Views online aren’t counted the same as views on television, at least not in the eyes of advertisers.
An advertiser will pay a much different rate for a television show that averages more than 3 million viewers per broadcast than it will for a YouTube video or TikTok reel that garners 3 million views.
Part of the reason for that pay discrepancy is that a social media user’s commitment to that TikTok video or Instagram Reel is measured in seconds, not minutes, Paramount Ads Manager noted. But that is where sports comes into play on social media.
More than any other form of entertainment, live sports draws in audiences that are willing to watch for hours on television. Social media companies such as TikTok are beefing up their sports offerings to attract those engaged audiences.
Over the weekend, for the first time ever, TikTok was the exclusive broadcaster for Most Valuable Promotions’ boxing card. According to the BBC, 3.4 million total viewers tuned in to watch women’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano retain her titles on Friday, Aug. 21.
But traditional boxing isn’t the most engaging sport on TikTok right now. It’s bare-knuckle boxing.
TheStreet recently spoke with BKB CEO David Tetreault about how his sport garners the most engagement on TikTok by far, and how the company is using its TikTok presence to bring a new generation of fight fans into the fold.
Bare-knuckle boxing pushes to go mainstream
Bare-knuckle boxing is exactly what it sounds like. It is the sweet science of boxing, minus the gloves. Also, instead of a square ring, the bare-knuckle ring is triangular, giving fighters less room to maneuver and forcing them to engage more than they would in a traditional boxing match.
Matches can be brutal, but they tap into something primal for the audiences that love it, according to Tetreault.
“The fact that our fighters are fighting with no gloves goes to our base levels as humans. Human beings have a visceral reaction to seeing two athletes step into the ring and just let go,” he told TheStreet in a recent interview.
Tetreault comes from a boxing background. He was the chief business officer at mainstay boxing promotional company Golden Boy for years. He was later hired by Mike Vazquez, the veteran sports entrepreneur who brought NASCAR to Mexico and started BKB as a promotional company for bare-knuckle boxers.
Now he is tasked with bringing this type of boxing into the mainstream, and he is using TikTok to do it.
“TikTok is absolutely at the top of the funnel. We love our Vice (television broadcaster) relationship, but one of the issues we have is that Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha didn’t grow up with cable,” Tetreault said.
“They work everything off apps. So with Vice being an established cable channel, we miss the opportunity to reach those audiences. With TikTok being the exclusive broadcast partner for our preliminary fights, we are opening up the world for a younger audience to find BKB.”
BKB takes over TikTok
BKB recently struck a deal with TikTok to serve as the sole broadcaster of the preliminary matches on BKB’s fight cards.
While the most well-known boxers fight on the main broadcast, the up-and-comers duke it out in front of viewers exclusively on TikTok Live. The partnership has turned out to be a huge success for both parties.
During the recent BKB 57 event on July 12, for example, the company garnered 7.1 million video views and nearly 800,000 engagements during the exclusive TikTok Live broadcast.
According to TikTok’s internal numbers that BKB shared with TheStreet, BKB has the highest average watch time across its live sports portfolio.
The typical watch time for sports on TikTok Live is about 1 minute and 20 seconds. Anything over two minutes is considered very good. BKB is averaging over four minutes of watch time, and its last event, BKB 57, had an average watch time of more than 7 minutes.
While that might not sound like a lot coming from the world of television, think about the last time you watched something on social media for seven full minutes. Not even the NFL garners that type of attention on social media, according to Tetreault.
“We’re sitting at the table currently with the likes of Fox, ESPN, Red Bull, and MVP. On the three previous cards, what we’ve been able to achieve is the highest watch time of any sport in the history of live TikTok sports… and it’s because of how we collaborate with the TikTok team,” he added.
TikTok helps guide BKB to young people
When asked what the secret sauce has been for BKB on TikTok, CEO David Tetreault gave his answer immediately: TikTok gave them advice on how to attract their audience, and BKB listened.
TikTok suggested that BKB use TikTok influencer Taylor Feingold for live fight night coverage. TikTok also suggested pairing Feingold and Power Slap competitor Ellie Dempster. BKB did both.
“We took a page from how ESPN does the simulcast of Monday Night Football with the Manning brothers. We brought in Ellie Dempster and paired her with Tara Feingold,” Tetreault said. “Instead of having the traditional commentary, we allowed them to take the show and turn it into a more curated TikTok live show.”
Specifically tailoring their prelim broadcast to TikTok has helped BKB become the unlikely leader for sports on the platform.
BKB believes it can bridge the gap between traditional boxing fans who are used to watching on cable and BKB fans watching the sport on their phones. But BKB fashions itself as a “fighters first” promotional company that looks to serve not only boxers, but also the sport of boxing itself.
“Our goal is to get the whole attention of the boxing community and the mixed martial arts community. It is the sweet science. It’s beyond the idea of the brawl,” Tetreault said. “We run our company as an athlete-first driven company. Without the athletes, we don’t have a sport.”
And without the viewers, it can’t pay those athletes.
BKB is tapping into an audience that traditional boxing has been unable to crack on social media. If it can translate that influence back to broadcasting, the sky is the limit for the fledgling company and sport.
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