According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez signed a 5-year. 11-fight, $365 million dollar deal with stream service DAZN.
The contract will kick off on December 15th with Canelo’s fight with super middleweight beltholder Rocky Fielding.
Alvarez’s deal is the richest athlete contract in sports history, eclipsing the 13-year, $325 million agreement that New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton signed in 2014 when he was with the Miami Marlins.
“Canelo is the highest-paid athlete in the world. He’s extremely happy,” Alvarez promoter Oscar De La Hoya told ESPN after Alvarez signed.
“This is only from my hard work,” Alvarez told ESPN shortly after he signed the paperwork. “The most important thing to me was being able to give the fans the opportunity to see me fight without having to pay the $70 or $80 for my fights on pay-per-view. That was the most important thing, more important than what I am making.
“It’s very important for me to give the fans the biggest fights and the most important fights, and I promise you I will always do that. The December fight with Fielding is a dangerous fight. I am moving up in weight, and I don’t know how my body will feel. But I always want to take on challenges, and I am very happy my fans will be able to see me fight for a small cost.”
“Never. I was never worried because I’m very confident in myself,” he said. “I know how important I am to any platform I go to. I am very grateful to HBO and to Showtime for what they did for my career, but I am happy we’re moving forward and that I will be able to fight on a platform that is the future. I’ve always liked a challenge, and this is yet another challenger in my career.
“Being part of this historic deal will require me to prepare myself even more and offer fans even better performances. At the same time, I am humbled to be selected to lead this new vision for the sport of boxing, which will without a doubt be for the benefit of the fans.”
Although Alvarez is the centerpiece of the deal, De La Hoya had leverage to use Alvarez to secure dates and license fees from DAZN for his company’s non-Alvarez events. The deal, for which financial terms were not disclosed, calls for Golden Boy to put on up to 10 “high-caliber fight nights” per year that will stream live on DAZN beginning in early 2019.
Those fights would include Golden Boy’s other top fighters, including junior welterweight and former three-division world titlist Jorge Linares, junior featherweight titlist Rey Vargas, middleweight contender David Lemieux, featherweight contender Joseph Diaz Jr. and junior featherweight contender Diego De La Hoya, as well as junior lightweight Ryan Garcia and junior welterweight Vergil Ortiz Jr., two of boxing’s top prospects.
“This is huge for boxing, huge for Canelo and huge for Golden Boy,” De La Hoya said. “Golden Boy is at the forefront of something very monumental for the sport of boxing.”
“This is easily one of the best days in the growing history of Golden Boy Promotions,” De La Hoya said. “We are committed to making this sport as accessible as possible and at an affordable price for all the fans. My dream has been to make boxing a sport for all. DAZN has the perfect platform to make this dream come true, and with the biggest star in the sport at the helm of this journey, I have no doubts that we will succeed in unimaginable ways.”
“We were able to reach a conclusion of what Canelo is worth today and what he is worth tomorrow, and we worked out this deal,” De La Hoya said.
Said DAZN’s John Skipper: “We are thrilled to be exclusive partners with Golden Boy Promotions and Oscar De La Hoya. By bringing Canelo’s fights to DAZN, we will turn his pay-per-view success into a growth engine for subscribers — a truly transformational moment for our business and the entire industry.”
