Mike Tyson v Jake Paul is the top event for content masquerading as sports | Boxing

Mark Borkowski is the PR maestro who has worked with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Diego Maradona to Jim Rose, an American exhibitionist who used to hang weights from his penis. Borkowski also helped Ian Botham recreate Hannibal’s trip across the Alps with elephants, and for his sins he was the mastermind behind Cliff Richard’s Savior’s Day reaching Christmas No.1 despite minimal radio airplay. So who better to talk about the biggest sporting stunt of the year, Mike Tyson’s fight against Jake Paul, which will be streamed to 300 million homes via Netflix this weekend?

Instinctively, as I told Borkowski, I hate the idea. Most boxing fans do. It peddles a myth that wasn’t even close to being a reality in 2004, let alone 2024: that Tyson is one of the most ferocious fighters alive, not a 58-year-old who lost 26kg in May after a wound. up, causing him to vomit blood and stools of tar. It risks Tyson’s boxing reputation and his health. And aside from Netflix’s lavish promotion, it feels more like a sham or a circus than a true sporting event.

But I could be wrong. Borkowksi certainly thinks so. He believes the fight is straight out of the playbook of PT Barnum, the greatest showman of all and a curator of the absurd and extraordinary who instinctively knew what the public wanted long before they did. And that it will cut through to the masses.

“Barnum understood how to engage the crowd — the big crowd, the big unwashed,” he says. “This fight is about opportunism. It’s about creative thinking. And it’s already generating the oxygen of advertising, which is always an indication that something is going to be very successful.”

As Borkowski points out, it taps into two big markets: Boomers and Gen Xers who grew up watching Tyson, as well as the younger generations who worship Jake Paul, many of whom want to watch.

“A lot of people, especially boys, project themselves into male influencers like Paul,” he says. “In some ways, they’re their best buddies — whether it’s watching them play Call of Duty, or watching the Jackass-influenced generation of pranksters do outrageous things on social media. So they want to see this. And so do they , who grew up with Tyson in his prime. So while purists may scoff, there’s a market for this. And Netflix knows it.”

But it’s not quite sport, is it? Borkowski doesn’t hesitate. But he’s not sure it matters as long as the match – in the early hours of Saturday, UK time – somehow delivers. “The root of this match is definitely that of World Wrestling Entertainment,” he says. “It’s a fusion of sports and entertainment. You feel like part of it is staged. Is anyone going to get seriously hurt? I doubt it, since they’re wearing 14-ounce gloves. So it’s more WWE than WBA. “

He then delivers the ultimate support. “I would be only too happy to come up with something like that,” he says.

Borkowski is not alone in believing that Netflix is ​​onto a winner. Adam Kelly, the media president of global sports rights agency IMG, feels much the same way. And after working closely with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Al Haymon to help promote and stage Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor in 2017, he sees Tyson versus Paul as having similar crossover appeal.

Kelly’s starting point is that in a world where TV ratings are falling, the sport is absolutely capable of bucking the trend with records for the NFL, the Olympics, the Euros and the Women’s NBA. So naturally, the media and tech giants like Netflix and Amazon are starting to focus more on live sports, using it to drive subscriptions and sell products. And given their business acumen, would you dare bet against them?

“This fight is much bigger than boxing,” he says. “This is the path and the roadmap that is going to prove the model for Netflix when it comes to sports.”

Kelly predicts that Tyson vs Paul “will be one of the biggest fights ever broadcast”. Why? Because of a combination of Netflix’s huge subscriber base, its algorithm’s ability to nudge people toward new content, and the intrigue surrounding the fight.

And he has a message for purists who turned their noses up at Mayweather vs. McGregor and continue to roll their eyes at influencers like Paul in their sport. “These fights have encouraged new fans and led to a new wave of interest in boxing,” he insists. “If boxing only appeals to a hardcore fan base, with technical fights, it will eventually die. Because its audience will age, and then they will die.”

It’s a warning that applies to all sports. “You have to constantly be looking to build your audience,” says Kelly. “And that means making a product that specifically appeals to people who aren’t your current fans. Unless you do that, you’re on a shrinking iceberg.”

I don’t disagree. But I still shudder when I hear Netflix promote the fight in Arlington, Texas, as “the biggest name in social media against the biggest name in boxing,” or when I see Muhammad Ali’s former manager Gene Kilroy tell Tyson recently, “This is strongest I’ve ever seen you.” This is not just a cheeky hype. It is misleading nonsense.

It brings to mind the old saying, often mistakenly attributed to Barnum, that a pacifier is born every minute. Barnum is also claimed to have once said, “Every crowd has a silver lining.” Which, when it comes to this troubled play, seems somewhat counterintuitive.

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