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BOXING CLEVER
Amateur boxing evenings are worth considering if you’re thinking out of the box and looking for additional revenue streams
Friday 22 October 2010 was a big night for York Amateur Boxing trainer, Billy Wilson. In fact, it’s been a busy month as two of his boxers, Thomas Mulvenna and Sonny Dalton, competed on the 21st in the early stages of the National Amateur Boxing Association’s seniors and novices championships respectively
Mulvenna, 22, and Dalton,17, are certainly ‘punching above their weight’ if recent performances are anything to go by. Despite being away from the ring for five years, Mulvenna managed a ‘unaminous points victory’ over Grimsby’s Phil Hobson in Doncaster recently. Dalton scored an ‘emphatic points victory’ over Grimethorpe’s Ben O’Callaghan in Barnsley.
A lot of amateur boxing events take place in working men’s clubs. Birdwell Working Men’s Club was the venue for Dalton’s victory over O’Callaghan, while Huntingdon Working Men’s Club hosted Wilson’s 12-bout programme in which 10 of his own boxers were fighting. The event was sold out well in advance.
Working men’s clubs and amateur boxing are good bedfellows, as it’s probably the only occasion when a large, loomy, high-ceilinged building comes into its own - and there’s no need to worry about who will be footing the heating bill.
In fact, it could be argued that amateur boxing might be the saviour of the traditional club and something that every club committee should be considering. What’s more, it’s pretty straightforward to organise.
Check out the Amateur Boxing Association
Paul Porter, a former Enfield ABC fighter, is now a boxing development officer working for Bradford College and the Police Community Clubs of Great Britain. He advises any club interested in hosting a boxing event to contact their local amateur boxing club.
He advised clubs against organising their own shows. “Not unless you’re willing to insure it,” he said. “It’s not illegal, but if anything goes wrong and somebody decides to sue the club, the ABA will say it’s nothing to do with them.”
Hosting a boxing event is simplicity itself because the boxing club organises virtually everything: doctors, paramedics and the weigh-in on the night. “The working men’s clubs that I work with like it because it means a lot of money over the bar,” Porter said. The boxing club benefits by getting a venue for free, he said.
A working men’s club is tailor-made for boxing as a lot of them already have changing rooms for their should be on television all the time. We take in kids who the police and NACRO and the probation service say are uncontrollable. If it was down to me, I’d have a boxing club every four-to-five miles. We’ve got kids coming from 15 to 20 miles away. It’s not right,” he said.
“We all go out to the working men’s clubs and the large hotels,” said Thomas. “A dinner show costs £40 per head on average. The lowest we ever got was a tenner a head, boxing here in our club. Most boxing clubs would love to host boxing on their own premises, but they don’t have the headroom.”
According to Thomas, a working men’s club needs a crowd of between 200 and 300 to make a boxing tournament viable. He listed a number of venues that Wolverhampton ABC has used in the past - the Bushbury, the West End and the Bilston Working Men’s Clubs. “And they’re all suffering at the moment, but if we put on a show they can make up to £3,000 over the bar,” he said. “And then there’s the raffle - to them it’s like Christmas.”
Thomas believes that all clubs would do very well with boxing, but admits that some committees are a pain in the arse when it comes to doing the maths, even when it looks like a no-brainer. He recalled one occasion when Wolverhampton ABC agreed to charge a fee of £2,000 to hold an event ‘lock, stock and barrel’. They allowed the host club to sell tickets at £40 per head and expected 400 people to turn up. The club would make £16,000 on ticket sales but would have to fork out £8,000 on £20-per-head meals. However, for an investment of £10,000, the host club stood to make a profit of £6,000.
“But they got frightened when we started talking noughts and they’d say ‘we can get a singer for a hundred quid,’ but they should have the balls to stand up and do it You can make a good night out of it,” explained Porter. He said that dinner events are not limited to hotels or large football clubs and they don’t have to offer a la carte food. “A lump of pork pie will do,” he said.
“We had one club where so many people wanted to get in we had to close the doors for safety reasons. When we have a show at Goodyear’s Club, the tyre place, you can’t buy a ticket for love nor money; and that’s a show with a £25 ticket price,” Thomas said.
Clubs make on bar sales
With most fights, the boxing club handles ticket sales and the working men’s club makes money over the bar as, historically, boxing and boozing go well together, according to London-based boxing development officer, Dylan Cox. Cox told Club Mirror that amateur boxing was a ‘green light’ sport as far as Sport England was concerned, and that participation, and the number of boxers competing, had increased too.
Cox, who provides support at grass roots level, visits schools with a view to increasing participation. He said there are 80 ABA-registered boxing clubs in the London area and that he looks after 15 of them, advising on issues such as funding. According to Cox, amateur boxing is a volunteer-led sport and while the clubs do a great job, a lot of those in charge have day jobs and don’t have the time to write out funding applications. Most clubs rent or lease their premises, which is another struggle as prices rise and club income remains fairly static.
Where running an event is concerned, the key is space, said Thomas. A minimum height of 12ft from floor-to- ceiling is required as rings are typically raised, plus an area of 20ft square to accommodate the ring and allowing for a gangway and a judges’ area. Boxing clubs book their shows with the ABA and pay for a special permit. In London, the ABA arranges for officials and a referee and if the event is booked pre- season, it is advertised on the ABA’s fixtures list. Advertising the event, however, is down to the boxing club’s own network on top of word-of-mouth and attracting the supporters of the fighters. While crowds can often number 200 people, there have been occasions when only a dozen people turn up, Cox said.
Dinner shows attract better boxers but are more corporate in nature, while still within the remit of the ABA and typically there are 12 to 14 bouts per show with each boxer fighting in three 3-minute rounds. The Bromsgrove Members Club in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, has boxing nights every two to three months. “We do very well, it’s a good night,” said club owner Kevin Fitzgerald. “We’re not big enough for dinner but we serve hotdogs and burgers that we make ourselves. It costs £10 for adults and a fiver for kids,” he said.
Boxing events at the Bromsgrove tend to attract around 150 and are held in the club’s 180-capacity main hall. The Baggeridge Social Club near Wolverhampton normally makes £2,500 over the bar when it hosts a Sunday boxing event, but much more on a Friday night. “It’s heaving when we have them on,” said steward Steve Boyce. The club sells chocolate bars, rolls and snacks but no dinners.
Suzie Wass, currently the manager of Moorfields Sports and Social Club in Widnes, runs boxing events at the Broad Oak club in St Helens on Merseyside. “Because it’s such a large room there, I need to create income and it can make up to £7,000 in one night – just over the bar,” she told Club Mirror.
Wass explained how security was essential because of the alcohol, but stressed that she had never experienced any trouble at any of the fights. “I’ve organised boxing events at the Saltney Social Club in Cheshire too and they are absolutely fantastic. We can take between £6,000 and £7,000 over the bar,” she said.
Wass advises any club with the space to organise a boxing event, as it brings the local community together. At the Broad Oak club in St Helens, people travel from as far afield as Wales and Manchester. Broad Oak, incidentally, has one of the largest concert halls in the region, capable of accommodating 400 people, according to Wass.
The message is simple: think out of the box. Don’t rely entirely upon traditional revenue streams; consider amateur boxing. There are plenty of boxing clubs looking for a decent venue and if you have the space requirements, you stand to make a very healthy sum over the bar.
