Canelo was guaranteed $40 million, but with an $18 million gate and him serving as his own promoter, he will make millions more, especially if these PPV numbers from Boxing Scene are correct.
The break-even number was 500k PPV Buys, and people were worried because Canelo-Plant was going up against a UFC PPV.
I wasn’t particularly worried because MMA fans and Boxing fans don’t have a lot of crossover. You normally are passionate about one and casual about the other.
It appears I was correct in that assessment.
Canelo Alvarez’s return to boxing’s traditional pay-per-view platform Saturday night was a bigger success than anticipated.
BoxingScene.com has learned that the total buy rate for the Showtime Pay-Per-View event headlined by Alvarez’s 11th-round knockout of Caleb Plant is on track to reach 800,000. That total includes only domestic buys in the United States through cable and satellite operators, as well as digital sales that have consistently accounted for an increasing number of buys in 2021.
Numerous industry insiders indicated to BoxingScene.com before Alvarez fought Plant on Saturday night at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas that their fight would draw somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 buys, in part because Showtime’s four-fight telecast directly competed with UFC 268 on pay-per-view.
It is highly likely, in my opinion, that Canelo’s next fight will also be on Showtime or FOX PPV.
I believe that the opponent is likely to be either David Benavidez or Jermall Charlo, who are both PBC fighters.
Canelo can go back to DAZN, but the opponents that will be available, Dimitry Bivol and Jon Ryder, don’t have as much appeal in the states, especially if he plans to fight on Cinco De Mayo weekend.
If Canelo can do 800k PPV buys with an unknown fighter outside of boxing circles like Caleb Plant, he would likely do over a million with Charlo or Benavidez.
Flip the pages from highlights from Canelo-Plant.