Even in losing by a knockout on Saturday to Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya continued to proved his potency in pay-per-view TV.
The undisputed middleweight championship fight drew a million buyers and grossed US$56 million, according to HBO Pay-Per-View.
At that level, it was the second-most-lucrative non-heavyweight fight ever, exceeded by the De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad fight in 1999 that was bought by 1.4 million homes and grossed US$71 million.
The leader was the rematch between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson in 1997 that was seen in 1.99 million homes and grossed US$100 million.
With the Hopkins and Trinidad shows, De La Hoya owns the top four non-heavyweight pay-per-view events. The other two were 950,000 buys for his rematch last year against Shane Mosley and 935,000 buys for his 2002 bout against Fernando Vargas.
"Oscar De La Hoya is one of the biggest franchises in the history of pay-per-view," said Mark Taffet, senior vice president of HBO Sports.
For the 16 pay-per-view cards that De La Hoya has starred in since 1995, he has persuaded 9.5 million buyers to pay an astonishing US$444 million.
De La Hoya, like Julio Cesar Chavez before him, is extremely strong in Hispanic markets, especially in the Southwest and California. "They bring in a disproportionate number of the buyers when Oscar fights," Taffet said.
But Taffet said that Hopkins' strength in the Northeast, particularly in Philadelphia, helped push sales to cable and satellite subscribers to one million. "Oscar's fights perform best when the other boxer brings a lot to the fight," he added.
This was Hopkins' biggest test in the market, but four months from his 40th birthday, he is too old for his pugilistic and marketing savvy to make him a pay-per-view legend.
A rematch against De La Hoya, Trinidad or Roy Jones Jr. would almost certainly bring well more than the US$9 million he was guaranteed Saturday. But any of those fights could be his last, because he said he did not want to fight past 40.
Hopkins has been an infrequent pay-per-view boxer, largely because he built his reputation without becoming a cross-over icon like De La Hoya. Hopkins' previous best performance, 480,000 buys, owed more to the presence of Trinidad, whom he dissected in that 2001 fight, than his own popularity.
As excited as boxing insiders get at hitting the 1 million pay-per-view mark, it is still a small part of the American viewing public.
An audience of 5 million, for example, would match up with last week's episode of ABC's George Lopez, the 64th-ranked program, but would be less than one-quarter of the 22 million who tuned in to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Some reality series drew much better: Survivor had an audience of 20 million, and The Apprentice 2 had 15.9 million.
The 5 million figure would be roughly comparable to the 4.8 million who watched the latest episode of De La Hoya's Fox boxing reality series, The Next Great Champ, the 69th-ranked prime-time show of the week.
The viewership was disappointing for prime-time entertainment, and as a reality series, it is not weird enough.
"It's unfortunate that unless you show a bunch of girls in bikinis or families trading their wives, you'll be hurt in the ratings," said Richard Schaefer, executive director of De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions. Maybe, he suggested, "we should have people vote for the best-looking ring-card girl."
Taiwan’s men’s table tennis team won bronze on Saturday at this year’s International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships in London, matching the country’s best-ever finish at the regular tournament. Consisting of Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7, Feng Yi-hsin, Kuo Guan-hong, Hong Jing-kai and Hsu Hsien-chia, the team won bronze after losing 0-3 to Japan in the semifinals. In the opening match, 24-year-old Lin played the first game against world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto 11-5, but ultimately lost the next three closely contested games 9-11, 10-12 and 10-12. Feng then faced world No. 8 Sora Matsushima in
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Taiwanese fire dancer Yang Li-wei advanced to the final of Britain’s Got Talent this weekend after receiving a Golden Buzzer during her live semi-final performance. Yang, a member of Taiwan’s Coming True Fire Group, awed judges and audiences with a high-intensity fire performance featuring flaming umbrellas, fire swallowing and spinning metal structures balanced with her legs. Judge Simon Cowell praised Yang as a star, while guest judge KSI reacted with amazement before pressing the Golden Buzzer, sending her to the finals. The dance group wrote on social media that the Golden Buzzer was “the highest honor” on the talent show, adding: “Twenty-three years
As Super Rugby fast approaches its playoff season it finds itself racing toward a reckoning with many issues that threaten the southern hemisphere tournament. A group of stakeholders met in the New Zealand city of Christchurch late last month to address problems that are making the future of the 31-year-old competition increasingly tenuous. The discussion was made more urgent by the decision by the owners of Moana Pasifika to fold the Auckland-based club for financial reasons. That followed the closure of the Melbourne Rebels at the end of the 2024 season, likewise because of financial difficulties. Problems addressed included player retention as more
RSS