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May 3

Why would anyone pay $100 to watch a fight on TV? Who is paying?

I was stunned by claims [1] that some boxing match had record pay-per-view orders at nearly $100 a shot. They said $1.5 billion in revenue, which is close to 15 million views, so that can't just be big sports bars. I have the impression these were U.S. numbers, which means it can't be just the top 1% watching either. I don't understand what makes this seem like a desirable commodity, and it worries me that someone just kicked in $1.5 billion to the campaign to make sure that you can never, ever transmit video to your friends without a censor monitoring what you say. Wnt (talk) 12:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking for a sourceable, reliable answer, or are you looking for an argument about the utility or lack thereof of spending a $100 to watch something on TV? No idea what the "censorship" thing is about. People quite easily spend $100, or way more, for an evening of entertainment. Dinner and a show? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Some people spend $200-500 just going out to dinner. And gambling can cost people thousands of dollars without any seeming benefit to them. There are many ways people with disposable income find to spend their excess dollars. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Some boxing match" heehee You must not watch any news about sports - or even the regular news in the case of this event. The easy answer is "because they can". I mean people (including myself) spend 6 dollars for a coffee drink. BTW your post here has, no doubt, been monitored. MarnetteD|Talk 17:34, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6 billion for a coffee ? If I was going to spend 6 billion I'd expect at least 2 cups of coffee, and maybe even a scone ! StuRat (talk) 18:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC) [reply]

or maybe two blueberry muffins :-) MarnetteD|Talk 18:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One NPR commentary I heard on the matter is that this may be the last major fight, as boxing is losing fans. There's a growing portion of the population that thinks such "sports" are barbaric, and those that don't tend to be attracted to new alternatives like mixed martial arts. And boxing always was extremely top-heavy, with low-level boxers unable to make a living while the top level get absurd purses ...and then put all their loot in them. :-) StuRat (talk) 18:29, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The truly astronomical purse for this fight, which dwarfs previous ones, suggests that rumours of boxing's demise are rather premature. The money has come from somewhere, because no-one is doing this stuff as a loss-leader. --Dweller (talk) 13:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]