In the days before the Aug. 3 Los Angeles card headlined by the Terence Crawford-Israil Madrimov junior middleweight title fight, the man who helped stage it – Saudi Arabia’s boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh – announced that the show had sold out.
That fact should come with an asterisk.
According to a Department of Consumer Affairs and California State Athletic Commission document reviewed by BoxingScene, nearly 4,000 tickets were given away for the blockbuster event, Alalshikh’s first in the United States.
A total of 3,935 tickets to the 21,799-capacity show were categorized as “exempt,” meaning that 18.1 percent of available seats may have been filled but were not purchased. Organizers gave away $500 seats at the highest rate, with 1,116 of those 3,449 available tickets (32.4 percent) going out as freebies.
A veteran combat sports ticket broker who declined to be identified because of his connection to the business told BoxingScene that many fight organizers will “paper” an event with hundreds of tickets to boost gate numbers and ensure a sellout – at least in name. But the source said any figure nearing 20 percent is considered to be a significant distribution of free tickets and “heavily papering” a venue.
Although the loaded show was considered an anecdotal success by many fans – Crawford won a sometimes-slow but ultimately suspenseful and significant decision, while Jose Valenzuela and Martin Bakole scored upset wins – the box-office results underscore questions that were already being asked about Alalshikh’s tactics around the event and the long-term viability of boxing supercards such as the Aug. 3 Riyadh Season show.
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