Last weekend, Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov reportedly lost $10 million at the Riyadh Season event at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles. Honorable Turki Alalshikh hosted the event in Southern California and not in Las Vegas.
Main Event That Poisoned the Well
Putting Crawford-Madrimov in the main event in SoCal was a cup of poison, and the fans didn’t want to drink.
Losing $10M+ may not be a big deal to Turki if money is no object to the Saudis, but they can’t be happy if they’re worried about making a profit. Reporter Kevin Iole says they were given tickets for the BMO Stadium event, but it wasn’t full yet. Indeed, you could see many empty seats, even during the Crawford-Madrimov main event.
In retrospect, Turki’s decision to match Crawford against the unknown Madrimov was a bad one for a main event fight. US fans don’t know Madrimov who was the WBA junior middleweight champion, who came into the fight with only 11 fights and was completely unknown.
Empty Seats Despite Awards
“The Crawford-Madrimov card in Los Angeles last week, the first event of the Riyadh Season hosted by the Saudis in the US, may have lost more than $10 million, several sources told KevinIole.com. Pay-per-view sales were negligible,” Iole said on his site. about last Saturday’s Riyadh Season event titled Crawford vs. Madrimov at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.Many tickets – thousands of them – were given out for the Crawford-Madrimov show, and the stands were not yet full. Tickets were at a premium and even when they were heavily discounted, it’s not like there was much demand.
If these numbers are accurate, Turki Alalshikh should focus on getting superstar Canelo Alvarez for Crawford’s next fight in 2025. Canelo-Crawford will sell out, and it’s big enough to fill an arena on the West Coast, if Turki wants to play it there.
The reasons for the failure of the Crawford-Madrimov event
- Crawford’s Inactivity: He hasn’t fought in 13 months and has competed every year since 2020.
- Lack of star appeal: He didn’t smile, lacked charisma, and appeared to go into battle with a chip on his shoulder.
- Israel Madimov was largely unknown to Americans.
- Fighting in the wrong place
- A negative promotion
- The undercard problem: While the undercard was great, neither fight was big enough on its own to help the negative main event. Crawford vs. Madrimov was a big event, and it was pure poison.
Formerly promoted to Top Rank, Crawford fought the wrong opponent because he is not a big enough name to attract fans to pay to watch him fight an unknown new world champion. Madrimov had taken his WBA 154-lb title last December, and he hadn’t been around long enough for anyone in the States to recognize him.
Canelo: The Crawford Antidote?
Crawford, 36, is not a great fighter and needs a big name fighter like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis or Canelo Alvarez to headline a fight card on the West Coast. Turki needed a big name to help Crawford last weekend because he is not a ticket or PPV seller and never has been.
Although Crawford has a lot of technical ability and talent, he is not popular with the mainstream fans, he lacks passion, and his fights are generally not exciting. In order to sell, Crawford needs guys that fans can’t wait to see. If Turki can’t get big names for Crawford to fight, he needs to put him in smaller venues, preferably in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Without them, Crawford does not have the honor of being in the headlines in the West Coast sports arena. He’s good in a small venue, but you can’t put him in an arena and expect it to be full, even with a good undercard.
Source link
