DLH: McGregor could get Canelo-like money as an independent contractor

Under the boxing model, rival promoters in essence bid against the other to promote a title shot. Under the MMA model, “world” titles are for a single promoter. Meanwhile, OTT services like DAZN are upending traditional structures. Because combat sports are so fractured, they are an ideal means for upstarts like DAZN to enter the US market. DAZN recently signed boxer Canelo Alvarez to a five-year, 11-fight, deal worth over $365 million. DAZN also has deals with boxer Anthony Joshua (three years for over $100 million and promoter Matchroom Boxing (8 year deal said to be $1 billion), and on the MMA side with Bellator (multi-year deal worth over $100 million), KSW and Combate Americas.

During a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Alvarez’s promoter, Golden Boy founder and CEO Oscar De La Hoya, said that if MMA fighters had a boxing-like free agent structure, then they could command the same vast sums.

That’s the beauty of being free agents, said De La Hoya to host Luke Thomas, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. If you have somebody behind you who’s looking out for your best interests individually, absolutely — why not? There’s guys out there who are phenomenal, phenomenal fighters. That can have those types of deal. You take a look at Conor McGregor or you take a look at these fighters who are big, household names. Imagine if Conor McGregor was an independent contractor. He can easily get a deal like that on a DAZN or an ESPN+. But obviously they’re with UFC and UFC just works differently.

As it moves into the age of streaming, it could be very dangerous for a fighter who’s not known. For the fighter who the fan doesn’t recognize. Yeah, you can get buried on all these different platforms. I strongly feel that we still need linear TV in order to identity these young fighters, in order to build these young fighters into household names. You still need that linear TV, but these deals are incredible, what’s taking place with ESPN+, with DAZN.

Somebody like Canelo, who is probably the biggest star globally in boxing, is gonna be OK on DAZN’s platform, because Canelo moves the needle. DAZN forked over tons of money, because they know Canelo can bring in thousands and hundreds of thousands of subscribers for them, which means big business for DAZN.

I think we still need linear TV, but we are moving toward the digital platform and that’s where it’s heading, especially with the younger generation not wanting to be told what to watch, where to watch, when to watch it. They want to watch it on their cell phones, they want to watch it on their tablets. I think that Canelo Alvarez is a guy that can fight anywhere he wants to and people will watch.

There is a monster struggle underway as OTT efforts like Netflix shoulder aside established television. Huge money is now flowing to sources of compelling content. In boxing that means huge sums to stars, and huge sums to promotions that can aggregate stars. In MMA, there never was a battle between management and talent over who gets what share of the pie – the UFC built it, and in so doing, won. But the four truest words ever written are: “This, too, shall change.”