By Cassandra Cousineau of LVSportsBiz.com
A massive crowd packed the MGM Grand Garden Arena Saturday to see elite boxer Canelo Alvarez, who has been part of three of the top grossing boxing gates in Las Vegas.
Attendance was announced at 16,586, which saw Canelo defeat Caleb Plant via TKO in the 11th round thanks to a powerful barrage of left jabs and body shots that put Plant down halfway through the round. Canelo is now the first undisputed boxer at 168 pounds with all four belts that will be headed back to Mexico with him. It’s good to be king.
With fights against Floyd Mayweather and two with Gennady Golovkin in Las Vegas, the Mexican superstar has ascended to number one on the pound-for-pound list.
But even more important to the boxer, he’s cashing in like nobody else in the sport.
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Canelo is due to earn a guaranteed $40 million, while also claiming 60 percent of of the pay-per-view revenues, according to multiple reports. Plant is slated to earn a guaranteed $10 million plus 40 percent of the PPV proceeds.
“For my legacy, this fight is huge,” the 31-year-old Canelo said during his final press conference this week.
At (56-1-2, 38 KOs) Alvarez picked up the WBO belt when he beat Billy Joe Saunders in a knockout earlier this year. He now is the holder of the WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring belts in the super middleweight class.
With his win over the previously undefeated Plant, Canelo claimed the IBF belt.
Canelo earned an estimated $35 million for beating Billy Joe Saunders in his last fight. He quickly worked his way up the financial ladder in recent years. A decade ago, he made a reported $1 million for his fight against Kermit Citron. His first fight with eight-figure earnings came in 2018 when he made an estimated $15 million for his first super middleweight fight, against Rocky Fielding.
Canelo opponents have done well for themselves even if they are likely to lose. Plant is making far and away his largest purse. In his last fight, against Caleb Truax, he made $750,000 in guaranteed money. That’s nowhere near the life-changing purse he’s pocketing for tonight’s fight.
Alvarez signed a colossal $365 million deal with streaming service DAZN in 2018 under his now former promoter Golden Boy Promotion. The 11-fight deal amounted to approximately $33 million per event. At the time, it was the most lucrative contract in boxing history. As these things sometimes go in boxing, Canelo soon fell out with Oscar De La Hoya, after eight fights and $280 million on the table. He bet on himself as an independent.
Saul, nicknamed “Canelo”, cinnamon in Spanish for his brownish red colored hair has steadily become the most bankable name in boxing. Whenever he shows up in Vegas swarms of international visitors follow and that means gobs of cash being spent in the city.
Of course his big Vegas introduction party was against Las Vegan Floyd Mayweather in 2013. Alvarez was one of the rising stars of boxing. Mayweather was the veteran. It could have been a passing of the torch. Instead, it was classic Mayweather, handing yet another excellent opponent a 12-round decision loss. That fight resulted in a loss for Alvarez in the ring, but brought in 16,146 and made $20,003,150 at the gate. It also landed in the fifth spot of the top grossing Pay-Per-View buys at 2.2 million.
Historically, Showtime has been cagey about announcing PPV numbers. The network will offer live gate estimates. As for the estimated numbers for the Canelo vs Plant bout, “The gate is very healthy, We’re on track for somewhere between $15 and $20 million,” acccording to Showtime Boxing President Stephen Espinoza.
Paying a superstar like Canelo his asking price is a worthwhile part of the cost of doing business for the network. “There’s always risks in this current market. Especially in an event like this when Canelo took a free agent approach and sort of shopped around and looked at different fights. So, there was a pretty aggressive process to land the fight financially.”
“There are risks, but a reasonable amount of risks,” he added speaking with longtime boxing writer Lance Pugmire.
“There’s non-financial benefits as well. So, even if we break even on this event, having the number one fighter in the sport on your network and associated with your boxing platform, we saw it with Floyd. It brings more attention and credibility and marketing value. We’ll be marketing a lot of other fights during this fight and it drives value to the network.”