Looking to capitalize on a big year for boxing, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions has multiple projects in the works designed to revitalize the promotional company, including finding a potential new investor.
Founder Oscar De La Hoya brought on Philip Button (right) to build out more business projects.Courtesy of Golden Boy Promotions
This year has been particularly strong for boxing, absent of Showtime Sports shutting down, with several fights that received mainstream attention and produced record-setting gates and pay-per-view sales. That was led by the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight in April that sold more than 1.2 million PPV units and did $22.8 million in ticket sales at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Golden Boy was a co-promoter for that event.
Golden Boy works with Garcia and the company recently announced Garcia’s next fight: A bout versus Oscar Duarte at Houston’s Toyota Center in December. At the same time, Golden Boy has been working with former WME executive Philip Button to build out more business projects outside the ring.
Speaking with Sports Business Journal, De La Hoya and Button revealed some of the projects in the works, including previously unreported ones, such as a scripted series with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Inc.; an unscripted series with Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas; and a boxing game on Roblox with web3 company Orange Comet.
This year is trending to be one of the best in company history, said Button, who is serving as Golden Boy’s chief business officer. De La Hoya, the former champion boxer, founded the company in 2002.
“Boxing is the foundation to everything — when I started Golden Boy Promotions in 2002, the vision was to sign the biggest fighters on the planet and make the best fights happen to break records, and we’ve done all that through the years,” De La Hoya said. “But we want to think outside the box and expand the business, so bringing Philip on board was a very crucial piece of the puzzle to thinking outside the box about other businesses. We’ve been around for more than 20 years, but this is the beginning for thinking outside the box with our business.”
Other projects that Button said are in the works include getting Golden Boy’s library of archived content onto a free ad-supported streaming TV channel; working with a technology company on a sensor system inside boxing gloves that could generate stats for fans and the fighters to pore over, or even be used as a new judging system; and working with Ring Magazine on several projects, including a podcast.
Meanwhile, at a time of heavy activity and investment into sports properties by private equity groups, Button confirmed that Golden Boy has been approached by potential strategic partners.
“It’s not just about money — there’s a lot of money being thrown around, whether it’s private equity companies, international companies, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere,” Button said. “What’s important for us is what’s the right fit, who is the right partner who can support our ambitions inside and outside the ring, and we’re in the process of that at the moment.”
While De La Hoya and Button have several projects going on outside the ring, they’ll need to continue putting on exciting fights inside the ring like any other promoter. Several of the mega fights that happened this year came only after arduous negotiations among various and even rival stakeholders, and De La Hoya said that’s going to be key for the sport.“I strongly believe that what is missing here is promoters coming together, setting egos aside and literally making fights happen because the talent is there, the media platforms are there and the fighters are there,” De La Hoya said. “If we can come together and work together, boxing will keep on thriving.”
