Friday Night Boxing
When was the last time you watched boxing?
Some are big fans and catch every major fight on Pay-Per-View. Some have moved to UFC. By and large, most people are not avid fans of boxing with only 12% of men identifying themselves as such. For me, it has probably been 30 years since the last match I watched.
Yet, this past Friday night on Netflix we had “The Fight” with the long awaited match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. It was a phenomenon while the fight was less than phenomenal.
These phenomenons always pique my interest on social, psychological and economic levels.
We will have more data soon but Netflix’s early data says that 60 million households tuned in and at peak streaming hit 65 million at once. Any time that many people collectively tune in to watch something we should take notice.
What is it about this particular boxing match that made the world tune in?
Expectation. Anticipation. Nostalgia. Entertainment. Community.
I was on multiple text threads about it Friday night.
The next day it was the center of conversation.
Social Media was flooded with it.
Largely in the ring, not much happened. Outside the ring, however, we were captured by it for a good 48 hours or so. By Tuesday or Wednesday we will have moved on.
We know both fighters got paid large sums of money to compete but I am more curious about the residual financial effect of the fight for Netflix and how they understand the economic impact of the event moving forward.
Here is a link to the article about how many of us tuned in.
As always, if you come across a financially related article you’d like to send my way please do!
Best place to send them is to me.
More next time!
Jonathan