Saudi Arabia: The saviour of boxing?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two years ago, boxing was on the ropes.
Fans were fed up, and rival promoters were playing the blame game, as egos, finances and broadcaster commitments got in the way.
Now, it's all changed, largely thanks to investment from Saudi Arabia.
We head to the boxing ring to look at the revival of this global sport – and find out whether the Kingdom's increasing involvement in sport is being universally welcomed.
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Presented and produced by Matt Lines
(Image: Britain's Tyson Fury (red) and Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk (blue) compete during their heavyweight world championship rematch at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh on December 22, 2024. Credit: AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.7 | I'm Matt Lines. |
| 0:06.6 | On today's program, we're heading to the boxing ring |
| 0:08.8 | to look at the revival of this global sport, |
| 0:11.9 | largely thanks to investment from Saudi Arabia. |
| 0:14.5 | The change in boxing since the involvement of the Saudi Arabians |
| 0:19.0 | has been quite startling. |
| 0:20.1 | For someone to come along like Turkey Al-Al-Al-Al-Hik |
| 0:23.6 | and essentially tick off all of these things that we wanted to happen in boxing, |
| 0:30.0 | on the surface, is a wonderful thing. |
| 0:33.4 | Two years ago, boxing was on the ropes. |
| 0:35.9 | Fans were fed up and rival promoters were playing the blame game |
| 0:38.9 | as egos, finances and broadcaster commitments got in the way. |
| 0:42.6 | Today, it's all changed. |
| 0:43.9 | Head to a fight or watch on TV. |
| 0:46.1 | And among the usual sportswear and betting companies, |
| 0:48.6 | there's another sponsor, Riyadh season. |
| 0:50.9 | That's the banner under which Saudi Arabia finances sports and entertainment events, |
| 0:55.6 | and the oil rich kingdom has plenty of money to spend. It's not just boxing, golf tournaments, |
| 1:00.7 | tennis matches and football competitions have all taken place in the kingdom with an estimated |
| 1:05.3 | six and a half billion US dollars invested in sport since 2021. It's also funding events in major cities around the world from London to Los Angeles. |
| 1:15.1 | We have a plan. We have a strategy towards changing the social scene within the kingdom to |
... |
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