The Ultimate Boxing Showdown: Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul | Fanalytics Podcast Join us on the Fanalytics podcast as we delve into the biggest boxing event of the past few years – the highly anticipated Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight. Taking place at the iconic Dallas Cowboys stadium and streaming on Netflix, this match is set to break new ground in sports entertainment. We explore the contrasting backgrounds of the legendary Mike Tyson and the internet sensation Jake Paul, discussing the marketing strategies, fan dynamics, and the implications for the future of boxing and sports media. Don't miss our deep dive into how these two titans are reshaping the landscape of combat sports!
00:00 Introduction to the Biggest Boxing Event of the Year
01:05 Boxing Legends: Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul
03:02 The Marketing Genius of Jake Paul
04:53 Mike Tyson: From Bad Guy to Hero
06:10 Social Media Influence and Audience Reach
08:37 Challenges and Future of Boxing
15:56 The Spectacle vs. Legitimate Competition
17:36 Conclusion and Future Predictions
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fanalytics podcast. This week. We've got the biggest boxing event of the year. Now, I'm not saying it's going to be the most successful, but we have the biggest boxing event of maybe the last, the last couple of years. Um, and. And this is the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul fight.
It's going to be fried. Friday night. Uh, on Netflix, they're having the fight. Right in. Essentially where the Dallas cowboy. Where the Dallas Cowboys play. Uh, 90 or a hundred thousand seat football stadium. Uh, it's got everything. If you're interested in the sports world of sports business, if you're interested in sports, It's marketing.
If you're interested in the future of boxing, if you're interested. In digital marketing. This has so much going on. So for someone like myself, who's interested in the study of fandom. Understanding. The American popular culture, what people are into. What people are passionate about. In some ways it doesn't get any better. Than Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson. Before we get into the marketing. Before we get into the fandom side of this. Quick look, Eric quick. Some thoughts about the boxing side of this. Okay. So the starting point really, and the, in this. This, these themes. Teams will come through. And when we talk about them, the marketing to where the boxing side. Got Mike Tyson, baddest man on the planet in the 19. Eighties and 1990s. Undisputed heavyweight champion. Some of the most vicious knockouts in the history of boxing. Axing taking on.
And so that's, that's sort of one of the starting points, right? We all know these videos of Tyson charging across the ring, bobbing and weaving, delivering. Uh, vicious upper cods hooks. And on the other side, we've got Jake. Jake Paul, who's got this history as a YouTuber. Now. Right. And again, Paul has been obviously training very. Seriously for boxing for the last several years. Uh, it seems to put on a ton of muscle mass. Last, however he did that. And he's clearly got an. World-class training.
I think Paul is 10 in one as a boxer. So the starting point for this is this all time. Great. Mike Tyson. Legendary box from the eighties and the nineties. Nineties versus a kid that grew up, you know, lip sinking on. On YouTube. But the key thing here is right. That Paul is 31. One years younger. So 27 year old Jake, Paul versus 50. Eight year old Mike Tyson. The odds.
And again, in some ways I'm surprised there are. We're betting odds on this. Cause it's not, you know, it's not entirely clear. There's. Some rumors going around on social media, that there's a no knockout clause in the. Contract for Tyson. I, again, all this kind of speculation, but who really knows. How much of this is spectacle.
How much of this is legitimate competition? Petition. But the betting odds. Actually favor, Jake. Paul. So Jake Paul is the favorite to defeat Mike. Tyson. Okay. So that's our, that's our sort of strange starting point. Break.
The marketing for Paul versus Tyson. Has all the great elements of sports marketing. Particularly boxing marketing, you know, our starting point is. Jake Paul. Uh, Jake. Paul is. Uh, to use wrestling terminology, Jake Paul. Paul is the greatest heel in modern America. Right? He's the ultimate bad guy in the run-up to the fight. Right.
I mean, he's, he's talked a lot of trash. I think at one point he. He had, you know, a Mike Tyson face tattooed. Drawn on. He. He, you know, he is a masterful. Promoter. Um, and it's. I mean most people. Yeah, look, you look around and the sentiment seems to be, the people want to tune in to. You see this guy get beat up. And I mean, and this has been true throughout. Both Jake and Logan Paul's career.
Everyone wants to tune in to see. That this former UFC fighter, this boxer is actually going to shut. But these guys up. So when I think about the Pauls, I think these. These, the guys are the, they grew up on the WWE properly, right? They. They are essentially the greatest heal sends Vince McMahon. Man himself. Right.
They know how to get the crowd round up. They. Revel in being the bad guy. Uh, and again, you know, this. This is not just a, this is more of a general marketing principle for really anything. Entertainment. Right. Think back to your junior high class, right? You got to have a protag. Agonist and you've got to have an antagonist, right?
You've got to have a hero in an antihero. Aero or, or, uh, someone, something for the hero to overcome. Uh, Batman. Needs Robyn college basketball needs duke. Right. And so the. Paul's are essentially out there getting people to pay, to see. I see guys line up to try and take them out. Now. On the other side of this. You got Mike Tyson. And. This, you know, Tyson. Is an interesting figure because. Tyson has had. An incredibly controversial pass right past. Tyson has gone to jail.
Tyson has been known as. The baddest man on the planet. So Tyson. Was probably cash. Cast a little bit is, I mean, Tyson's always been beloved just because his style. It was so dominating, but Tyson used to be the bad guy. Now Tyson's the. A good guy, this hero, writing anything about who's paying for these tickets, right?
Who's. Paying for the signing up for Netflix. It's Jen acts. And it's the millennials. So we've got these fun memories of Tyce. Tyson. And I think, you know, the, the human memory tends to almost. Put the bad stuff away and focus on the good stuff. And so Tyson ends up. Being this hero from a different era coming out of retire. to take on this punk kid, this troll. Troll this ultimate internet heal.
And so the drama. Is really beautifully constructed for this event. So Tyson Paul's got great dramatic structure. Right? Got basic. Great. A bit, a great basic storyline. Now there's also something very modern going on for this fight. In that in the social media age, the time where Jake. Jake and Logan, Paul have frankly dominated or been. Really key players in the, in the boxing industry. In. In this modern age, there's something special that has happened, right. Like we, we can. Go back in time.
And when I grew up in the eighties, it guys like sugar Ray, Leonard. Thomas Hitman Hearns, Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, holey. Holy field Muhammad Ali, right? Boxers have always had fans. They've always. Always had followings, but what's different in the social media age. Age is that athletes are able to come closer to. Owning their audience. And social media platforms allow us to. To get great measurements of how popular, how influential. Certain athletes are so jackpot. And again, Jake Paul. Big internet star, Mike Tyson greatness. Nostalgic star.
So we know right off the bat that they're going to. There's going to be a lot of popularity here. A lot of interest in this fight. Um, but we can actually look at the numbers. And so when we look at. Let's get a couple of platforms. If we look at YouTube subscribers, Jake. Jake Paul has 20.8 million. Tyson has only. 3.7 million. Right.
Kind of stunning Mike Tyson. Tyson household name, 40 years of fame worldwide. Superstar has, you know, less than a fifth. Of the YouTube subscribers, the Jake Paul has. Right? So the, the. Jake Paul brand has some true strength in the internet arena. Now, when we look at some of the other platforms, it gets a lot closer.
If we look at Tik TOK, for example, Example Paul has 18.2 million followers, Tyson. Has 12.2. Okay, but again, think about. What, this is what this means. These are audiences. That have signed up. As explicit followers. Lowers of these two guys. So if we just start with, you know, the YouTube. We got 20.8.
So about 21 million and we got 3.7. So we got about 25 million folks who have subscribed. To follow these two guys on social media. Right. So the. Audience. So theoretically, we got a great match up in terms of storylines. We've got built-in audiences via social media platforms. You know, we know these guys have deep. Passionate. Fan bases. But when I think through. This fight and look there. They're there do seem to be some warning signals being. Put out there apparently ticket sales are not reaching. Reaching the levels I thought.
Right. And again, they decided to have this and the cowboy stadium. Which can be a set up to seat about a hundred thousand. people. So, you know, like this is a really kind of dramatic. Stick thought, but, but again, you know, you think about what's going on here. Big. Time, internet troll. Legendary nostalgic star. Can't you in a heavyweight fight. That seems. Seems like a recipe for dueling Taylor swift, like numbers. Um, but that does not seem to be. Panning out in terms of attendance. Um, now the fight is also on Netflix, which is a little bit different, right?
We've. For the last several decades we're used to these major fights being. Being put out on pay-per-view. Uh, this is an interesting. Part of the story, right? That. You know, all the streaming services now. Now are trying to get into sports, right. They are in this world of entertainment where everything. Everything old. It is new, right.
We need to get subscribers to. Pay. Uh, for our service. So we're going to use live sports to lore. Lore them in. Now it's not clear. You know, I don't think we've. Got any reports in terms of how many new subscribers Netflix has picked up on. On this. But it's an interesting kind of back of the envelope calculation. If a Netflix account costs 1599. Let's call it 15 bucks. How many folks do you have to get to sign? Sign up.
And how long do they need to stick around to make. Something like this pay out now again, can't go too far. In terms of the economics beyond just structuring the problem. Because we don't really have. Have any insight into what Tyson's getting paid? What Paul's getting paid. How the fight is actually working out behind the scenes. Now that is. That's traditional boxing. Right to not have a lot of insight in terms of the business side of it. But that's an important part of this story too.
Right? So, yeah. Look, when you look at pay per view results over the last. Last few years. The Paul brothers. They're. Out there. Right. They've generated. You can all say they've generate. Generated a majority of the, the hype that has gone into the world of box. Boxing since let's say the, uh, Paki since the Manny Pacquiao. fight versus Mayweather.
They have. Become major draws. Now, this is, and again, this is an important. That's an important part of the story. Right. If you go back in time. Boxing was one of the preeminent Amera. American sports, boxing, baseball, and horse racing. If you go. Back to, you know, basically the before world war two era. Boxing has truly. Fallen off. Uh, when you look at, when you look at survey data boxing, Fans tend to be. Very much on the older side, when you ask people who their. Our favorite sport is boxing's almost a, a non-entity is probably barely. Early in the top 10. So boxing has struggled now.
There's. A lot of reasons for that. I think the biggest reason is that boxing. Has lacked a structure. That created. The continually created hype and created demand. Right. It's not like the NFL. Where the narratives write themselves every year where the leagues are. Closed off and they can worry about creating the storylines. That will bring in the fans in boxing, you have a series of promoters. You know, you've got. The cafe and camp being Campsie. C and they've got their own fighters and the worst thing that can happen in boxing.
Right. Is that your undefeated? Undefeated fighter loses. So, I mean, this is. Y Pacquiao and Mayweather took so long for the fight to. I actually happen. So you got a bunch of independent entities trying to. Build up these great household names that have a lot of trouble. Co-op. Cooperating, right. There's no overarching league structure.
So the. The promoters have to have her boxing. Right to the point. Where look there are no mean maybe the closest thing we have to a. Household name, maybe Tyson, fury, maybe a Canelo Alvarez. Yes, but it's not clear that those guys have a lot of pay-per-view. Uh, Uh, box office appeal Canelo, but maybe that's more of a, you. Uh, focal focus point of interest for the Hispanic community.
So. Boxing. And the other one. And then this one, this. Point goes back to this issue of boxing sort of being the wild west with. Different promoters, promoting different athletes instead of trying to build great match. Match-ups is the rise of the UFC. So bile boxing. Fans tend to be older on average, UFC fans have tended. To be. Younger.
And so the UFC is, is turned. Into a, a monster on the con in terms of combat sports. Because they have the ability to, Hey, we're going. Hype up Jon Jones for awhile, we're going to hype up Ronda Rousey. We're. We're going to make a Conor McGregor, a star. Uh, Brock. Brock Lesnar is the beast and we're going to promote him across multiple, multiple. Multiple events. They've got this layer of control that. Ensures that the product is always being hyped. Up and the next generations of stars are being built. To appeal. To the fans and boxing just has, has not had. That it doesn't have the overarching governance structure.
When I think of beyond sort of that, that structural problem. When I think about the Pauls in particular. And Arthur Tyson in there a little bit running Tyson a couple of years ago, had his legends. Funds. I forget it was like LOL legends of something. Thing, right where he fired. Uh, he fought another retired boxer.
Um, Roy Jones perhaps. So. When these older boxers or the YouTubers. Start. To dominate the pay-per-view ranks. Think about what's happening to the younger guys. Guys. The younger guys need to be building their brands. So they can become the next Marvin Hagler or sugar Ray, Leonard, or Mike. Mike Tyson.
If the Pauls are sucking all. All the energy out of the sport. If Tyson. Is coming back in, in attracting the viewers and making it hard. Hard for like, they've got the bill, they got the big brand names. If these big brand names are essentially crowding out the younger, maybe. Maybe better fighters who need desperately need the exposure. That does not bode well for the, for the future of boxing. And so I think of this, like I said, I think. My gut feel from the early signals is that. This fight. It is not going to meet expectations. You know, if the, if the demand. And for seats is not where it's at.
Then I suspect that that's going to carry through in. The Netflix subscriptions are not going to be there as well. It might be that there's a little bit of fatigue with the, with the Paul. Brothers. Uh, and in terms of these boxing, these boxing circus, Circuses. This fight in,
Th this fight in particular strikes me as something of an inflection point. Because it, this is the biggest fight of the year. I don't know, like, like I said, I don't know how the economics are going to work out in the end. But if. There is fatigue for.
Tyson. And Paul. It does look like. And let's even go back a little. A bit farther. If we think about Jake Paul and Logan Paul, as these sports. Sports entertainers coming in thinking they're YouTube fame. Taking this to boxing. Boxing and then working their way up the boxing ladder. This. The ultimate event. Right.
Mike Tyson. Is still. Still the biggest name in boxing, even retired about. 20 years. So this is the, this is the. This is the climax. And so if the climax. I mean, who. When this all started, who would have thought that the Paul brothers, either of them could have ended up fighting. One fighting Floyd Mayweather and the other fighting Mike, Mike Tyson.
I mean, In some ways, this is the greatest American success story. Of all time. But perhaps the circus is wearing a little. Bit thin. And so where does it, where does boxing go after. After this is boxing, like I said, it could be an inflection point. His boxing full on spectacle, novelty. Contests. Nostalgic fighters. Um, you. And just sort of bringing in, bringing in the shell, bringing in the spectacle, or is. Is this the end of the Paul Ark, and now we're going to have to swing. Swing back or box.
I'm going to have to try and swing back to being. Legitimate sports competition. Uh, when I take. Uh, look at the big picture here. And I think that the way forward. Forward. And I look, I don't know if they've even thought about this. Probably. The way forward for boxing is a UFC boxing. division. Now there's some real challenges with that because the. You know, the key has always been that that heavyweight champion made big money. Bigger money than anyone's going to make. Uh, working within an organization like the UFC. FC, but there needs to be some type of overarching. of structure that young boxers. Others can work their way through to become the, the main event. Type guys.
So I think this is an incredibly important. Event, incredibly fascinating story. But I do also. This back that this might be the end of the spectacle. Which is like, As a, as a sports guy, as a sports fandom. Someone that's interested in the business. Of fandom. It's always cool to see what's going to be next is. This the point where we drop off to even more spectacle, or is this where we have. I have to figure out some way forward.
That brings back sport to be the. The focal point of these events. Okay guys, as always more. Content at www dot fandom. analytics.com.