- Influencer boxing can be lucrative for creators, but can be a mess to run for event organizers.
- Companies like Triller, Showtime, and LiveXLive are all vying to take control of the category.
- But all three companies have run into hurdles as they've embarked on their first influencer fights.
- See more stories on Insider's business page .
Moments after the YouTube creator DDG (Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr.) stepped out into the crowd at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on Saturday, he stopped suddenly in his tracks.
The 23-year-old performer was on his way to fight TikTok star Nate Wyatt in an influencer boxing match pitting YouTubers against TikTokers in an event dubbed "Social Gloves: Battle of the Platforms." But the event organizers were playing the wrong pump-up song, and DDG seemed unwilling to march out to anything besides the track he had selected. After a short pause in which it wasn't clear whether or not DDG was throwing in the towel, the mistake was remedied, and he went on to defeat Wyatt in a five-round bout.
The hiccup was one of several that hit LiveXLive as it attempted to bring influencer amateurs into the ring this weekend. The first fight of the night was also held up when YouTuber Ryan Johnston and TikTok star Cale Saurage struggled to get their protective headgear on — the pair wore earpads meant for wrestlers, not boxers, according to commentator Paige VanZant.
And the event had already run into some obstacles ahead of fight day.
Earlier this month, LiveXLive confirmed to Insider that it had received what it believed to be a cease-and-desist email from TikTok's parent company ByteDance, claiming that it was using TikTok's trademark for the fight without authorization. The email, reviewed by Insider, described the event as "Covid unsafe and violent in nature," and asked LiveXLive to shut it down entirely. The event streamed as planned with a disclaimer at the beginning that "Social Gloves" was not affiliated with or endorsed by TikTok or YouTube.
These early growing pains aren't unique to LiveXLive.
Last week, Showtime had to issue refunds to some viewers of its pay-per-view fight between YouTuber Logal Paul and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather after they encountered technical issues with its stream. A spokesperson for Showtime said the issue occurred after the company received high demand for the live telecast on multiple platforms.
And last month, Triller Fight Club, the boxing division of the short-form video app Triller, filed a lawsuit seeking millions in damages and claiming internet users illegally streamed and broadcasted its fight between YouTuber Jake Paul and Ben Askren.
While Showtime has been airing boxing matches for decades, both Triller and LiveXLive are relative newcomers to boxing. Triller stepped into the category as a side hustle after building relationships with digital stars through its video platform. And LiveXLive has historically focused on producing live music events. For all three companies, influencer boxing is proving to be a complicated affair as they look to bring social-media stars into the ring.
But the category also shows promise.
While influencers aren't professional boxers, they are masters at marketing — an asset for exhibitors looking to sell PPV fights. As Esquire's Brady Langmann observed , entertaining moments from fights can spread quickly on social media as memes, driving buzz for a fight.
LiveXLive noted at a recent JPMorgan conference that the combined social-media audience of its "Social Gloves" fighters was over 250 million users. Ahead of its fight, the influencers on its card regularly posted training montages and "beef" videos on TikTok and YouTube. And the company used TikToker Bryce Hall's YouTube channel to stream the first two fights of the night for free in order to tease PPV access.
"I think there's a future for this," LiveXLive CEO Rob Ellin told Insider. "I think this is just the beginning, and seeing Jake Paul sign with Showtime fortifies again how big this could be."
While it's still early days for social-media boxing, broadcasters like LiveXLive are making multi-million dollar bets that influencers can drive hype and pay-per-view sales for a sport that has struggled to draw in new viewers . Earlier this year, Triller hired a new chief boxing officer and acquired the sports-streaming platform FITE to support its boxing ambitions. The company also announced a $299.95 annual subscription option for access to all of its events, an offer that its CEO Mahi de Silva referred to as a sort of Netflix for live events.
"What I think this is doing is bringing a young audience to boxing," Ellin said. "I think boxing needed a kick in the ass, candidly."
Companies like LiveXLive are also hoping that influencer boxing events can be about more than fighting. Both Triller and LiveXLive hired celebrity guests and music artists like Justin Bieber and DJ Khaled to appear at their recent events, an aspect of Triller's Paul vs. Askren fight that ESPN's Michael Rothstein said may have overshadowed the fight itself .
Whether the category will end up being profitable for these companies is a big unknown.
Jake Paul claimed on Instagram that there were 1.5 million PPV sales for his Triller-hosted fight against Ben Askren in April, suggesting tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the company. But Paul's number isn't verified, and some boxing personalities like Floyd Mayweather have questioned whether it is accurate . LiveXLive's CEO declined to share data on ticket and PPV sales for "Social Gloves." Triller declined to comment.
Influencer boxing taps into a broader trend toward subscription revenue for creators
For influencers bold enough to enter the ring, the paydays can be huge.
Hall, who fought in the main event at "Social Gloves," shared a screenshot of his LiveXLive contract on Instagram suggesting he'd receive a baseline of $5 million from the fight. A source close to Hall, who asked to not be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the contract, shared the same $5 million number with Insider. Logan Paul told TMZ Sports that he expected to earn up to $20 million from his Mayweather fight. Paul didn't immediately respond to a request from Insider for further information on his earnings.
And creators who fought lower on the card found other ways to make money. Saurage displayed a logo for the fast-food chicken chain Raising Cane's on his shorts during his fight. TikToker Ben Azelart, who got knocked out by Landon McBroom in the second match of the night, prominently displayed his personal merchandise brand "Stay Wild" throughout the event. And Jake Paul, LiveXLive, and Triller are all selling NFT collections around influencer boxing.
Regardless of whether influencer boxing is profitable for exhibitors at this stage, there is some evidence that there is an audience for these fights.
Triller's FITE app became the most downloaded sports app on iPhone during the weekend of Paul's match, according to the app-analytics company Sensor Tower. Showtime's app similarly jumped to the number one spot in the entertainment category the weekend of Mayweather's fight with Logan Paul. And LiveXLive ring-side commentator Jonathan Coachman said there were around 15,000 fans in the stadium during Saturday's fight (though some Twitter users felt the stadium looked empty).
Influencer boxing first entered the mainstream in 2018 when YouTube creators KSI and Joe Weller fought at London's Copper Box Arena. But it has kicked into high gear in the last year as subscriber-only content has become particularly lucrative for creators. Platforms like OnlyFans and Patreon are creating new ways for fans to pay to get closer to the influencers they admire. OnlyFans has paid out billions to creators.
"People want to learn and get closer to the celebrity that is their favorite," Ellin said.
"There is so much attention and hype around wanting to have some physical, actual physical connection with one another," said Maxwell Gross, COO at Superbid, a startup building a platform for influencers to auction off physical goods and experiences to fans. Logan Paul is an investor and partner at the company and wore the "Superbid" name on his shorts during his recent fight with Mayweather.
"Obviously one of the parts that [influencers] want to do this is because they've looked at past influencers who have done it like Logan Paul," Gross said. "They see that there's a lot of money involved and they want to be a part of that whole monetization strategy as well."
LiveXLive said it's already considering other ways to pit social-media stars against each other in live PPV competitions.
"I think it's way bigger than just boxing," Ellin said. "You're going to see at LiveXLive, very shortly, multiple announcements of events that will be really unique and may include more than 14 social-media stars competing against each other in many different ways."
Via PakApNews