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INTRODUCTION: SOME IMPLICATIONS Free Agency An auction site exclusively for title fights will lead very quickly to free-agency. Other professional athletes' income has risen dramatically with free agency -- salaries and bidding began to be market driven and negotiated arms length. A quote from Boxingpress.com in October, 2000, says it all: "Michael Grant is scheduled to fight on November 30th and January 13th. No opponents have been named for him. Grant's advisor Craig Hamilton stated that Grant does not have any promotional deal with Kushner and is completely unencumbered. Grant gave options to Main Events to get his shot at Lennox Lewis, but the options only applied if he won." (underlining supplied) With an open system and access to bidders, all world champions and top-ranked fighters would prefer to be a free agent, especially when they win. When they are offered an online worldwide auction marketplace for their fights, most will renegotiate their contracts raising legitimate legal defenses. In any event, when their contracts expire, they can become free agents. The Numbers Each of the four current major sanctioning organizations have different world champion for each of 17 weight classes. That's very close to 68 world champions. They rank differently each of their top 10 contenders. Each of the top 10 contenders, plus each of the 68 world champions will have at least 20 to 30 challenges -- some many more -- at their Web site at GetAFight.com. Each of the 68 world champion will sort, evaluate, accept, and transfer the most marketable challenges according to our fan polling features to PurseBid.com for open competitive bidding. Integrity in the Process The purses of the world champions will no longer suffer from rigged purse bids, unfair corrupt rankings, and mandatory challenges. Auction and transaction software will eliminate the payoffs which have led to rigged bids, purses, promotion contracts, and grossly unfair divisions of huge sums of money. Many boxing writers have written stories illustrating the need (linked below) for a free marketplace for world champions to market their fights to a greater number of bidders in an honest process. Market Driven Purses Fighters with a championship fight will no longer have to settle for less than the market value of pay-per-view. PurseBid.com's will encourage free agency and taking competitive bids on a fight-per-fight basis between more promoters and television networks in the world. Fighters will now have full and reliable reliable market information from fan polling and ratings data from GetAFight.com and the BoxingBusinessJournal.com, and be able to compete fairly for the big championship fights in an open marketplace. End the Corruption of Monopolies PurseBid.com will enable boxers' representatives to circumvent the monopolistic WBC Rule 2-3 sealed purse bids and corruption of promoters, managers, and sanctioning organizations. The current system CANNOT be reformed with legislation which is impossible to enforce. Some state commissions have suggested licensing of the sanctioning organizations. You can't create legislative reform which depends upon the integrity of promoters and sanctioning organizations. The most prominent of them have admitted to bribery and corruption. It's futile to try to reform a system which has proven to be fundamentally flawed. Technology is one answer. Transaction software can't be bribed or dealt with under the table. Strategy PurseBid.com creates a new open bidding model for the championship fights which will insulate the process from manipulation. Our strategy encourages free agency, market forces, and honest arms-length deals. Promoters and other buyers of boxing entertainment will be able to bid using a reverse auction specifying the fights they want by weight class, number of rounds, etc., and boxers meeting that criteria can compete to offer the best price. Promoters can sort highest offers in a variety of ways for evaluation as well as access and sort the database of fixed-price made matches for the undercard at MadeFights.com. Two Relevant Articles De La Hoya attempts to sever his ties with Top Rank's Arum Tyson-Lewis Avoiding Purse Bid: WBC Giving Them Until Tuesday A Clincher of a Story FightNews.com 6/11/01 "DKP and Top Rank win purse bids!" by Ludo Saenz "Today at the Caesar Park Hotel in Panama City, Panama, two important purse bids were won by Don King Productions and Top Rank to promote upcoming WBA championship fights. "The first purse bid was for the WBA welter championship between Andrew "Six Heads" Lewis and the first challenger Ricardo Mayorga from Nicaragua. Top Rank won the bid with a $411,000 offer, in a purse bid where the minimum was set to $150,000. DKP offered $350,000 for the same event. The cities of New York and Las Vegas were announced by Top Rank as the possible places for the fight with September 8 as the tentative date. "The second purse bid was for the bantam WBA championship between Paulie Ayala and Venezuelan Eidy Moya. Don King Productions won the bid with a $120,000 offer, the minimum bid. No other promoter made a bid. DKP announced July, August and September as possible months for the fight. Possible cities, New York and Las Vegas. The winning figure was so low because Ayala will likely fight WBA super bantam champ Clarence "Bones" Adams on August 4 and thus will probably be unavailable to fight Moya in the prescribed time. "Only Don King Productions and Top Rank attended the purse auction out of eight eligible promotional companies. WBA regulations require all purse bid winners to submit a place and date for the fights in a period no more than 15 days from the date of the purse bid." (underlining supplied) FightersOnline Home PurseBid Home |