The new boxing promotion, led by UFC owners at TKO Group Holdings, is ambitious plans for the future with the first set of cards that will face Terrence Crawford in September in a Super Fight in Las Vegas.
UFC CEO Dana White has already been announced as the promoter for the event, which WWE president Nick Khan is also involved in the newly formed boxing league. Although some details have been revealed since the boxing promotion was first announced, the new league has ambitious plans when it comes to the full schedule that begins on September 12th.
“We’re telling you that we expect boxing organisations to call 12 cards a year and 12 cards a year over the next five years,” TKO’s president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro told quarterly financial calls with investors. “Even so, I’m putting together that plan and working with a friend in apparent Saudi Arabia.”
In addition to an average of 12 cards per year, the new Saudi-backed boxing league plots several “superfight” events similar to Canelo and Crawford in September.
“Regardless of those, we aim to see how it works anywhere from one to four different superfights a year,” Shapiro said. “But obviously, we’ll call Canelo/Crawford’s September matchup one of them, and with that undercard there are a number of undercard fights that are likely to be aired to television/media partners that have a newly formed boxing organization.”
Currently, the new TKO Boxing League does not have a broadcast partner, but these details may be sorted out ahead of the actual launch in September.
While TKO was running the show, Shapiro once again pointed out that Saudi Arabia doesn’t really assume financial responsibility for boxing promotions that provide all the funding.
In addition to that, the 12 individual fight cards are held separately from “superfights,” which could potentially contain some of the biggest names in the sport.
“These are two separate businesses,” Shapiro revealed. “Saudi Arabia funds these Super Fight Cards. We will work with them in media rights transactions and commissions. We will obviously work on a global partnership. We will process tickets. We will process production.
“Dana White and Nick Khan drive most of it and aim to promote them all, but then separately, our boxing organization, we promote that together with them (on average 12 cards, earn individual media rights fees, sell global partnerships, promote and produce those cards.
So far, the new promotion has been referenced solely as TKO boxing, but Shapiro promises that it will not actually be used in the name after the promotion officially launched later this year. He offered no insight into the new name, but promised that it was already in the works.
“We should mention that it’s not going to be called TKO boxing,” Shapiro said. “It seems like the soup of the day. We’ll be releasing our names here pretty soon for our business. But it’s not TKO boxing.”