LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 08: (L-R) Jake Paul, promoter Eddie Hearn, AnEsonGib and british ... [+]
On January 30 in Miami during Super Bowl week, Matchroom Boxing will host two world title fights on Watson Island featuring Demetrius Andrade vs. Luke Keeler for the WBO middleweight title and Tevin Farmer vs. Joseph “JoJo” Diaz for the IBF junior lightweight title. The event streamed on DAZN will also feature two YouTube influencers in Jake Paul, brother of Logan Paul who just fought KSI in November, against AnEsonGib.
The truth of the matter is I don’t know who either of them are. Seriously. Yes, I’ve heard the Jake Paul name, but I’ve never visited his YouTube channel or any of his social media channels. I couldn’t be any less interested or remotely care as to why they’re fighting. But here’s the thing. They couldn’t care less either about me because I’m not their demographic. Even the oddsmakers have taken interest in this fight. According to the boxing odds at BetOnline, Paul is -135 favorite (wager $135 to win $100) while AnEsonGib is +115 (wager $100 to win $115). I wouldn’t know where to begin to handicap this fight.
What does interest me though is love it or hate it, both Paul and AnEsonGib have more than 100 times the following of the rest of the card combined via YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and any other social platform on the planet at their disposal. They have a combined 22 million subscribers on YouTube alone. In fact, the rest of the fighters on the card, including Andrade and Farmer should be grateful that Paul and AnEsonGib are on the card. It’s only going to enhance their social footprint and brand awareness from the traffic and subscriptions that Paul and AnEsonGib will drive to DAZN for this event. It will also help attract a younger demographic in into the boxing ecosystem and they just might enjoy the rest of the show.
The social media impact for DAZN of having a Paul brother fight is huge. The KSI vs. Logan Paul II fight occurred on November 9, 2019. In 2019, DAZN had its biggest day of fan growth on November 10, the day after the Paul vs. KSI II fight, adding 79,045 new fans, followers or subscribers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
That’s what you call moving the needle. It’s not just me saying it. It’s measurable.
Additionally, the top performing Instagram post for DAZN in 2019 was video of Logan Paul and KSI hugging it out after their fight, which generated 444 thousand responses while the top DAZN 2019 post on Twitter was of the same clip, generated 128 thousand responses.
Tracy David, Chief Marketing Officer at ListenFirst, a digital media and marketing agency said, "Already having top fighters like Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs on its roster; DAZN with the KSI vs. Logan Paul II fight proved that they can also stage successful event programing around celebrity matches. The high volume of YouTube interactions around the Jake Paul vs. AnEsonGib press conference, indicates that DAZN's next matchup of YouTube influencers will again bring non-traditional boxing fans to the streaming platform."
While there's no question that Logan is the more popular Paul brother on social media, Jake also has a massive following. As of January 21, 2020, Jake Paul, has a total ListenFirst Fan Footprint of 41.4 million compared to Logan Paul having a ListenFirst Fan Footprint of 62.8 million. ListenFirst Fan Footprint measures the total audience that an individual has attracted on their digital or social channels through Likes, Followers and Subscribers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
There's every indication of a high level of interest in the Jake Paul vs. AnEsonGib fight. For example there were 1.36 million interactions around the Jake Paul vs. AnEsonGib Press Conference on Logan Paul's YouTube channel while the live streamed version of the press conference generated 625 thousand interactions on the DAZN YouTube page.
The fact that the press conference footage was getting more interactions on Logan Paul's YouTube channel as opposed to the DAZN YouTube page speaks to how the Paul vs. AnEsonGib fight is expanding the audience for DAZN content rather than just appealing to existing DAZN subscribers.
DAZN had its number one day of 2019 in terms of organic search (Wikipedia Page Views) on November 9 with 17 thousand page views, the day of the Logan Paul fight.
The bottom line is that DAZN and Matchroom Boxing have found a niche that is proving to be valuable. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Don’t be surprised if competitors will follow suit shortly.
