ReutersAfter months of excitement, hype and some rather choice words in the direction of a YouTuber’s mum, dad, girlfriend and testicles, KSI and Logan Paul took to the ring on Saturday night (August 25) in the match dubbed ‘the biggest event in the history of the internet’.
With 21,000 people packing out the Manchester Arena and more than a quarter of a million tuning in to watch the fight on a YouTube pay-per-view, the pair could be looking at a staggering payout. Almost Mayweather-McGregor big. Seriously.
The two YouTube heavyweights established before the fight, KSI would take the profits from sales in the UK and Paul the profits from their second match due to take place in early 2019.
RetuersMetro reports around 773,000 watched the fight on YouTube at £7.50, which puts a potential £5,797,500 in KSI’s pocket. And with the average ticket at the arena going for £100, it adds another £2.1 million, with the Brit’s possible weekend total reaching, potentially, £8 million.
The purse was agreed to be split 50/50 pre-fight and while official details are yet to be revealed, claims suggest it could’ve been more than 150 million in British pounds.
My back of a rolling paper maths, puts KSI’s total at about £83 million, plus the £75 million from Paul’s cut of the purse and you’re looking at … hang on … £158 million.
Last August, before the Mayweather v McGregor fight, the Nevada State Athletic Commission confirmed the minimum fighters would earn, would be $100 million for Mayweather and $30 million for McGregor. However Forbes recently reported Money’s cut of the fight was $275 million or just shy of £203 million.
PAThe white collar match ended in a majority draw after one judge had KSI ahead by a point but the other two scoring it even.
The BBC reports, after the fight, both fighters thought they had won, with KSI saying:
I think there’s only one thing to do. I think we have to have a rematch. Let’s do it. That was fun.
Paul said:
I think it’s what the people want. Let’s give them a rematch.
There was always going to be a rematch, obvs, but you can’t knock two guys who’ve just made almost £160 million for building a bit of hype. You’d shudder to see my bank balance.
Added to the excitement ringside and online, The Verge reports more people watched the bout on Twitch via pirated streams than those who did on the official YouTube stream.
They found a stream on Periscope with 70,000 viewers and suggest, at the fight’s height, over a million people were using the site. The largest stream had over 400,000 people on it, but other unofficial streams brought the overall number much higher.
A Twitch representative told The Verge:
It is against the rules for streamers to upload content that does not belong to them, and that anyone who does so is potentially liable to DMCA takedowns.
We have been responsive to related reports.
In the build up to the fight Logan Paul, whose reputation online came into question earlier this year after recording a vlog making light of a suicide victim, made a statement in June.
‘A lot of people think this fight is a joke who are not in the YouTube community,’ he said. ‘All jokes aside, this will be the biggest event in the history of the internet.’
Like him or loathe him, the man’s good at hype.
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Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.