Saudi Arabia has already begun a hostile monopoly on professional golfer. It has invested tens of billions in sport worldwide. Then it wants to own specialized fighting, too.
According to two people with strong understanding of the plan, an optimistic and costly Saudi strategy that would alter the economics, framework, and future of boxing is in the early stages of approval.
Saudi Arabia’s big royal money vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, do finance the project. According to the two people involved in the planning, the fund is in final discussions about dispersing the initial investment, which is said to be as much as$ 2 billion. Because the project does not have final acceptance, both persons declined to be identified.
The Public Investment Fund, known as the P. I. F., declined to comment.
Under the Saudi proposal, roughly 200 of the world’s best men’s boxers had been signed and divided into 12 bodyweight classes for a “global boxing league.”
The best skills would be able to compete against each other in each category, which would be split up into about 15 fighters. The proposed system of competing organizers and conflicting sanctioning bodies may be replaced by a single boxing organization, essentially. The fresh entity would have the resources, and the fighters, to step large- report cards around the globe.
Professional fighting may be ripe for retelling, in contrast to many other sports Saudi Arabia has recently attempted to destroy. In recent years, the game has lost some of its appeal and brightness, and it is already being run by a jumbled web of rival organizers and diverse sanctioning bodies that organize their own fights and honor their own titles. Fans are then left to comb through a complicated method that frequently stymies fights between the best boxers and one that boasts many” warriors” in the same weight classes.
The new line may run under one brand name, a business model that is comparable to that of the wildly successful Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has rapidly reduced boxing’s global appeal. In the U. F. C., 15 soldiers are ranked in teams per fat section as well as one position for the best “pound- for- lb” fighters. Boxers would be able to walk up the rankings in the Saudi-backed occasion but also face elimination from the line and the loss of fresh talent.
The project has been in conversation for more than a year and was developed with the assistance of a number of consulting firms, including Boston Consulting Group, who contributed to the development of the Saudi-funded LIV Golf collection. One of the people in charge of the planning suggested that the series was begin as early as the second half of the year if an investment decision was confirmed over the course of the next few weeks.
At that point, the P. I. F. had repeatedly deliver what the job needs most: income.
The bank has been Saudi Arabia’s car for years as a result of its cash-strapped assault on the sports market. Its techniques have plowed huge amounts of new funds into clubs, teams, events, federations and wearing organizations. However, they have also shook up entire industries, ranging from professional golfer to soccer to tennis, and raised concerns that Saudi Arabia has attempted to alter perceptions of the kingdom through what is criticized as” sportswashing.”
The biggest issue with the Saudi program for fighting might be the long-term contracts that some of the best athletes have already signed with well-known promoters, many of whom are frequently tied to various television networks.
According to the planners, discussions have now started regarding the possibility of full or partial opportunities from the P. I. F. in several of the biggest boxer promotion companies in order to solve that problem.
Two of the biggest sponsors, Major Rank and Queensbury, declined to comment on any deals.
Partnerships are also being discussed with some of the traditional organizations that control important boxers ‘ intellectual property, such as title belts held by boxing nobility like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, as well as historical picture and historical results.
In the new series, boxers would be required to compete in a maximum number of events annually, a move that may discourage some of the best boxers from avoiding the sport for an extended period of time, which would cause unhappiness in boxing fans.
A P. I. F. organization called Sela has been designated to encourage the occasions, which may take place not just in Saudi Arabia but also all over the world, if the plans for the fighting group develop. Sela, a sports events company, has already staged boxing events in Saudi Arabia, including the recent heavyweight unification bout between Britain’s Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine.
In that fight, Usyk became the first unified heavyweight champion in more than a generation.
Sela declined to comment on the new Saudi boxing strategy.
Just the latest in a line of high-profile boxing events to take place in Saudi Arabia in recent years, making the country the top destination for the biggest fights thanks to the sport’s richest purses.
Saudi and Sela will soon expand their operations, with events scheduled for the upcoming Riyadh Season already taking place abroad.
Terrence Crawford and Israil Madrimov will compete for the super-welterweight title against Terrence Crawford and Israil Madrimov in Los Angeles on August 1st, in the same weight class. Anthony Joshua, a former heavyweight champion champion, will host an even bigger event at London’s Wembley Stadium.
The Saudi official who has quickly come to be the most well-known in boxing, Turki al-Sheikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, has already spoken about the situation.
Al-Sheikh is at the center of the plans to restructure boxing, and he reportedly stated in a recent interview with ESPN that he planned to “fix” a “broken” sport. Details of the new Saudi league were not disclosed in the interview.
The New York Times first covered Saudi Arabia’s next billion-dollar sports game, A Boxing Takeover.
