Something interesting I learned about sports bars & boxing

[Soulrise]

This weekend I ended up watching the Pacquiao/Marquez rematch at a sports bar that I had never been to before. I was surprised to learn that there would be no cover fee so later on in the evening I asked the owner why they didn't charge cover fees for the fights. He said they weren't charging a cover fee because they didn't actually pay to broadcast the fight, the bar was using a Slingbox to get the feed from a home television instead. He then said that the reason he didn't pay to broadcast boxing pay per views was that it was too expensive.

UFC ppv's only cost sports bars $900 to broadcast so he pays for that and charges a $15 cover at the door. With boxing however, most ppv's cost $2,000 to broadcast and at that price it isn't financially feasible for the bar to carry the fight.

I was pretty surprised to learn that boxing ppv's cost sports bars more than double what UFC ppv's cost to broadcast. For me at least it helped explain why so many more sports bars are carrying UFC ppv's while not showing boxing ppv's. I probably won't go back to that particular sports bar anymore since it isn't that close to my house (I only went to this particular one because it's near a friend's house where I was going to meet up with some folks after the fight) and I'd rather go somewhere legit that supports the sport but all in all it was an interesting lesson for me.

[Lord Gaul]

That is pretty interesting. Higher or not I would go somewhere where they paid the cost as well. I watched the fight in Minneapolis's biggest hispanic community area. It was pretty cool to see that every shop and bar had the fight on. Me and my friend was rooting for Pac and after he won I said "Its not going to be safe on the streets tonight. If anyone walks up to us I am going to be like, Man Marquez got robbed."

[( o Y o )]

That is kinda interesting, and something I had never even thought about before. I just assumed PPV's prices were fixed.

[Grant Ellis]

Dave and Busters were charging 15 dollars to watch the fight, but I opted for whack-a-mole or whatever game they had.

[Lord Gaul]

That is kinda interesting, and something I had never even thought about before. I just assumed PPV's prices were fixed.
Thats what I thought till I heard this.

[Soulrise]

Yeah after hearing that it makes more sense why more and more sports bars have stopped airing boxing ppv's while the number of sports bars airing UFC ppv's is on the rise at the same time...Here's hoping that the boxing industry can figure out a way to become more accessible to sports bars and fans again. Then again with the huge salaries that boxers are now used to I don't know if they'll be going back down anytime soon...