By Cassandra Cousineau of LVSportsBiz.com
Saturday night is Fight Night in Las Vegas where Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena will host an elite boxing match pitting Las Vegas resident Shawn Porter (31-3-1) against undefeated WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (37-0).
Las Vegas-based Top Rank Boxing along with Premier Boxing Championship are promoting this big fight. Crawford is known as the boogeyman of the welterweight division, as he’s been avoided by nearly every Premier Boxing Championship promotions current and former titlist with the exception of his longtime friend, Porter.
The two will put the friendship aside and commit to 30 minutes of punching each other in the face for the sake of Pay-Per-View dollars and a championship belt this weekend. LVSportsBiz.com was there to ask Porter about careers outside the ring:
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Competing at the highest level is nothing new for Porter. He’s an athlete pushed to excel by his father Kenny for his entire life.
It began with running in circles around his dad at the tender age of five with a football in his hand. The gridiron was supposed to be his escape from the rough neighborhoods where at the age of four, his father went on a mission with his three-year-old brother to find their mother. She ran numbers as Kenny explains out of a drug house not far from their home. Kenny’s younger brother was killed while crossing the street after being struck by a drunk driver.
The younger Porter inherited his father’s drive to escape the neighborhood and became an all-conference running back at Stow-Munroe Falls High School outside Akron, Ohio. He eventually passed up the opportunity to play college football to pursue a professional boxing career.
The tenacious puncher known for his gritty pugilist style also happens to live in the age of athletes becoming brands and extending their earning potential beyond their sport. Porter’s business success is coming through his insightful, firsthand work as an analyst on Fox’s Premier Boxing Champions studio shows. It’s the network’s cornerstone show for boxing.
LVSportsBiz.com asked Porter when he began to see the blueprint to the boxing business and began minding the boxing business as well as being a fighter. “I grew into this, and these fighters, these young fighters that are coming up, they gonna have to grow up fast.”
“A big inspiration for me was Shaquille O’Neil,” Porter also added during this week’s media events. “I’ve seen what he’s done with his career and his investments beyond basketball. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing Shaq in a commercial or analyzing a game like he does on TNT. I’ve told this story before. It’s important to acknowledge what the pastor at my church just told me, ‘Personality gets you in the door, character keeps you in the room.’ ”
Donned with aggressively patterned suits, and a megawatt smile, Porter has personality for days. He’s not the slick car salesy kind; that is, he’s a genuine, tell-it-like-it-is broadcaster that fans respect and have come to rely upon during big fight nights like the recent Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder III championship event in October. Porter’s high-gear personality has been critical in promoting this fight while Crawford, not known for his penchant for promotion of any kind, has had very little to say during any of the scheduled marketing events.
Because of the nature of boxing and the unpredictability of big payday fights, especially during the pandemic, it served the Ohio native well to understand how to parlay his personality and the importance of having additional streams of revenue outside of the ring. While still fighting at the top level in the welterweight division, Porter has also been a featured commentator for the 2020/21 Summer Olympics boxing coverage. He was a primary commentator for NBC’s Ring City USA, plus Fox Sports 2 and Triller Fite Club spectacle this year. In 2020, Porter launched The Porter Way Podcast, along with two co-hosts that focuses on boxing and other trending sports topics.
Even the best professional athletes only have a small window of time to compete amongst the elite of their peers. When it comes time to retire, some stay involved in sports. But many athletes’ second careers are set up well before the final bell rings. Unlike leagues like the NBA and NFL, there’s no organized financial literacy or marketing seminar for boxers provided by their promoters.
The 34-year-old father of two toddler boys offers advice anywhere a microphone is available to him. During the final press conference for his match with Crawford, Top Rank Boxing, Crawford’s promoter announced the recent signing of 2020 Olympians Keyshawn Davis, and Richard Torrez.
When we asked him if he had any words of advice for the sport’s newest professionals he responded, “These athletes today, they have social media now. They have a presence now that they didn’t have it when I was growing into this sport. I was 20-21 years old, and didn’t have everything that they do now. So, yeah, I will encourage those guys to learn the business, learn what’s going on, learn the behind the scenes, and understand your contracts.”
Porter’s dad was an ever-present and critical fixture in his career, boxed and coached throughout his childhood. “Everything I didn’t care about, my dad kept pushing me on it even though I didn’t care about it. Guess what, once I had to call on it, I knew what I was doing and I knew what I was talking about. So I will definitely impress upon those guys to start knowing it all. Know your place as a fighter, but also know that your place as a fighter is also to know the business as well.”
As for the business of his fight with Terence Crawford, the WBO mandated fight was agreed upon with a 60-40 revenue split in favor of Crawford, this summer. Porter comes in as a sizable underdog.
As of Friday afternoon, Caesars Sportsbook listed Crawford as a 7-1 favorite to beat Porter in their 12-round fight. While that’s a testament to Crawford’s skill and perceived dominance as a boxer, it still seems to slight Porter. The former IBF/WBC welterweight champion has lost only a majority decision to three former champions including a previously unbeaten Kell Brook, a debatable unanimous decision to then-undefeated Keith Thurman and a split decision to Errol Spence Jr., who remains the unbeaten WBC belt holder.
“I really don’t care if I’m an underdog,” Porter said at a press conference at Mandalay Bay. “I really don’t care what the betting lines are like. I don’t wanna justify why they’re making the lines the way that they’re making them. So, the best thing I’m gonna do is go in that ring and punch Terence Crawford in the mouth. And people that win money, they win. The people that lose money, they lose.”
Regardless of whether you think he’ll win or lose, the boxer is also a businessman, and wants fans to buy the PPV. The telecast, which will start at 9PM ET and 6PM PT, costs $69.99, and also requires at least a one-month subscription to ESPN+ ($6.99).