Turki Alalshikh could best serve boxing by creating his own streaming service such as 'The Boxing Channel'

A year ago, very few people in the United States had ever heard the name Turki Alalshikh. Today, the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia is easily the most influential figure in boxing. He has many of the most significant power brokers in the sport publicly groveling at his feet.

We have read repeatedly about his plans for boxing, though I'd urge a bit of caution. Unless it is directly from Alalshikh or someone closely connected with him, be skeptical of anything that suggests what his plans for boxing might be going forward.

His efforts haven't been perfect, but let's be honest: Boxing is vastly healthier and in a better position on Sept. 4, 2024, than it was on Sept. 4, 2023. Much of that has been because of Alalshikh's work.

Give the man his credit.

On Tuesday, he shared on social media plans to put together a series featuring Latino and Latina boxers with Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya. In the U.S., Latinos are among the most avid boxing fans and it makes sense to cater to them. I'm not sure it makes sense to do an exclusive deal with one promoter. Alalshikh has been working with most major promoters, which is one of the things that has been missing in boxing in the past. That's a clear win for boxing thanks to Alalshikh.

Earlier in the week, Alalshikh discussed on a podcast a plan to lower the price of pay-per-view shows.

The Sept. 14 bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas  between Canelo Alvarez and Edgar Berlanga -- a horrible, one-sided mismatch on paper in favor of Alvarez -- is priced at $89.99 on Amazon Prime Video and PPV.com. That amount is galling and just taking advantage of the public. The price is outrageously high and there is almost no chance it will deliver that kind of value.

Alalshikh has nothing to do with that card, but his sentiment to reduce the price to something around $20 shows that he's at least thinking about ways to grow the sport. As a collective business, those who run boxing have tried to squeeze every last dollar out of its customers for years, with no real plan for the future, which has been a part of its steady decline.

When DAZN came to the U.S. in 2018, it seemed too good to be true. It was not going to run pay-per-view bouts and for $99 a year, a boxing fan would get fights all year.

Soon that went by the wayside and DAZN is now the polar opposite of affordable for most. It's $225 for its base service, but that doesn't include the numerous PPV offerings it puts on. They've already had eight pay-per-view bouts this year, not including the ridiculous influencer fights they also (for some reason) distribute.

So if. you are a boxing fan and want to watch all the big fights on DAZN, it's going to cost you around $1,000. Then, there is also Amazon Prime PPV and ESPN+. When you get through all of it, you're looking at $1500 or more, easily, to watch boxing. And so much of the time, the fights you want to see aren't made.

That all leads me to this thought: If Alalshikh really wanted to positively impact boxing, his shrewdest path would be to create his own streaming service.

He doesn't need to buy all of the existing promotions; his service can serve as the de facto online home for boxing.

The existing players in the sport are well-financed. DAZN is owned by Len Blavatnik, whom Forbes estimates is worth $29 billion. Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, whom Forbes has worth $192 billion. And ESPN is owned by Disney, which has a market cap of around $160 billion.

It's not like they'll tremble in the face of competition from Alalshikh, but Alalshikh has the passion, the interest and the financial resources to do it.

Start-up costs would be enormous, of course, and that leads to the question of pricing for the consumer. What is the sweet spot to hit to actually do away with pay-per-view shows while not charging so much that it causes a large segment of the market to steal the signal.

The cost of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube is a good guide. The NFL is infinitely more popular in the U.S. than boxing and it charges $479 a year for every game. Usually when something seems too good to be true, it is, and that was the problem with DAZN's original $99 per year pricing. It wasn't sustainable at that price. The $225 per year would be acceptable were it not for all the additional PPV costs.

So if Alalshikh created a theoretical "The Boxing Channel," pricing it more than DAZN's $225 and less than the NFL would be wise. So something like $250 for six months or $450 for a year for a product that would guarantee a fan all fights might be doable considering a worldwide audience.

And then doing value adds like various networks are doing with pre- and post-fight shows, press conferences, fight libraries, podcasts, documentaries, news shows, features and the like would make it a must-buy for the boxing fan.

With such a product, Alalshikh would be able to direct many of the cards to wind up in Saudi Arabia, which his government is trying to promote as a vacation destination and retirement stop.

Alalshikh could step in and fill a much-needed void and give boxing a true chance to not only survive, but to thrive and flourish on a worldwide basis.