By Bobby Burack
Copyright outkick
The Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford last Saturday night was the biggest real boxing bout of this decade, the biggest since Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao in 2015. But unlike many past superfights before Saturday, Canelo vs. Crawford was not a pay-per-view event. Rather, the event was available to Netflix subscribers at no extra cost. According to streaming service, the fight drew over 41 million viewers and peaked at over 24 million concurrent streams, with the main event scoring an estimated average minute audience (AMA) of 36.6 million live+SD (same day). What does that mean? Well, that’s the thing. We don’t really know. Netflix viewers are not the same as television viewers, who are measured by Nielsen. Meaning, the fight isn’t comparable to, say, an NFL playoff game with an average viewership of 41 million. Mayweather vs. Pacquiao sold a record 4.6 million pay-per-views. Mayweather’s fight with Conor McGregor in 2017 fell just short of the record, with 4.3 million buys. But, likewise, pay-per-view sales are not comparable to streaming numbers on Netflix. The apples-to-apples comparison would be Jake Paul’s fight with Mike Tyson last November, which also streamed on Netflix. Paul vs. Tyson more than doubled Canelo-Crawford with 108 million viewers. Does that mean the fight last Saturday was a disappointment? Hardly. Paul vs. Tyson was a gimmick, pitting a 58-year-old icon against an internet sideshow. Unfortunately, mainstream interest in celebrity fights is currently higher than in championship boxing. But that’s a result of boxing promoters derailing the sport for years, allowing their egos to dictate matchmaking. That’s about to change with Saudi Arabian adviser Turki Alalshikh’s involvement. In fact, that’s already changed. Canelo and Crawford are the two greatest fighters of this generation. Historically, fans wouldn’t get to see a fight like this until one of the fighters is past their prime. Insert Turki Alalshikh, and the fight was made almost immediately. Along with its business TKO partners Dana White of the UFC and Nick Khan of WWE, Alalshikh has a chance to make boxing, well, great again. And Saturday night was great. Alalshikh presented the event like a WrestleMania as 70,000 people packed Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for a gate of over $47 million, the largest in the stadium’s history and third largest in boxing history, behind Mayweather vs. Pacquiao ($72 million) and Mayweather vs. McGregor ($55 million). Crawford and Canelo also delivered – especially Crawford, who won via unanimous decision in one of the more masterful performances in recent memory. Put simply, people can debate how big a win 41 million viewers on Netflix is. The bigger win was what last Saturday night did for the sport of boxing and its future. As long as Alalshikh continues to book the fights fans want to see on an accessible service like Netflix, boxing has a chance to enter a golden era – something fans haven’t been able to say in nearly 30 years.
