How much could the Saudi Arabia mirage eventually cost boxing?

Many are riding the bandwagon, not worried about the coins, notes or checks tumbling from their pockets because they are heading in the direction of more; more wealth, more prosperity, more influence.

But not everyone is on that bandwagon.

Money, the like of which boxing has never seen before, is sloshing through the sport; the kind of cash that makes Mob money from the 1950s look like pocket change; the sort that makes Harold Smith’s embezzled $20m in the 1980s look like an oversized bar tab; the Waddell & Reed investment look like a student loan and Daniel Kinahan’s Dubai drug empire funds seem merely like a pleasant lottery windfall.

The money being ploughed into and around the top end of the sport from Saudi Arabia is unlike anything even this sport has experienced and the cash pit has seemingly been all-but bottomless, drenching celebrities, musicians, influencers, athletes and fighters with Middle Eastern riches.

But the supply is not coming without concern. Perhaps not from those who see a direct correlation between investment and their own bank balances, but from impartial observers who might have wanted governance of the sport – perhaps one that benefits everyone rather than a few cherry-picked fighters, promoters and networks.

Turki Alalshikh, his marathon cards and his ability to get some promoters to work together and fighters to fight each other has been saluted in many quarters, but after choosing the side of the UFC over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on September 14, promising to devour the Mexican’s PPV date with Edgar Berlanga, and having blacklisted top junior middleweight Tim Tszyu – both for choosing to walk their own path with established teams, even if only for the short-term – there are signs that the sport could fracture under the enormous weight of the cash.

The arrival of Saudi Arabian investment into boxing – following golf, tennis, soccer, MMA and so forth – has already caused a divide with the principled few holding back over concerns of sportswashing. 

But the opposition welcomed Alalshikh like an old friend with a common bond, getting the big fights on regardless. And with plans afoot to create a boxing league, a boxing website, maybe fund a boxing records database, possibly its own championship, is that not what has been desperately needed all along? 

The sports and entertainment attorney Kurt Emhoff has been involved in the sport for 30 years and has long-campaigned for the boxing to operate under one roof. However, Emhoff – who also hosts the excellent Boxing Esq. podcast – has concerns about this particular one.

“I certainly want structure,” Emhoff said. “And I certainly want there to be some kind of entity where, if we have problems in the sport with doping and so on, it would be nice if you had some sort of over-arcing entity that put out a policy that everyone followed and you had consistency and you had some sort of anti-doping program, one champion, one set of ratings – these aren’t fantasies. These are things that have happened in the sport before. We all want that. It seems at least people who care about the sport want that, but the question is, ‘Are these really the guys we want doing it?’”

What Emhoff had hoped for was the existing powerbrokers and their teams to work together for the greater good – pooling their resources, fighters, matchmakers, networks, for the betterment of the sport. 

“When I envisioned this maybe six years ago when I took a stab and wrote about it, it was more about the top promoters in the game, the major players who know the business who have all the fighters under contract that they would actually form something,” he said. “Because boxing is so unique. You don’t have teams. You have a bunch of independent contractors. The fighters are contractors but you have six or seven major players in the sport who have the vast majority of world-class fighters under contract, so I was thinking these guys could kind of get together, form a league – maybe not as big an enterprise as the Saudis are shooting at – but just something where we have something akin to tennis and golf with their Grand Slam tournaments. And to just determine one champion per division, and use the Transnational Boxing Ratings for their seedings. That’s what I was hoping for initially. This is a much grander plan.”

For one of this era’s great sportswriters, the subject of sportswashing is too much to gloss over. The Guardian’s Donald McRae, who has won just about every journalism prize there is in sport for his understanding, appreciation, intelligence and informative interviews, has covered the topic in depth and that is the reason why he feels such apprehension now.

“After years of banging on about the fact that boxing desperately needs regulation and the control of an overall governing body, it’s a painful irony that the emergence of such a powerful new force should leave me feeling so uncertain and uncomfortable about the future,” McRae said. “I understand why the promoters and, especially, so many fighters are deliriously happy about the fact that Turki Alalshikh and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are drawing up all these grand plans to take complete control of boxing. They are making so much money.

“It’s not my place to judge them – or even those journalists who now seem willing to work for Saudi Arabia or just seek to gain their approval. I am sure they will also be paid exceedingly well.    

“I don’t rely on boxing to write for a living so I can afford to voice my own misgivings about the Saudi involvement. Personally, I can’t get past the fact that Saudi Arabia is using boxing – just as it is using football and golf – to try and portray an image of the country that glosses over the reality of the oppression that still disfigures large parts of the country.

“I want a regulator and single governing body which can control the wayward business of boxing and rid it of corruption and chicanery; doping and damage. I want a regulator and single governing body which would cleanse boxing of its ills and allow it to become the compelling and dramatic sport it is on its rare great nights – when it really is like nothing else on earth.

“But the idea that you would want Saudi Arabia to fulfil this role seems wrong to me. Before we start listening to how the Saudis plan to heal boxing we should be asking them questions about the fate of some of their own citizens – from the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the death sentence handed down to Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a retired teacher who tweeted mild criticism of the state to his 10 followers on X, to the 11-year prison term being served by Manahel al-Otaibi, who posted images of herself wearing dungarees on Snapchat while calling for greater rights for women in Saudi Arabia.”

Emhoff does not dislike what he has heard about some of the proposed structure for boxing, and some of it lines up with his own ideas from almost a decade ago.

“On paper, I like that plan,” he said. “I like the fact that you’re going to have a top 15 in the league; they said there’s relegation. I’d say the plan was to have those top 15 guys either fight in a tournament or some sort of round robin, or fight each other to determine a champion or even a number-one contender for the champion.”

McRae has, first hand, heard Alalshikh’s designs for the sport at an off-the-record briefing the night Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury fought in Riyadh. That fight, of course, was done on Alalshikh’s dime, and probably would not have happened without him.

“Alalshikh spoke passionately and sincerely about sorting out the ills of boxing,” McRae recalled. “He hinted that Saudi Arabia would be a better version of the UFC in boxing. Promotional squabbles and sanctioning body politics would become redundant. Anti-doping programmes would be introduced and boxing would be cleaned up. At the same time, he would ensure that the best fighters were pitted against each other and that the greatest boxers in the world thrived with the support of Saudi Arabia.

“He pointed out that he had already set a template in making fights which hardcore boxing fans around the world had craved for so long – with Fury against Usyk to be followed by a world light-heavyweight unification contest between two great unbeaten champions in Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev. He had also changed British boxing because Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn, who had refused for decades to ever speak to each other, let alone meet, were now working happily together under his guidance. 

“In different circumstances, in a country where human rights were enshrined rather than shredded, I would have thought Alalshikh spoke some good sense amid his radical schemes.

“So I think that he has some good ideas but, already, his desire for control and his ego are threatening to undercut these positive aspects. He clearly does not like it when people say no to him – whether that be Canelo Álvarez or John Sheppard of BoxRec. That seems ominous to me.”

Emhoff, too, sees red flags with Alalshikh’s burgeoning involvement and influence, and his ability to walk away from the likes of Gervonta “Tank” Davis, Alvarez and Tszyu, who would have to be mainstays of any league for it to be credible as hosting the best fighters.

That is before Alalshikh opted to pair the young heavyweight hope Jared Anderson with trainer SugarHill Steward for the only loss of his career, and some of the matches Alalshikh has mentioned that would see fighters take potentially high-risk jumps – or cuts – in weight.

“It just seems it is another outsider that doesn’t really know the sport, trying to dictate to the people who really know the business,” Emhoff added. “That bothers me, and already you see little cracks where Turki Alalshikh is, ‘I’m not dealing with Canelo. He’s out. We’re going to eat his show. Tim Tszyu, he doesn’t get it’. So it seems that if you don’t do his bidding, then you’re out. You’re done. He seems very temperamental. And some of the things he’s asked, like David Benavidez [now fighting at 175lbs] if he could make 160lbs to fight [Terence] Crawford. I just don’t think he’s a guy who knows the sport well enough.”

Alalshikh has also talked about the light heavyweight Bivol vaulting 25lbs to face Jai Opetaia, the IBF cruiserweight champion.

“He’s got his hands in it a little too much,” added Emhoff.

And while it might benefit fighters in the short term, the structuring and possible restructuring of the sport might not be quite so favourable to the athletes.

“The other thing that bothered me about their concept was it would be a UFC-style league, which is dictatorial,” Emhoff explained. 

“It’s whatever Endeavor and Dana White want [that goes]. They dictate everything. In some ways it’s great – they do get the best to fight the best a lot more often than boxing, so there’s that aspect of it – but I think you can do it in a much more democratic way where instead of having one person do it, why don’t you have it like other sports do? Where fighters would have a seat at the table, making rules, along with the promoters, and it’s not just one guy with a lot of money and a bunch of play toys. I’d like to see it structured like other professional leagues. That’s my desire, because those are tested and true ways to run leagues, and they work. Why can’t boxing do that? There’s no reason other than the major players not having the vision and the courage to do it.”

At the end of a recent article examining the August 3 show at Los Angeles’ BMO Stadium, headlined by Crawford-Israil Madrimov, the International Boxing Hall of Fame writer Thomas Hauser wondered how long the money would continue to funnel through the sport, and felt many were trying to pocket their share before it dries up.

“Bloomberg has reported that financial imperatives have caused some mega-projects in The Kingdom to be scaled back,” wrote Hauser. “At some point, the decision could be made to stop spending lavishly on boxing.

“In other words, a year from now, the Saudis could be putting a transformative boxing league in place. Or the spigot on the gravy train could be shut off.

“Meanwhile, the mantra for many players in boxing who are doing business with the Saudis is, get what you can while the getting is good. Pocket your big scores. And if the party ends, walk away smiling.”

“I don’t think there’s any question that there’s a lot of that going on,” Emhoff agreed. “These guys would not be associating with the Saudis but for the money. It’s pretty remarkable when you see [Eddie] Hearn and [Frank] Warren doing little social media videos together when, just a year ago, they were at each other’s throats and had been for many, many years. It’s pretty interesting. I think [the financial influx and subsequent impact is] deeper than most of these fly by nights that come into the sport with some money. The Saudis are coming in with money that dwarfs whatever money came into the sport before. They have the money, but the question is are they going to spend it on boxing?

“They have a million and one projects going on. They’ve got the Neom, which supposedly might cost $1.5 trillion ultimately – the City of the Future they’re building. They’ve got LIV [golf]. They’re working with the UFC now. They’ve got the soccer league, so just how much money is allocated for boxing and for how long, we don’t know. As of now, they are the new honey pot that all the bees are buzzing around and there’s enough honey there that you see Warren and Hearn like long-lost brothers.”

There is now also little mention of sportswashing in boxing. The Saudi Arabian involvement – under the Riyadh Season banner – has been normalised rather than scrutinised in many quarters and those not part of the merrymaking are seen as bitter dissenters and party-poopers rather than impartial judges. 

“Initially it was brought up, the sportswashing, and obviously with golf it was a really huge issue at first,” Emhoff added.

The organization 9/11 Families United issued a statement at the time that they were “shocked and deeply offended by the newly-announced merger between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league that is bankrolled by billions of sportswashing money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi operatives played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and now it is bankrolling all of professional golf”.

The PGA commissioner Jay Monahan had even brought in those who had lost loved ones in the 9/11 terror attacks to speak to the golfers who were having their heads turned, only for the PGA and LIV to follow up with a merger.

“They still don’t have a deal because players’ heads are spinning,” Emhoff said. “’How are we doing business with these guys who you said were the root of all evil?’”

Emhoff regardless continued: “I can’t really think of a promoter who said ‘No’ who has objected on sportswashing grounds. Resistance is pretty low here in the US in terms of fighters and promoters.”

What of journalists, commentators and those who cover the sport?

“That’s a question for each and every journalist,” he responded. “Boxing journalism is not something that pays a whole hell of a lot of money, so I wouldn’t be surprised if people took the money.

“As long as the really good fights are getting made, I think they’ll look the other way. Initially there was a huge push of people talking about sportswashing. About the only people talking about it now – it’s very few, like Eddie Goldman, Sean Zittel I saw talking about it…

“But people are still covering it [boxing]. No one is refusing to cover it because the Saudis are promoting it. I don’t know that the opposition to it is that strong.” 

Boxing has been that broken for that long that it has been wide open for someone to breeze in, hold hands with promoters, pull them together, and attempt to cure some of its many woes. 

“The fans are probably going to embrace that more than they are going to detest where it’s coming from and object on sportswashing grounds,” Emhoff stated.

It is hard to pinpoint the individuals best-placed to lead any over-arcing governing body that the sport so desperately needs, but Emhoff knows where he would look first.

“When I think of commissioners of the sport, someone like Stephen Espinoza – who knows television, represented fighters, represented promoters – who’s a really bright guy who’s pretty much seen it all and dealt with everybody, that would be a guy who I would like to see run the sport and, being an attorney, he knows the league aspects of it,” Emhoff suggested. “The things you can and can’t do. Him and Lou DiBella, who’s really outspoken and a great guy. The top sports here in the States usually have a very sophisticated business attorney handling it as a commissioner – someone who knows all aspects of the sport, most importantly the legal aspects because lawsuits are things that suck money out of sports.”

Unlike the arrival of some “new money” in boxing’s past, too, Saudi Arabian money has been embraced. It was a different time when Al Haymon swept in with big investment a decade or so ago, and promoters united to block his path.

“Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions both lost in court cases where they tried to refer to PBC as promoters trying to monopolize the sport,” said a boxing insider

“Ironically, no one is taking Turki to court and claiming he is a promoter trying to monoploize the sport.”

If sides were taken, and with the existing construct and money in boxing, it could be more troublesome than any cold war before. Forget about Don King and Bob Arum and their decades-long feud, a cold war could become a world war with the biggest loser the fans. Again.

“That’s always when boxing’s at its worst and certainly that was the fear when all of these promoters got their own television deals that you’re going to have silos – not that it hasn’t happened before,” Emhoff stated. “King and Arum, their guys rarely fought each other – it’s been that way as long as you have long-term promotional deals and contracts and you’re basically allowing the promoters the option of who to make the fights with and controlling it. 

“Anything that really divides the sport. Say Turki does this and he’s gonna freeze out Canelo, he’s gonna freeze out Tank, he’s gonna freeze out Tim Tszyu, anyone of those who don’t do his bidding – they get frozen out. That’s not how you conduct the sport. If you have a real cold war, like ‘You’re with us or you’re against us’ kind of thing – we don’t need that. We definitely don’t need that. That is a potential worst-case scenario.”

McRae concurs with that assessment. “It seems as if you are either in the Saudi boat or you are out in the cold,” he said. “But it’s a real concern. Great fighters such as Canelo, Naoya Inoue and Gervonta Davis are threatened with seeming isolation if they don’t change their attitude and show willingness to fight under the Alalshikh rules and in Saudi Arabia. Other talented young fighters such as Tim Tszyu are being shunned because they have not immediately danced to the Turki tune.   

“When will we hear anything from Saudi Arabia about women’s boxing? Claressa Shields, Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano, Savannah Marshall and so many other great female fighters seem invisible to the Saudis.

“At that Alalshikh briefing in Riyadh he also seemed highly dismissive of boxing in Japan. He seemed to suggest that Inoue was wasting his huge talent by boxing in Tokyo rather than Riyadh. And yet some of boxing’s great nights in recent years have been in Tokyo with Inoue lighting up the ring.”   

Another potential issue is that should boxing becomes UFC-esque then the power is taken from the fighters and they are all placed under contract; if the financial bottom drops out and Saudi Arabia actively works to get back its substantial return on investment it could damage all involved.

The UFC also regularly features women fighters. There has been no such regularity for boxing’s women, as McRae states. 

“That’s a very legitimate question for Turki Alalshikh and Riyadh Season,” Emhoff said. “Where are the women? There are great women fighters out there. Why aren’t you making the fights?’”

There is also the need for major investment elsewhere in the sport to allow it to thrive, and to grow. That is another area Emhoff would like to see supported. It’s great talking about fantasy fights, but when Crawford, aged 36, Usyk, aged 37, and Fury, aged 36, et al retire – not too far from now – what platform will the stars of the future have been given? Perhaps ensuring the Olympics has boxing in 2028 should be near the top of the list of priorities. Grassroots must be widely-funded and encouraged. 

“If he really wants to do this right, you not only have to have like major leagues of the premier league of boxing with your top 15 – for a fraction of what you’re paying those guys, you could have a fight every week with like a budget of $200,000 and match that No. 16 contender to the No. 50 contender and spread it around and give the small promoters some gas, let them develop their fighters and it has to be a pyramid thing with the sport of boxing,” added Emhoff. “Like every other sport, there has to be big grassroots [investment] that funnels all the way to the top, and we are definitely not helping the huge bottom part of the pyramid out at all. 

“He’s gonna throw some money. He really cares about the sport; there needs to be some seeding at the bottom, for sure.”

It’s a cautionary tale. Perhaps there is enough money to go round, from the bottom up. Perhaps from the top down. But, as Emhoff suggests, the last thing boxing needs is more people who do not want to work with each other.

There have been several great contests under the lucrative Riyadh Season umbrella, and the heavyweight division has been resuscitated by many of the leading lights stopping flirting with one another after years of little more. 

Several fighters who might have been otherwise toiling in comparative anonymity have also had significant exposure and likely been well compensated for their efforts. For some, that is the be all and end all. For others, it has come at a cost.

A recent Financial Times report indicated that the Saudi PIF (Public Investment Fund) has “slowed spending on global investments”. The investigation revealed that priorities would switch to their significant domestic projects.

A senior investment banker, based in Dubai, was quoted as saying: “It’s ending.”

“There have been some excellent fights under the new regime,” acknowledged McRae. “But the involvement of Saudi Arabia has raised more questions than answers amid the usual mess of boxing. As Thomas Hauser has suggested, the Saudi money-pot could slam shut at any time. The Saudis might simply turn elsewhere in the next few years and where would boxing be then?”