Boxing was once synonymous with cable networks and pay-per-view. Showtime and HBO beamed fights featuring Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Floyd Mayweather into living rooms for nearly 40 years, a golden age when heavyweight championship bouts felt like must-see events.
In the past five years, the sport has become a digital nomad. Showtime and HBO ended those longstanding relationships, citing shrinking budgets and changing philosophies. Now boxing is reliant on a handful of streaming services that are expanding into live sports coverage because sports is one of television’s last communal experiences.
To be a devoted boxing fan in 2025, one must subscribe to Netflix, Prime Video and DAZN, a European-based sports platform.
Boxing has been more vulnerable than other sports in a fracturing media landscape because it has less centralized business practices than the N.B.A. and N.F.L., which can command billions of dollars for their media rights. Rival promoters have signed exclusive deals with platforms to showcase their fighters, adding contractual obstacles when determining distribution.
Stephen Espinoza, the former president of Showtime Sports, said there was still a large degree of uncertainty around the sport. “Networks have looked at it and said, ‘That’s just not an environment that we want to jump into,’” he said.
Live sports still draw considerable audiences, though, making streaming platforms willing to experiment with boxing. Some of the top fights on DAZN and Prime Video are pay-per-view, with those streamers charging fans as much as $79.99 to watch in a model used by the cable networks.
The fights on Netflix are free to its subscribers, including a bout on Friday night between Jake Paul, the social media star, and Anthony Joshua, a 36-year-old former heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist. Paul, 28, is a considerable underdog, and the perceived skill imbalance has raised questions about the match’s legitimacy.
There were similar discussions last year when Paul defeated a sluggish Tyson, who is now 59. But despite those concerns and a stream that experienced technical difficulties, 60 million households watched the fight live, according to Netflix. That success encouraged the media company to orchestrate three subsequent fights.
“When there are compelling fights to be made, we will pursue those,” said Brandon Riegg, the vice president of nonfiction at Netflix.
Netflix, which has more than 300 million subscribers, may have perhaps set an unrealistic benchmark with the spectacle of Paul fighting Tyson. Their distinct sets of fans — Paul has more than 28 million followers on Instagram, while Tyson was one of the most famous athletes of the ‘80s and ’90s — drove mainstream interest that is unlikely to carry over for more standard fights.
“Everyone appreciates that was an extremely unique event that you were touching six different generations of humanity,” said Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s business partner. “That’s hard to do.”
Riegg said Netflix, which does not have exclusive deals with any promoters, aimed to host between one and five fights per year that have fanfare and buzz. That fits within the company’s strategy for live programming; last year it announced a three-year partnership to stream N.F.L. games on Christmas Day.
“You want to maintain the caliber of fight throughout so that it feels like a real thing and it feels like there’s urgency to watch it,” Riegg said.
In September, Netflix hosted an anticipated championship match between Terence Crawford and Canelo Alvarez that it said reached more than 41 million viewers.
The fight was organized in conjunction with TKO, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment, and Turki al-Sheikh, the chairman of the Saudi Arabian government’s entertainment department. TKO intends to launch a boxing league next year on Paramount+, where fights will be included in a regular subscription.
The top viewing destination for die-hard boxing fans is DAZN, which has international rights for the N.F.L., soccer and other sports, but is known largely in the United States for its boxing programming. In 2024, the company said it was nearing 20 million paid subscribers.
Pete Oliver, the platform’s chief executive for growth markets, said that the exit of cable networks provided a large gap to fill, and that DAZN broadcasts more than 100 boxing fights annually.
“We think it’s a really exciting opportunity to bring all the fighters and all the promoters into one roof,” Oliver said. (DAZN and Joshua’s promoter granted an exception for him to fight Paul on Netflix.)
Amazon, which partners with the promotion Premier Boxing Champions, declined to comment about its boxing strategy for Prime Video.
Amid the uncertainty lies opportunity.
Claressa Shields, a women’s heavyweight champion who has a February fight scheduled on DAZN, said the sport’s fragmentation taught fighters the value of navigating digital spaces like YouTube and Twitch. By marketing themselves, they can make their bouts attractive to both fans and companies.
“For those boxers who got big brands, this is the time for us,” she said.
Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment.
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