Boxing sparks renewed interest as sport re-establishes niche in Ontario

Tyler Buxton is no stranger to selling out boxing shows.

His company United Promotions’ last-minute tickets to boxing events outside of Toronto usually disappear days before the opening bell. But he was surprised by the demand for United’s latest fight his card at the Pickering casino resort, 45 kilometers east of downtown Toronto. The event takes place this Saturday, but has been sold out since late December.

Buxton isn’t the only boxing industry veteran in Ontario to notice and benefit from renewed consumer interest in a sport once considered moribund. Saturday’s event is he’s one of five events scheduled to take place in the state in the first quarter of 2023. This is the same number as his boxing card in Ontario in 2013.

But new venues, new promoters and new ways to deliver content online are helping professional boxing re-establish its niche in the local sports market, and Buxton has made Southern Ontario look to Montreal as a major boxing event destination. I think we can be comparable.

“The industry is alive and well, and it’s getting better and better,” Buxton said in an interview. “The sport has been dead for a long time. To be honest, the next three to four years he’s at it, and I’m pretty sure that if we keep going at this pace, we’ll have a better fighter stable than Quebec.”

Buxton also said Toronto could become “Northern Las Vegas,” which is clearly an exaggeration, but the numbers point to a resurgence in boxing.

Last year, venues in Ontario hosted 21 professional boxing shows. This is a massive recovery for 2020 and his 2021, a pandemic year that saw him only see 4 professional boxing shows in 24 months. The local promoter said last year was even busier than he was from 2017 to 2019, when Ontario hosted an average of 19 professional boxing events a year.

Prior to that, the number of professional boxing shows was typically in the single digits, with nine in 2015 and six in 2014. Only five professional boxing events were held for him in Ontario, then called the Air Canada Center.

However, the UFC has closed its Toronto offices and has not held a show there since 2018. During the same period, boxing expanded its local presence.

Promoters attribute the surge in activity in the late 2010s to a change of government at the Ontario Athletic Commission. Before retiring in 2016, former Commissioner Ken Lin gained a reputation as a capricious decision-maker, invoking arcane rules to cancel matches, sometimes canceling entire cards in short order. Did.

And as restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic eased, boxing promoters were able to capitalize on potential demand from both customers and venues.

“Everyone is so motivated. There was a gap in all this content,” said Lee Baxter, the company that stages boxing cards at Toronto’s Rebel nightclub. “If you walk into a music venue in 2018 or 2019, they’ll just say, ‘Get on the road, Jack.there is more awareness about [boxing] now. “

In recent years, boxing events have tended to be held at several venues in downtown Toronto and suburban arenas such as the CAA Center in Brampton, Ontario. The arrival of Pickering Casino Resort (his $500 million facility that opened in July 2021) will give local promoters another option, tapping into the longstanding synergies between boxing and gambling.

Wayne Odegard, general manager of Pickering Casino Resort, said in an email to The Globe: “Working with a local promoter to open an arena for this boxing event is a natural fit.”

Meanwhile, upstart promotion Red Owl Boxing has built a 1,000-seat event venue inside its Brampton headquarters, a modern version of an old-school fight club. But Red Owl, along with Baxter and United, is also one of the streaming service’s local promoters affiliated with DAZN, broadcasting a card that would otherwise remain a house show.

Gabriel Fanous, president of Red Owl Boxing, believes streaming deals are important, increasing exposure for fighters and reaching young adult sports fans who tend to consume content online.

“I have an office full of millennials. They know a lot about the UFC, but they know nothing about boxing,” Fanos said. “The UFC is marketed to the demographic from his 18 to his 34 and that is where boxing needs to get better.”

Saturday’s matchup in Pickering, Ontario, will not be broadcast, but will rely on the familiar formula of selling VIP tables to corporate customers while B-side fighters from outside Canada take on local favorites. Headliner Scudeep Singh Batty lives in neighboring Ajax, co-main event boxer Brandon Cooke grew up there, and another fighter on Saturday’s card, Melinda Watpool, is nationally ranked. I trained there as an amateur.

“Usually there are people who carry the fanbase across the GTA to Brampton, who are staying in Durham,” said Buxton. “It’s kind of easy.”