Terence Crawford believes Netflix is helping to bring boxing back to its golden era.
On September 13, ‘Bud’ will face his toughest test yet when he goes toe-to-toe with legendary pugilist Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas. The fight, considered by some to be the biggest boxing bout of the last decade, will air live and exclusively on Netflix at no extra charge for the streaming giant’s 300 million subscribers worldwide.
It’s a welcome change for fight fans tired of shelling out big money for pay-per-views, and one that Crawford believes can only help the sport in the future.
“It’s very important because if you look at boxing back in the days, boxing was like the number one sport in the U.S. before NBA and NFL took over,” Crawford said during a pre-fight press conference. “But the reason why it was because it was on regular TV, and more people can take notice of it… So, it’s great to be able to be on Netflix and it’s great to have those people that don’t have cable to be able to witness a fight like this.”
Will Terence Crawford vs. Canelo Alvarez rival the numbers of Paul vs. Tyson?
Netflix broke the internet late last year with its first live boxing offering, Jake Paul vs. ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson. Though the fight failed to live up to the immense hype, it was a smashing (and site-crashing) success for Netflix, which reportedly attracted more than 108 million viewers from around the globe.
Emanating from Allegiant Stadium, Canelo vs. Crawford is expected to host more than 60,000 fans in ‘Sin City’ while the event will likely attract 10s of millions of viewers online.
