Errol Spence vs Danny Garcia reportedly pulls over 250,000 PPV buys

According to a report from Mike Coppinger of The Athletic, last weekend’s big welterweight fight between unified champion Errol Spence and challenger Danny Garcia generated over 250,000 pay-per-view buys for PBC on FOX, performing better than PBC’s last PPV featuring Gervonta Davis vs Leo Santa Cruz.

Despite the report, not everyone is buying into the announcement. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, in particular, thinks the 250,000 number is being greatly exaggerated by The Althletic based on his own sources, with Arum telling Michael Woods via RingTV the figure is just Trump-style reporting.

“We know approximately, they’ll be lucky to get 120,000,” he told me. “We’ve just gotten to the point where the numbers being used are not realistic. They don’t reflect reality. Remember, this is the Trump era. People are willing to say anything, and people will believe it. But to be so off is crazy,” he said, of the Coppinger numeral. “The Athletic has the Donald Trump of sports reporters!”

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever get exact figures on the PPV performance of this fight firsthand, as PBC usually doesn’t release those kind of details. Either way, Arum makes it a point to say he doesn’t believe boxing is doing itself any favors by offering these fights on PPV during the economic climate we’ve been enduring, but consumers will ultimately vote with their dollars.