When did PPV become a big thing?

[Eddy Current]

I only started getting heavy into boxing about 5 years ago, so every big fight has been PPV for as long as I've known.

When did it turn into that? Was PPV a thing in the 1980s yet?

And did big fights moving to PPV have a lot to do with a decline in boxing's popularity?

[Mr.MojoRisin']

It was definitely after the 60s because my Dad remembers watching the Ali-Liston fights with his old man and they were on welfare so I doubt they could afford ppv.

Probably the 70s is I recall correctly what I have read. Rose more to prominence during the 80s while Hagler was champ and by the 90s it was probably the norm.

[GGG Gloveking]

The 80s with Tyson

[Anthony342]

Yeah by the 80s it became more of a regular thing. If you watch the Don King TV movie with Ving Rhames called Only in America, there's a scene where they talk about putting the Ali-Foreman fight on PPV and that happened in 1974, so seems like it was starting to become a thing in the '70s and more of a regular thing in the '80s and got big by the '90s, with guys like Tyson, Holyfield, De La Hoya and later Mayweather helping to make it a more regular thing.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Mid to late 80sthe major fights like Tyson, Leonard, etc started to take place on ppv instead of hbo, Tnt, abc, like in years past. But you still got good fights and good matchmaking.

It wasn't til the 90s that nearly all fights, even cherry picking fights were on ppv, or at the very least on premium networks like hbo, showtime. And then everyone started targeting ppv fights, so no one would take a risky fight unless it was on ppv, so you had heavily protected fighters, and it started a downward trend in boxing in America.

[Eff Pandas]

I'm a huge PPV dork lol. The first PPV boxing match was Ali vs Frazier III in 1975, but it was only available to a really small number of homes, under 1 or 2 mill iirc, so its a fact lost on most boxing fans.

Ray Leonard was the 1st guy to become somewhat of a regular PPV guy (4 PPV fights in the 80's). It was still only available in a small number of homes, but allegedly Leonard vs Hearns in '81 did 500k+ buys & Leonard vs Lalonde did 600k+.

From there it mostly is widely known where PPV went as Tyson vs Spinks (700k buys) in '88 was really the door opener to PPV becoming the main force in big fights.

By '91 TVKO (which later became HBO PPV) become a monthly PPV boxing show which iirc went into business with the Holyfield vs Foreman fight (1.4M buys). Heavyweights controlled PPV largely & did the biggest numbers.

Then the Golden Boy ODLH came on the scene & was headlining PPV's by '95 & started competing with the heavyweights in '99 with the Trinidad fight (1.4M buys).

Eventually Floyd ('07) & Manny ('08) beat Oscar & hijacked his PPV appeal to become the two biggest PPV draws in history to where we are now with Canelo trying to become the next guy without a name to beat to hijack their PPV standing.

Most PPV Buys Over the Course of the History of PPV

1975 Ali vs Frazier III (no official numbers are available for how many buys they did)
1980 Leonard vs Duran I (155k buys)
1981 Leonard vs Hearns I (583k buys)
1988 Tyson vs Spinks (700k buys)
1990 Douglas vs Holyfield (1.0M buys)
1991 Holyfield vs Foreman (1.4M buys)
1995 Tyson vs McNeeley (1.55M buys)
1996 Tyson vs Holyfield I (1.59M buys)
1997 Tyson vs Holyfield II (1.99M buys)
2007 De La Hoya vs Mayweather (2M+ buys)
2015 Mayweather vs Pacquiao (4M+ buys)

[The Old LefHook]

Before it was called PPV it was called Closed Circuit. You could not get this on home television, except maybe in a few selected, densely populated areas. You went to a theater or an auditorium where it was being shown closed circuit. I saw a lot of fights that way. Sometimes I had to travel several hundred miles, other times the fight was big enough and the technology advanced enough by then that the fight was shown in my rural area.

It was not uncommon to have Ali in the main event and someone like Monzon in one of the co-mains. All the undercard fights were usually higher class than today's undercards, which normally really stink.

I think it was about the time of the dethronement of Tyson that PPV in households became the major outlet. I could be off by a few years, but I think not too many.

If you want to call closed circuit PPV, which it is, then it has been going on at least since the sixties, because I saw Clay whip Liston closed circuit at a theater in Eureka, California. Closed circuit was even more PPV than PPV is, since every viewer had to pay. You could not invite your friends to the theater for free, like you can to your home for a set price. Fill the house up.

[Ray Corso]

"Before it was called PPV it was called Closed Circuit"..........true!


Regional promoters would pay for the Closed Circuit rights and run a "live boxing" before the main Closed Circuit bout. On the Duran vs Leonard show the Hartford promotion company ran the show at the Hartford Civic Center with a 4 bout live show featuring Marlon Starling and three other top draw local fighters.
The Closed Circuit shows were an excellent promotion and did well until the "home viewing" ppv came along. Just as TV boxing ruined local live shows the ppv series has also hurt local boxing.

Ray

[New England]

in the 90's with mike tyson was when it became not only a big thing, but the big thing, and later the only thing for the biggest of the biggest fights. you had the HW big three [tyson, holyfield, lewis,] and also de la hoya and to a lesser extent felix trinidad. and later you had roy jones, a modest ppv seller but a prolific one, and a self promoter. biggest ppv star of all time is floyd mayweather, obviously.


hbo and showitme have a finite budget. best example you can look at for a card that demonstrates why fights go to ppv was alexander - bradley. fight soaked up 1/4 of hbo's budget for the year and both guys had to be promised another million dollar payday, win or lose. the fight was awful, ended in a headbutt, and an HBO exec was fired shortly after. next year theyd cut their boxing budget, and every fight of that magnitude essentially has gone to ppv since.

[OctoberRed]

The 80s for sure with guys like Tyson and Leonard.