Not just in the East but in the West and in all of boxing worldwide. The numbers it did speak for themselves.
Pay per view is dead appears to be something of a miscalculated gamble by the likes of Paramount Plus in the US recently with their new move into boxing.
It is clearly not.
Inoue vs Nakatani did well last weekend on pay per view and they are very small. Usually boxers that small and very light in weight don’t do these kind of numbers on pay-per-view:
- Inoue vs Nakatani generated over 500,000 PPV buys in Japan.
- Reports show it reached around 650,000 domestic PPV buys.
- The fight set a new all-time domestic PPV record for combat sports in Japan.
- Tokyo Dome was sold out with 55,000 fans in attendance.
- The event generated over $30 million to $32 million in gate revenue.
- It succeeded without major Western stars or heavy U.S. promotion.
- The massive numbers prove big PPV success is possible purely with Japanese talent.
- It challenges the idea that PPV only works well for big Western names.
- The event became one of the highest-grossing combat sports events in Japanese history.
- Inoue’s star power shows elite local fights can drive strong PPV results in both East and West.
Pay per view is clearly here to stay but it has to be the right fight and the right price point in whatever market the fight is on in.
$49.99 in the US looks to be the ideal price but that is lower in other countries, maybe $19.99 in the UK and Japan and places that have less competition in sports like the US does.
The US sports landscape is 10 times bigger than anywhere else in the world so that’s where that adjustment comes from above.
Good little scrap last weekend and well deserved on the numbers, Inoue and Nakatani.
