Leonard Ellerbe’s disapproval of DAZN is a well-known story. The CEO of Mayweather Promotions, a couple of years ago even claimed that nobody watches fights on the new-age PPV platform. To date, it seems like he holds onto this unpopular opinion. However, promoter Eddie Hearn, whose bastion is DAZN has defended the platform.

Ever since DAZN was launched in 2018, the platform has proved to be a disruptor in the PPV business. On its watch, massive, historic platforms like Showtime Boxing have seen its knell. One constant partner of DAZN, Hearn has remained true to the platform. He gives all his fight streaming rights under his promotions to the Europe-based entity. So of course, when someone downplays the new era DAZN has ushered in, the promoter naturally voices out his disdain.

Who wins the PPV race?

Last December, Matchroom Boxing promoted Regis Prograis vs. Devin Haney. While the fight was not as lethal as many expected, giving Haney easy progress toward victory, there was a common understanding that the fight flopped on PPV. Multiple promoters including Bob Arum and Leonard Ellerbe openly discussed how it hardly reached the 50,000 sales mark.

However, now, Hearn asserts to Fight Hype that the numbers were underplayed. He compares the actual numbers with that of the recent fight between Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu. The latter was the first fight Al Haymon’s PBC hosted in association with Amazon Prime Video, its newest PPV partner. The promoter observed, “A lot of people reported that Haney vs Prograis did 60,000, which is incorrect…(Leonard Ellerbe) said ‘they did a show that lost millions of dollars’… What I can tell you is that Haney vs Prograis did between four and five times more than Tszyu against Fundora. So in that respect it was quite successful.”

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Hearn noted, “Look, how long did Leonard Ellerbe abuse DAZN about being an app? Number one, Leonard Ellerbe’s friend, Mr. Haymon, his next show is on DAZN, Canelo against Munguia. They actually need that platform. Number two, as media reports suggest, PBC representatives had conversations to try and get on DAZN.”

He went on to argue that the biggest fights of this year are all distributed by DAZN. So, in that sense, the platform is anything but a failure. Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou, Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney, Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia, Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol, all of them find their spots with DAZN.

His argument did not stop there. He further highlighted that Al Haymon’s PBC still needs DAZN despite their deal with Amazon Prime. Why? Here is what he had to say.

Does PBC still need DAZN? Hearn Answers

“The reality is that PBC and Al Haymon really don’t want to do business with anyone. They don’t want to match their fighters with any other stable, I think we’ve established that…I’ve never even been able to have a conversation with doing a fight with PBC, which is weird really because now that they don’t have any shows other than a handful of PPV shows on Amazon,” argued Hearn, noting that the PBC remains hesitant to experiment with other promoters in the business.

What does he suggest instead? “We should actually be doing those shared platform events where we could do massive fights where I could get their fighters out, we could do it on Amazon, we could do it on DAZN,” he remarked.

Do you think DAZN is a failure? Is Amazon Prime Video the new dark horse in the fight distribution business? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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