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One of the most debated topics in boxing is the price of Pay Per View events. Many people felt the pain this weekend with the PPV between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito costing upwards of $60. So in some welcome news the online streaming service UStream announced that they will be carrying the Roy Jones Jr. fight for the low price of only $9.99. While we can debate the merits of Roy Jones headlining a sham fight between him and Max Alexander for the UBO Intercontinental title all day long, I rather want to focus on the PPV aspect of this fight (Zelda fire!!!).
In my opinion, the price of PPV is way too high for most of the cards that come to be big PPV events. The Hopkins vs. Dawson card was a great example of this pricing problem. I wanted to see this fight, but I did not want to spend over $20 bucks to see the fight. If I remember correctly, this fight was cheaper than the standard $60 fare, but still it was not close to the $20 price point I was willing to put down for this fight.
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In contrast, I like what Roy Jones is trying to do with this card. It's not a big card, and accordingly he is not charging a good deal of money for it. He is also using a dedicated streaming service, which should hopefully eliminate some of the technical difficulties involved with streaming events. If the Dawson-Hopkins fight was on UStream for $10, then I would have jumped at the chance to buy it. Yet, it bombed on HBO PPV with big money glitz for a fight between two non-draws.
What do you guys think about the current pricing structure? As someone who pays for both Showtime and HBO pretty much to get boxing, having to shill out more money for big events is a little tough to justify. However, if the pricing of PPVs went down, then I would at least be more tempted to put some money down. There is the reason that you should hope that the Roy Jones PPV is successful. Lower PPV prices, maybe.