TMZ is reporting that boxing star Adrien Broner has rejected a healthy 5-year, $40 million offer from Roc Nation Sports. Broner felt that the offer was insulting to him because it was for only $8 million per year. Broner figures that he’ll be fighting four times in 2015 alone. Unfortunately, Broner didn’t say what kind of money he’s looking for to sign with them, but you’d have to assume that it’s a lot more than the $40 million that Roc Nation was supposedly offering him to sign.
If Broner isn’t happy with a big offer of $40 million, it would be interesting to see what kind of money that he’s looking for in order to sign a contract of 5 years with various promoters.
Some boxing fans feel that Broner has already shown his best while fighting in the super featherweight and lightweight divisions. He’s not looked good since moving up to 140 and 147, and there’s major questions whether he’ll ever be more than just a contender in those two weight classes.
Broner wants to be a pay-per-view fighter like his mentor Floyd Mayweather Jr and Filipino star Manny Pacquiao, but it could be difficult for Broner to make the leap up to that class without him becoming a champion and proving that he can beat most if not all the top guys in his own weight class. As of now, you can’t put Broner as the No.1 fighter at 140 and definitely not even close to being the No.1 fighter at 147.
Yes, Broner is young at 25 and can wait out the aging fighters Mayweather and Pacquiao, but there’s still going to be guys like Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov, Terence Crawford, Kell Brook, Amir Khan and Keith Thurman who will likely all be better than Broner.
It’s hard to estimate a worth on a 5-year contract for Broner right now because there are so many questions that need to be answered about him at 140. We saw that he failed at 147 in getting beaten by Marcos Maidana and arguably beaten by Paulie Malignaggi as well. But at 140, the weight class where Broner has seemingly retreated to, he’s not looked good in his fights against Carlos Molina and Emmanuel Taylor.
Those fights showed that Broner will most likely struggle if he’s asked to face the best light welterweights in Danny Garcia, Viktor Postol, Lamont Peterson and Terence Crawford. I’m not sure that Roc Nation would be getting such a bargain if they were to have signed Broner for a 5-year, $40 million contract.