics) that have plagued the sport for years. Fans would benefit greatly and the fighters would earn more than they ever have. It's a win-win there.

The drawback obviously being that the Saudis would essentially have complete control of professional boxing. This would also create a single point of failure. Professional boxing would become far less resilient than it is now in its decentralized structure.

 

[Blastbeat]

ah shit, we dont need boxing to go full UFC and make it so one company has like 95% market share in a sport.
plus its Saudi Arabia's government. as bad as boxing is now, it'd get a lot worse if the Saudis are the ones pulling the strings exclusively.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

ah shit, we dont need boxing to go full UFC and make it so one company has like 95% market share in a sport.
plus its Saudi Arabia's government. as bad as boxing is now, it'd get a lot worse if the Saudis are the ones pulling the strings exclusively.

The fundamental difference between the Saudis and the UFC is that the former is extremely generous to its fighters financially while the other is cheap. The Saudis don't underpay them, or even pay market value, they're willing to overpay their fighters and clearly they can afford it. Having a $1 trillion public investment fund at their disposal makes this possible. Theoretically they could satisfy everybody's demands from the fighters to the fans.

 

[Blastbeat]

The fundamental difference between the Saudis and the UFC is that the former is extremely generous to its fighters financially while the other is cheap. The Saudis don't underpay them, or even pay market value, they're willing to overpay their fighters and clearly they can afford it. Having a $1 trillion public investment fund at their disposal makes this possible. Theoretically they could satisfy everybody's demands from the fighters to the fans.

yeah but the UFC dont use indentured servant labor when building their facilities. their Kafala system for foreign workers is basically tantamount to that.
the sportswashing would be unreal if the Saudis bought up every single belt org. i do admit - we would probably continue to get amazing and quality fight cards. Day of Reckoning and Ring of Fire were both incredible events. the whole thing is a moral conundrum for a fan like me.

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

@MMALOPEZ What are your thoughts on this? Just curious.

 

[MMALOPEZ]

@MMALOPEZ What are your thoughts on this? Just curious.

love/hate …. They would become a powerhouse that we haven’t seen in yearssssss…. But when “Monopoly” is a possibility is concerning … so maybe if PBC and Top Rank can stay alive and not involved with this monster … we as fans have options and so are the fighters … PROBOX - BOXXER are going to be needed even more imo

 

[David Street]

Not buy all Promotions!!! But get the main players/promotions to join them they will still own their own promotion but be a league like a team in their organization looking to be like American football teams or nascar. But must ask myself what of the smaller promotions?

Big Promotions they are in talks with are Top Rank Boxing, Golden Boy Promotions, Matchroom Boxing, Queensberry Promotion. No word on Premier Boxing Champions.

So many smaller orgs will lose out and the fighters would have to leave the small promions and move to the bigger promotions to get the bigger money. Poor smaller promotions even Don King and BOXXER seem left out of these talks.

https://www.reuters.com/sports/boxing-saudi-wealth-fund-holding-talks-create-boxing-league-sources-say-2024-06-11/?taid=6668861777e9400001fe1ed0&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter&s=01

 

[borntoloseNOT]

Crazy to imagine

 

[ferrisjso]

Saudis about to become the pugilistic republic of Arabia.

But yeah theres still the whole sanctioning bodys.

In theory couldn't the Saudis just make their own promotion and sign everyone when their contract ends without having to buy the promotions themselves?

 

[Kovalev's "Man Bag"]

In theory couldn't the Saudis just make their own promotion and sign everyone when their contract ends without having to buy the promotions themselves?

Yes, but there's a third option. They could simply buy these fighters out of their existing contracts like Floyd did with his own when he was with Top Rank. He handed them a check for $750k and left.

 

[Dr Fong]

In the UFC, the best fight the best...on twitter.

Monopolies can theoretically be good for forced matchmaking. But in practice, as we've seen with U Fight Cheap, it also allows them to suppress pay and have complete control to protect favorites, which also means guys often just sit on the bench or beg to fight in boxing.

The biggest HW fights in MMA never happened - Lesnar vs Fedor and Jones vs Big Frank.

Anyway, this probably won't apply to Saudis but it's worth remembering that even the potential 'good side' of combat sports monopolies can really end up shit.

 

[JeetKunDoGuy]

Told you guys he wants to be the Dana White of boxing

 

[Thepaintbucket]

Be quite honest I'm surprised they haven't bought up sports organizations sooner.

 

[Mujeriego]

Told you guys he wants to be the Dana White of boxing

Did ya?