The unfortunate truth about young fighter contracts

June 01, 2024

In an exclusive column for The Athletic, an anonymous boxing executive dishes the dirt on the world of boxing.

Why am I writing this? I believe there are certain areas of boxing that need to be given oxygen. Because boxing isn’t like football, where most stuff is out in the open. Where you can find 100 football lawyers, agents and communications people who will tell you how football works.

Boxing coverage usually focuses on one of two things: the human stories or the technical side.

Boxers are, by nature, interesting people with backstories that give them a drive others don’t have. So the sport is rich with brilliant human stories about people who had shit upbringings, terrible times and came out of it by fighting. If the coverage isn’t about that, then usually it focuses on how good a fighter is, how they move and how much power they get in their punches.

But that’s as deep as the coverage tends to go. It’s indicative of a different culture in boxing. An “insider culture” where everyone knows everyone. Look at who’s in charge: Frank Warren has been doing it since the 1980s. Bob Arum is 88. Al Haymon is in his mid-60s. And Eddie Hearn might be the new kid on the block, but he’s the son of Barry Hearn. There’s no new player in that market. It’s an old-fashioned lockout.

And in much the same way as most families don’t discuss the things that really matter, boxing doesn’t talk about the stuff that runs beneath the surface. But for the good of the fighters, these are things that need to be spoken about.

Let’s start with the enforced hiatus, seeing as that’s the issue that will be consuming the boxing world (and everything outside of it) for the foreseeable future.

What does this lockout mean for the boxers? Hearn has been talking about how, outside of the top level, some fighters might be forced to give up the sport altogether without the paydays they need to survive. It’s a tough industry for the guys at British level and below (which is almost everyone), particularly those who are on what we call “slave contracts” (yes, it is an offensive term but commonly used in the industry).

These are the contracts some young boxers sign when they first turn pro. All they want at that time is someone to sign them. And they don’t mind signing for five or seven years because it’s such a feather in their cap and they can show off to everyone. They feel like a million dollars, but they are locked in and don’t even know it. These contracts give the boxers no protection.

Think of the promoter as the circus master; he decides which circus acts come on and how often. He sells the tickets for the circus and he pays the acts. Eventually, like a circus act, you might become so big and successful that people just want to come and see you, and you don’t need the ringmaster any more. But for 99.9 per cent of everyone else, the terms under which you appear on the show are very heavily negotiated. And the act needs to be seen in order to progress.

If a boxer is well advised, he or she will have someone asking the promoter how many times a year they are obliged to put this fighter on a show. That way, the boxer can work out what their income for the year is going to be. The contract should also set out how much money they get paid. If it’s a grand per round and they have a minimum of five fights per year which are all six rounds, then the fighter makes at least £30,000.

If a fighter is not properly advised — and many have family members or trainers doing this stuff for them at the start — the promoter will tell them: “Don’t worry about it. I’ll put you on shows. You don’t need minimums.” And they accept it because they are happy to get signed.

Six months down the line, the fighter can’t get on any shows and goes to a lawyer for help.

“I’m fucked. I’ve got no money and he won’t get me a fight.”

The lawyer looks at the contract and says, “Well, you’re exclusively signed to them for five years. You can’t fight for anyone else. They can keep you on the bench. Sorry, mate.”

The point with a “slave contract” is: If you have a good style and sell tickets, the promoter will keep putting you on shows, keep paying you and you will never notice. But if neither of these things applies, you can get cast aside and there’s no protection for you. You may as well not have a contract. But they won’t let you go because:

1) You might still become good.

2) While they have that fighter, nobody else can have them.

3) They like the power.

A promoter might have 20 boxers on “slave contracts” in the hope that one makes it.

But the one who does make it may well get screwed, too. Under the fighter’s “slave contract,” the promoter might only have to pay them £100 when their market value is £1,000, so the promoter makes the £900.

From the promoter’s perspective, they are investing a load of money into a boxer to try to give them a career, so they want to make sure they have a profit at the end of it. It’s the way of the world — they put the money in, so they get the profit.

They know that ultimately, as a promoter, they are dispensable. Because once a fighter gets to the top of the mountain, like with Floyd Mayweather, they don’t need a promoter any more. They don’t need anyone. They can hire a venue, set the terms of a fight, speak to the TV companies — every other person in the chain can be eliminated. They are the show.

That’s only at the elite level, though. Everyone else is dependent on the system. That’s why boxers are always on the phone to their manager or promoter: “When am I next fighting? Will they put me on this show? Will I get a TV slot? Why is so-and-so on the show and not me?”

And that’s the reality of the boxing business as a promoter: you have hundreds of boxers all training, all asking, ‘When are you going to put me on?’ And the promoters don’t want to be obliged to do anything. It’s carnage for them now there are no shows happening at all (although they are probably happy they can give the same excuse to all fighters and in this situation there’s nothing that can be said in response!)

I do think boxing will be the first sport to come out of the lockdown, though. Sky Sports are now allowing you to pause your subscription because there is no content, so they’re going to want to put something on as soon as possible. And an individual sport like boxing is a prime contender to go behind closed doors using private, off-duty medics at ringside.

That way, the promoter at least still gets their rights payment from the TV company. At the moment they’re getting nothing.

What I think will be different, though, is that we won’t see these events having undercards. A normal show will have one headliner, a chief support and maybe eight other bouts which are the undercard. The only reason you have those other bouts is a) to sell tickets, because generally these fighters have a small, dedicated fan base and sell a few hundred tickets each; and b) to stop the rest of the boxers from chewing the promoter’s ear off.

If there are no tickets to be sold, there will be no undercard because the undercard is just an extra cost. When you play all the science and maths out, I think what you come to is this: In May we’ll see a load of good fights on TV (not pay-per-view) that will be one-offs and held in studios or similar.

The wheels have to keep on turning. And boxing is the one sport that can provide the grease to make it happen faster than most.

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