IT must be difficult to juggle your time between DAZN in the USA and Sky Sports in the UK. Can you say you are putting as much effort into the UK shows now as you were two years ago?
Yes. When youโre trying to establish a global business you canโt be a one-trick pony. In answer to your question, I donโt believe our UK shows will suffer. But will some ofย myย focus be taken off the UK shows? 100 per cent. But thatโs just life. Thatโs why you build a good team of people. To make sure you delegate and they do the job, and as long as they donโt affect the quality of the show, thatโs fine. When youโve got 100 per cent of the focus on the UK business and then 20 or 30 per cent of your focus goes to the US, of course, thatโs just natural. But thatโs why we bring in a team. Weโve expanded the team, weโve probably got 30 employees now in our global boxing business set-up.
Compared to what when you started?
Probably, four. It used to just be me, Johnny Wish [John Wischusen], Frank [Smith] was just a tea boy and that was about it I think. Now thereโs digital, head of social media, matchmaker in the UK, matchmaker in the US, matchmaker in Italy. The target and the dream for us is to establish that global business. Iโm not interested in just being a UK promoter. We want to establish the Matchroom Boxing brand, [in the same way] as UFC, which is very difficult to do, but as the key global boxing brand that is synonymous with quality, great fights and great events, in every major market.
We want to be able to go into those markets and thatโs part of the new deals weโre doing now in new territories. Weโll be up to 54 shows a year and Iโd like that to be 70 or 80. Iโd like to be doing two or three shows a weekend, worldwide.
But then obviously I canโt attend every one. The harder thing is probably managing the personal life with a family. Because if I didnโt have a family Iโd live in a hotel, literally. Iโd go from one city to another city, to event to event, living out of a suitcase. I could do that.
You can employ people to do social media, you can employ qualified people in certain fields of your business, but are there really the fighters out there to do 54 shows a year? Is it difficult to find quality fighters to ensure each of those shows are a success considering the magnitude of what youโre trying to achieve?
No. Itโs harder to have the relationship with some of the fighters. If you only had eight fighters, youโre going to talk to them a lot more than if you had 80 fighters. But thatโs why you bring a team in.
I had a conversation with a fighter the other day who has lost domestic titles and said to me, โItโs hard to get hold of you. Iโve spoke to someone in the office but Iโd like to have a meeting with you.โ But thatโs why that person is in the office. To deal with you. Iโm not going to ignore you but obviously my priorities will change. Call it ruthless, but thatโs how it is.
When you have eight fighters, maybe when you get a British champion, heโs a major part of your team. Now if we have a British champion, itโs still important to us, but when youโve got an undisputed world champion, when youโve got pound-for-pound greats, of course theyโre [British champions] going to be further down the pecking order. But theyโre going to get more opportunities to box on more shows, bigger shows, shows worldwide, and earn more money than being anywhere else [under a different promoter].
We will naturally get the guys who donโt feel like theyโre as important as they used to be but, in all honesty and being completely ruthless, perhaps theyโre not. So if weโre trying to put on unification fights in Vegas and then weโve got a guy whoโs just lost for the British title two fights ago, obviously heโs not going to be at the forefront of our vision. It doesnโt mean weโll turn our back on him, but there are people who have been delegated to guide his career rather than me.
Everyone wants me to turn up to the press conferences, everyone wants me to turn up to the fight nights and the weigh-ins. Weโll get to the stage where we are doing 80 events a year. I canโt be at everything. The Italian events will be on a Friday night. Thatโs a little bit easier, I can go to them, but then youโve got to get across time zones, to America, to China and so forth. Itโs going to be madness, but thatโs the dream.
Is it harder than you thought it would be?
Not really, no.
Is it harder than you thought to attract the fighters you wanted?
Weโve got eight world champions already signed. [Oleksandr] Usyk, [Demetrius] Andrade, [Daniel] Jacobs, [Artur] Beterbiev, [Maurice] Hooker, [Daniel] Roman. Weโve got [Jarrell] Miller. But we still need someone like Mikey Garcia or a Charlo.
People [promoters and broadcasters] are just hanging on for dear life. If you look at what Showtime are doing now when we talked about PPV earlier [read HERE], Showtime donโt have one championship night scheduled at all. But they have three PPVs scheduled: Wilder-Fury in December, Pacquiao-Broner in January, Spence-Garcia in February. So they are having to say to those fighters, โwe will give you a PPV dateโ to keep them.
But it will just take time for those fighters to realise that those PPVs wonโt hit the numbers that equate to the numbers we are offering them.
DAZN is a very aggressive business who want everything now, and thatโs why the Canelo deal happened. They could have waited there, maybe three months, and they would have got him. Thatโs not the kind of company they are. They might tell me to talk to fighter. Iโll say I have offered them this. They will then tell me to offer him more. But Iโll say no. We run a business and we know the numbers on how a business should be run but this whole different animal. Itโs not something Iโm used to, I donโt like throwing away money. I donโt like just giving away another million.
But that must be difficult. You publicised the amount the DAZN deal was worth from the start. Itโs almost like putting all your cards on the table.
We had a choice there. A lot of people told me not to say how big the deal was. But Iโm a promoter. I canโt go out there and say, โWeโve done a deal. Itโs big but I canโt really give you the details on how big it is.โ Thatโs the selling point. It is a billion-dollar deal and thatโs the headline.
Of course itโs going to give you other problems but what weโve seen is ESPN getting hugely aggressive, Showtime getting aggressive, HBO have gone. Everyone is trying to keep up with the spend and it will be a war of attrition. Only the sharpest and those with the deepest pockets will survive. But the whole market is madness. The fighters are overpaid, the money has got completely out of control but thatโs the market now in America. Iโd love to be an advisor or a manager because youโve got no risk. You serve your fighter up, you say โhow much do you want to pay?โ You take your commission and you go on holiday.