Financial terms might have been agreed by rival British heavyweight world champions Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, but the pay-per-view price tag that will accompany the 2021 super-fight (or fights) has yet to be revealed. Speculation is pretty rife, however. Fight fans are expecting to have to shell out considerably more than the usual Sky Sports fee for a boxing match that goes out on Box Office; the regular fee being £24.95.
Promoter Eddie Hearn, in speaking on the issue with IFL TV, turned his nose up at the notion that the P-P-V fee for Fury-Joshua will double, to just under £50.00, but plenty of fans are fully expecting a price rise of some kind.
“You think that I’m going to double [it], oh, and by the way, I don’t even set the pay-per-view prices,” Hearn said. “You think Sky is going to double (the price of) Joshua-Ruiz, for example, for Joshua-Fury. Do I think that’ll go over £29.95, no, I don’t? But again, this isn’t my decision. I don’t think Sky is looking at this fight, thinking, ‘Oh yeah, that’ll give us an excuse to put the price up.’ Is it the biggest fight ever, yes, the biggest British fight ever, yes. But my relationship with the customers and the fans has to be everything because I want the longevity. I want the respect, and I want to give you value. Maybe Tyson Fury wants it to be £49.99, I don’t think it should be anywhere near that kind of money, and I don’t think Sky would either.”
Fair enough. £29.95 (which is what Joshua-Ruiz II went out for on Sky Sports Box Office, this itself an increase of almost a fiver) is a lot of money for a fight, but as Hearn says, Fury Vs. Joshua is the biggest British fight ever. Doubtless, many fans, perhaps around two to three million UK fans, will pay £29.95 to see this monster of a unification clash when it happens – perhaps even as much as £35.00, maybe even £40.00. But this would be asking a lot. A whole lot.
Just what is the limit of even a deep-pocketed boxing fan? As Hearn says, the price should be nowhere near £50.00. But you can expect the fee to be £29.95 at the very least. As we know, both fighters are going to be filthy rich after this fight, win, lose, or draw. And then there will almost certainly be the rematch.
£60.00, or more, to watch two fights between Fury and Joshua? Will YOU pay that?