As the long-awaited fight between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury is finally to take place this weekend, global gaming and entertainment group Entain shared some observations about the rise in exhibition fights and its effect on the entertainment industry.

Fan Engagement Change

Entain believes that the emergence of YouTube stars such as Logan Paul, Jake Paul and KSI on the boxing scene is influencing new boxing audiences and creating a nexus point between sports and entertainment, the operator called ‘sportainment.’

The way in which fans engage with sport and entertainment is changing, and the interest in creator boxing is one of the trends that sit at the heart of this convergence.

Dominic Grounsell, CCO, Entain

The global interactive entertainment operator claimed that all spats on social media and various altercations at boxing events in the past 12 months between Paul and Fury had influenced a substantial number of fans to their fight beyond the traditional boxing audience, showing there is a profound change in fan engagement.

“We see from our data that these events are injecting new life into the sport, diversifying and bringing in new audiences beyond traditional boxing fans,” Grounsell continued, stressing Entain’s objective of being “at the forefront of this by creating moments of excitement” for its fans.

New Customer Betting Activity

Online data covering the group’s wide portfolio of brands revealed that the top three fights with the highest participation of new customers in the last five years featured a YouTuber, with more than 25% of those who bet on the KSI and Logan Paul fights in 2018 and 2019 being new customers.

Data also showed that the interest in creator boxing continued to grow as the 2019 fight between KSI and Logan Paul brought three times more bets than their fight in 2018, as well as more than twice as many bettors.

The upcoming fight this weekend is expected to capture the interest of both boxing and entertainment communities and two-thirds of the Brits will stand behind Fury.

The fight is likely to establish itself as one of the top ten biggest fights betting-wise in the last six months as the number of bets is expected to surpass those on the heavyweight bout between Joseph Parker and Jack Massey.

Entain went further to predict that more than 25% of those betting on the fight would likely be new customers, which is in stark contrast to the 2% of new customers during the traditional boxing bout between Chris Eubank Jr and Liam Smith earlier in the year.