Boxing’s biggest star returns to the ring Saturday night when Canelo Alvarez faces off against Terence Crawford at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Crawford is moving up two weight classes to fight Alvarez for his super middleweight belt and the biggest payday of his career.
For Alvarez, it marks his latest blockbuster payout—he is guaranteed to make more than $100 million versus Crawford, Turki Alalshikh, the head of Riyadh Season and chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, said at a Thursday press conference. It will push Alvarez’s career earnings to an estimated $800 million from fight purses and endorsements over his 20-year professional career. Alvarez is a slight favorite Saturday at -175, per DraftKings.
In February, Alvarez signed a four-fight deal with Alalshikh; Reports put the package at $400 million. A longtime boxing insider told Sportico the fight contract was in the neighborhood of $325 million.
Crawford is the second fight of the contract after May’s bout against William Scull in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The fight marked Alvarez’s first outside of North America, and he won by unanimous decision.
Alvarez’s career record stands at 63-2-2, with the only losses to Floyd Mayweather in 2013 and Dmitry Bivol in 2022. Before his Saudi-fueled pay raise, Canelo’s fight paydays have typically ranged from $35 million to $45 million over the previous seven years. He took a below-market deal of $20 million in 2023 to face Britain’s John Ryder in his hometown of Guadalajara—his first bout in Mexico in 12 years in what was billed as “The Return of the King.”
“He turned down over $10 million more to fight in other countries to take this fight in Mexico,” Eddie Hearn, Matchroom Sport president and the fight’s promoter, told Sportico at the time. “Every time I went back to him with a new number, which was even more money, he said, ‘No, it has to be Guadalajara.’”
Through the end of 2024, Alvarez ranked tied for No. 27 with George Foreman among the highest-paid athletes of all time, with an inflation-adjusted $730 million ($620 million before inflation).
Saudi Arabia has leaned hard into boxing behind Alalshikh. Last year, Alalshikh brought Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury to Saudi Arabia for a pair of fights that earned each boxer well over $100 million. They ranked third (Fury, $147 million) and seventh (Usyk, $122 million) in Sportico’s 100 highest-paid athletes of 2024. Alvarez ranked No. 20 at $73 million.
In March, Alalshikh launched a boxing promotion with UFC parent TKO Group and Sela, an entertainment subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Saturday is the first fight card for Zuffa Boxing.
Alvarez is boxing’s biggest pay-per-view star, but his fight versus Crawford will eschew the PPV distribution format that can carry an $80 price tag for big bouts. Netflix is streaming the matchup globally, which should ensure a significantly larger audience. Netflix said its November fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson had 65 million concurrent streams, making it the most-streamed sporting event ever. The biggest boxing PPV of all-time was Mayweather’s 2015 fight against Manny Pacquiao, which had more than 5 million buys.
Saturday’s fight will be a box office hit, according to Dana White, who heads TKO subsidiary UFC and has a leadership role with Zuffa Boxing. White told KSNV News 3 Las Vegas that Alvarez-Crawford will have the third-largest gate in boxing history after a pair of Mayweather fights against Pacquiao ($72.2 million) and Conor McGregor ($55.4 million). Alvarez’s first fight against Gennady Golovkin is currently third at $27.1 million.
(This story has been updated in the second and third paragraphs after the press conference clarifying that Alvarez will make more than $100 million against Crawford.)
