BOXING FOR BUCKS : Arum Was Right, Public Is Buying Monday’s Leonard-Hearns Fight

A year ago, moments after Thomas Hearns had summoned all his faded skills to win a close decision over James Kinchen, reporters filed into a Las Vegas Hilton meeting room for the postfight news conference.

This was before the fighters had arrived, and Bob Arum, the promoter, sat alone at the head table. A reporter observed: “This just about finishes Hearns as a big-timer, right?”

Startled, Arum’s jaw dropped.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Arum retorted. “Of course, it doesn’t. He had a bad night, so what? Remember, he’s still Tommy Hearns.”

The remark was passed off as an angry answer by a promoter hoping to wring one more payday out of Hearns, who had, with his narrow decision over Kinchen, rung up three consecutive poor performances, including an embarrassing knockout at the fists of Iran Barkley.

The Kinchen fight was June 1988. Fast forward to June 1989.

Guess what. Arum was right. Hearns is still Tommy Hearns.

The proof is that the public is not only buying Monday night’s eight-years-in-the-waiting Hearns-Sugar Ray Leonard rematch, but buying it at a near-record rate.

“We’re looking at about 1 million cable households buying the pay-per-view (PPV) telecast,” said Mike Malitz, sales director for Arum’s promotion company, Top Rank.

“That’s what you get with a 12% to 15% buy rate, and that’s what we think we’re going to get.”

An addressable cable household is one in which a PPV telecast can be ordered with a simple phone call.

Rick Kulis is a regional pay-per-view exhibitor for Leonard-Hearns. He has signed up 68 cable systems in Southern California and one in Hawaii.

“These big PPV fights--Leonard-(Marvin) Hagler, (Roberto) Duran-Hagler, (Mike) Tyson-(Michael) Spinks--all seem to be bought by 100,000 to 120,000 cable households in Southern California,” he said. “That’s almost automatic. And price seems to be no barrier. For Leonard-Hagler, the price in most systems moved from $35 to $40 the last day, and 60% of the sales came after it went to $40.”

Kulis said that past performance isn’t particularly meaningful, either, when projecting the income of a PPV fight show, not when it involves two marquee names.

“It’s true Hearns has not looked good in recent fights, and in fact he hasn’t been consistent since 1981,” he said.

“But I classify fights into three categories: Fight fans’ fights, sports fans’ fights and general interest fights. This is a general interest fight, with the widest possible appeal. It’s the best possible formula--an old champion (Hearns), back for maybe his last big challenge. The public loves that. The perfect example was Holmes-Ali, which did a huge business.

“And do you know what? If Leonard wins, then Leonard-Duran will be even bigger. Same formula. Want another example? Tyson-(George) Foreman. Tyson-Foreman is a done deal. It’s been made, the only question is when. It’ll do a huge business. George Foreman right now is getting 3.0 ratings on cable, fighting nobodies, and that’s great.”

Mike Trainer, Sugar Ray Leonard’s attorney, in explaining the apparent big PPV sales of Leonard-Hearns, likened boxing to movies.

“You can make a great movie, but if you don’t have a Robert Redford or a Clint Eastwood in it, you’ve got problems,” he said.

“That’s the way people buy boxing telecasts. No one buys a fight to see two guys box. They want marquee names. I’d bet that no more than 25% of the people who buy this fight even saw the Hearns-Barkley fight.”

One cable executive sees the advent of big-money PPV fights as a vanguard of a fundamental change in the way Americans will buy entertainment in the future.

“The pattern we’re seeing with these boxing events is a huge buy on the day of the fight, in fact huge buy rates an hour or so before the fight,” said Doug Stewart, vice president of Denver-based United Media Entertainment, the nation’s third-largest cable company.

“The people with addressable systems are treating these fights as compulsive behavior.

“I’m talking about several guys going home from the office and one of them saying in the elevator: ‘Hey, let’s watch the fight someplace tonight.’ ”

Stewart said his company’s systems report brisk PPV sales and slow closed-circuit sales.

“Closed-circuit is a dinosaur, with one foot in a tar pit,” he said.

“But there are some areas of the country that just have to have it. In Salt Lake City, for example, 80% of the cable households aren’t addressable.”

Arum said that Leonard-Hearns will gross something between $60 million and $80 million. A home run, $80 million, would eclipse Tyson-Spinks and Leonard-Hagler, both of which pulled in $70 million to $75 million. Trainer is predicting a gross of $50 million to $60 million.

Leonard is fighting for a guaranteed $13 million, Hearns for $11 million.

With more than half of America’s television households now wired for cable--the number is believed to be about 53 million--and about 12 million of those being addressable, Kulis believes the first $100-million fight is not far away.

“We could be one big fight away,” he said.

“If Leonard beats Hearns, then I think Leonard-Duran would have a chance to be the first $100-million fight. If it’s not Leonard-Duran, then Tyson-(Evander) Holyfield will get it. There’re 12 million addressable households now, but there could be 20 million by the end of 1990.”

Arum, however, doesn’t think a $100-million fight is as close as Kulis does.

“Pay-per-view revenues might be flattening out a little now,” he said.

“In fact, the biggest cable company in the country, TCI, recently disconnected all its addressable equipment in Dallas, partly because people weren’t paying their PPV bills.

“Actually, foreign rights are growing very quickly these days. Japan and Italy both paid $500,000 for this fight. I sold rights to England for $750,000.”

Monday night’s fight will be at Caesars Palace’s 15,300-seat tennis court stadium, and ticket sales seems to be brisk. Only 100 tickets scaled from $100 to $800 remained at midweek, according to the hotel.