Boxing
How many people bought the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren pay-per-view?
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Jake Paul claimed that his fight with Ben Askren earned $75 million dollars and 1.5 million buys, which would make it one of the biggest fights of recent years.
Posting on Instagram a photo of him with a friend and a bag full of money, he said: “1.5 million PPV buys... $75 million dollars generated”
Speaking after the fight, the 24-year-old said: "I told you I was going to do it in the first round.
"I told you all I'm a real fighter. I don't know how many times I've got to prove myself that this is for real.
"I'm going to do whatever I want, I feel like I'm living in a dream right now.
"I don't know what's next for me, I've fought three times, talked a lot of s—, I'm going to enjoy my life for a second.
"I said this fight would be easier than the Nate Robinson fight; at one point I was the underdog, that sounds crazy but I was the underdog.
"I knew Ben would sit there like a typical MMA fighter and have no head movement. I'm just too powerful."
How much did Jake Paul earn from his fight with Ben Askren?
Paul won’t split the $75 million down the line with Askren, but both he and the former UFC fighter will take a proportion of the revenue. Broadcasters and other sponsors and agencies will all take a cut, but Paul may have earned in excess of $10 million.
He was guaranteed to earn $690,000, but he could conceivably have earned 20 times that once everything is settled up.
That figure was what he claimed to have earned on the undercard of the Mike Tyson - Roy Jones Jr fight when he knocked out Nate Robinson. As headliner, he would have stood to earn a far bigger cut.
How many people subscribed to the event?
Paul claims 1.5 million people paid up to watch the event, so with more than one person on average watching a screen, three or four times that could be the viewing figure, plus any pirated streams.
That is still dwarfed by the 6.7 million buys and $700 million generated by the 2017 bout between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
Who will Jake Paul fight next?
Askren has no plans to fight again, so there is no chance of a rematch, but Robinson said he is keen on making another fight.
The suspicion is that Paul chooses his opponents wisely so as to line up apparently even fights, but where he has the obvious advantage. Askren fit that perfectly, as a fighter with no real aptitude for boxing.
He might call out McGregor, Mayweather, and other more dangerous professionals, but more likely is another fading or faded competitor who isn’t quite up to the task.
