If they are to be believed, and I have no particular reason to doubt them, Don King Productions got some good traffic with its March 27 free webcast boxing show.
A news release from DKP puts the traffic at 400,000 total page views and 200,000 unique page views. This, for a card that featured in its main event one of the most horrendous-to-watch-boxers who currently fights at a high level in the sport, Cory Spinks, who surprisingly lost his 154-pound title belt that night against Verno Phillips, a game 38-year-old with no big fan base to speak of. (Although Devon Alexander, a 140-pound prospect who was also on the card, might have been a draw for some, such as myself.)
Those aren’t amazing numbers, but under the circumstances, I’d be pretty happy with them, and DKP was happy enough that they implied they intend to do it again. “I felt the timing was right for me to begin providing boxing matches on the Internet and the publics response with more than 200,000 individual visitors logging on in 94 countries has confirmed that,” King said in the release, which deemed the show a “hit.” “Its definitely the wave of the future and Don King Productions will be on the leading edge.”
So, other boxing promoters: For minimal investment, you can get at least 200,000 people to watch one of your upcoming shows if HBO or Showtime don’t want it, spotlight a fighter you’re trying to nurture, and maybe sell a little advertising (which DKP didn’t do, for some reason). Seems almost stupid not to.
Pretty Good Numbers For The Boxing Internet Broadcast Experiment
Posted by Tim Starks on Apr 9, 2008 17:08
