YouTube influencer Logan Paul recently confirmed a fight with boxing’s greatest pound-for-pound fighter ever in Floyd Mayweather Jr. The fight will take place on February 20, 2021 with the venue still to be confirmed.
Yet the questions on the mind of the majority of boxing fans are: How has a YouTuber, who has had one professional boxing fight and lost it, somehow gained the confidence to call out the best to ever do it let alone genuinely believing he can win? Not to mention the fact that he has somehow gained the attention of Mayweather to the point that they have agreed to fighting?
It’s only until you look into the logistics and the pre-set contractual agreements that you understand why the fight makes sense for both parties.
Like it or not, the fight will bring in a huge audience from the boxing and YouTube world and the man that is known as ‘Money’ Mayweather will certainly be making a jaw-dropping amount from the bout.
Daniel Keem, known as ‘Keemstar’ on YouTube, recently leaked the contracted earnings of each fighter on his entertainment news YouTube channel ‘DramaAlert’. While the exact figures have not officially been released, Keem claimed his ‘sources are pretty dead on’.
The biggest eyebrow raiser is the difference in payment for both fighters. However, it is nothing from the norm for Mayweather who has been the ‘A-Side’ in every fight since defeating Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 and rising to his superstar status.
The 43-year-old is set to earn $5million (£3.7m) up front for the fight before also pocketing 50 per cent of all the pay-per-view earnings.
For Mayweather this is significantly less than the $9m (£6.6m) made up front for his last exhibition fight against Tenshin Nasukawa in 2018.
However, with this fight expected to sell far greater pay-per-view numbers the final sum of money for the undefeated boxer is expected to easily surpass the total he banked for the fight in Japan.
Contrastingly, Paul is only earning $200,000 (£147,000) up front for the fight with an added five per cent of all the pay-per-view sales.
While this seems extremely diminutive compared to his opponent, Paul will likely be the long-term winner financially.
The 25-year-old will be expanding his audience exponentially due to this fight – with the whole sporting and YouTubing world glued to the screens due to the magnitude of the event.
This will inevitably benefit the wallet of Paul whose main source of income comes from his viewership on the social media platform he has become famous on.
Views on his videos and subscriber count contribute to how much he earns and since Mayweather announced the fight on his social media platforms on December 6, Paul has seen his total view count increase by 36.2million and an increase of 100,000 subscribers to his main channel.
Additionally, the fight will enable the American to have bigger brand deals and endorsements alongside growing his own clothing brand ‘Maverick’ and podcast ‘Impaulsive’ due to the greater audience he has at his disposal.
While in the short term, the fight enables Paul to create new and fresh content for his channel for free in conjunction with his training, as the fans will want to see how he is preparing, as well making vlogs about his opinions ahead of the fight.
Many critics will disregard the benefits a fight like this can bring to boxing, but it can’t be underestimated how many new people the YouTubers will bring to the sport. The likes of Paul, his brother Jake, KSI and Joe Weller (all of which have entered the realm of boxing) have a combined subscriber count of 70.6m on YouTube alone.
Combine this with the many existing boxing fanatics and fans of Mayweather and you can see why the promoters and fighters were keen to make this fight happen; as the potential crowd it could pull is astronomical.
Undoubtedly, these promoters will try to sell the fight by claiming it will be a competitive contest and that either fighter could win due to several different factors that this fight has to it.
Firstly, there is an 18-year age difference and a six-inch height difference between the two fighters – both in Paul’s favour.
Furthermore, Mayweather fights in the welterweight division with a limit of 154lbs and he came in well under that limit at 149.5lbs for his last competitive fight against UFC star Conor McGregor in 2017.
Meanwhile, Paul’s only professional boxing bout was in the cruiserweight division which has vaster weight limit of 200lbs. The 25-year-old came just under that limit for the fight against KSI at a weight of 199.4lbs in 2019.
This makes for a potentially competitive fight as the rules haven’t yet stated there is a weight limit for the contest and the difference in size could give Paul the one punch power to potentially cause a shock.
However, in all honesty the fight will be extremely one-sided and Mayweather has the skill to get through the contest without being punched due to his vastly superior boxing experience and talent.
Paul goes into the fight with nothing to lose and everything to gain, as everyone expects him to be swept aside by the boxing Legend – so the longer he manages to stay in the fight the more credit he will receive.
Yet, if the unimaginable were to happen and the YouTuber was to shock the world, Mayweather has his own insurance as the fight is classed as a ‘Super Exhibition Bout’ and therefore will not affect his 50-0 record.
Even with this being a supposedly easy fight for 43-year-old, and the huge sum of money he will make from it, critics will question why he needs to take the bout. Even if won’t change his record, a defeat would certainly tarnish his legacy as the greatest fighter of all time.
Regardless of the outcome, Paul is the winner in all of this. He gains far greater fame by being mentioned alongside the superstar that is Mayweather, a long-term boost to his brand and the privilege to share the ring with a boxing icon for however long it may last.
Many more able fighters could only dream of the opportunity that Paul has created for himself and he has certainly won the negotiation war between the fighters by having this contest go ahead in the first place.
By Sajidur Rahman
