(L-R) Mike Tyson, Nakisa Bidarian and Jake Paul pose onstage during the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson Boxing match press conference at Texas Live! in Arlington, Texas, on May 16, 2024.
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The highly anticipated boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson has already secured its place in the record books.
The fight’s promoter, Most Valuable Promotions, which is co-owned by Paul, told CNBC it expects more than 70,000 people to be in attendance to the Friday night bout at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Dallas Cowboys’ stadium has a seating capacity of 80,000.
The gate receipts alone have brought in $17.8 million in revenue, the promoter said.
That makes it the biggest boxing gate in history outside of Nevada. The previous record was $9 million in gate receipts for the 2021 fight between Canelo Álvarez and Billy Joe Saunders at AT&T Stadium.
MVP said the gate is also higher than any non-Las Vegas UFC fight, other than Conor McGregor versus Eddie Alvarez in New York City in 2016.
Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of MVP, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that both Tyson and Paul will be making eight figures from this fight and Taylor and Serrano will also be having record paydays for women’s boxing.
The fight between Paul, a 27-year-old YouTube influencer-turned-boxer and Tyson, a 58-year-old boxing legend, will air Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix, free to subscribers.
The event will also feature one of the most anticipated women’s boxing rematches in history: undisputed super lightweight champion Katie Taylor versus unified featherweight champion Amanda Serrano.
Netflix has upward of 283 million paid memberships in more than 190 countries. The bout will also be a test for the streamer as it ventures deeper into the sports space and as boxing sidesteps the pay-per-view model.
“Numbers don’t lie,” Paul said Wednesday at a press conference for the fight. “People want to see this and that’s an amazing accomplishment. … This is a statement that we had the biggest live gate outside of Vegas in U.S. boxing history.”
Tickets for the fight on Friday range on StubHub from about $58 to $1,500. MVP has also sold higher-end packages, including a $2 million VIP experience that comes with ringside seats. The promotions company says its 375 VIP seats have officially sold out.
For comparison, Vegas’ biggest fight in history took place in 2015 between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. That fight took in more than $72 million in tickets, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
