Are you wondering what the best/top boxing promotions are?
In this article, we’ll look at the 5 best boxing promotions and examine what makes them the best in the business.
Contents
Best Boxing Promotions
Ranked starting with the best, here are the 5 best boxing promotions in boxing history.
1. Top Rank Boxing
>Founded: 1973 in Las Vegas, Nevada, by Jabir Herbert Muhammad and Bob Arum
>Headquarters: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
>Website: www.toprank.com
>Youtube: www.youtube.com/@toprank (2.3M subscribers)
The longest-serving boxing promotion on the list, Top Rank has had 50 years of experience in the industry and is still going strong in 2023.
Top Rank has promoted some of the most known boxers in the world, such as Manny Pacquiao, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammed Ali, Terence Crawford, and Roberto Duran, to name a few.
Top Rank’s current champions as of July 2023 include Tyson Fury, Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, Seniesa Estrada, Artur Beterbiev, and Jason Maloney – and they also recently acquired Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Top Rank’s long-standing partnership with ESPN, which began in the early 1980s and extends through 2025, has allowed it to feature top boxers and announcers on a weekly boxing series, the longest-running in history.
Top Rank is the most active boxing promotion, and its current deal with ESPN sees the promotion of 54 live boxing events annually.
Their activity and large diverse roster make Top Rank a great destination for young, hungry, and growing boxers.
Top Rank is also known for building prospects from the ground up and having great matchmaking.
Top Rank has previously had broadcast deals with HBO, Showtime, and ABC, so they’re very active in terms of networking and expansion.
Top Rank Boxing’s biggest fights have been:
- Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard – 3.15 million PPV buys
- Pacquaio vs De La Hoya – Collaborated with Golden Boy – 1.25 million PPV buys
- Julio César Chávez vs. Oscar De La Hoya II – 525,000 PPV buys
- Evander Holyfield vs. George Foreman – 1.4 million PPV buys
- Muhammed Ali vs. Joe Frazier II
As of July 2023, Top Rank Boxing has promoted over 9,000 fights and 1,500 cards in 22 countries.
2. Matchroom Boxing
>Founded: 1982 in Essex, England, by Barry Hearn
>Headquarters: Brentwood, Essex, England, and New York, USA
>Website: matchroomboxing.com
>Youtube: youtube.com/@MatchroomBoxing (410k subscribers)
Matchroom Boxing has over three decades of experience in the field, which has allowed them to build a strong reputation and network within the boxing community.
The biggest fighters currently under contract with Match Room Boxing are Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte, Katie Taylor, Dmitry Bivol, Sunny Edwards, Gennadiy Golovkin, Conor Benn, and Julio Cesar Martinez, just to name a few.
The promotion also has Matchroom Fight Pass, which costs £29.95 per year and offers fans:
- Priority ticket window
- New weekly newsletter
- Exclusive news and content
- Digital event programmes
- Invitation to upcoming fan events
In 2021, Matchroom continued its expansion by sealing a $100m five-year deal with DAZN, replacing its previous deal with Sky Sports.
The deal extended Matchroom’s boxing rights in USA and Mexico with Matchroom US opening in NYC in 2018, and it remains the best boxing promotion in the UK with around 70% of its roster being UK fighters.
The Matchroom-DAZN deal was also a big win for boxing fans, as the biggest events became affordable and accessible in over 200 countries.
The company produces 20 live fight nights annually and has hosted events in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia.
Some of Matchroom Boxing’s biggest fights have been:
- Carl Froch vs. George Groves (II) – 900,000 PPV buys
- Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr (II) – 1.8 million PPV buys
- Anthony Joshua vs. Vladimir Klitschko – 1.5 million PPV buys
- David Haye vs Tony Bellew – 1.6 million PPV buys
Eddie Hearn is considered the best boxing promoter today as he’s progressive, active with the media, and willing to make fights and deals happen.
Overall, Matchroom Boxing is continually expanding and offering great fight cards with DAZN, so it must be considered one of the best boxing promotions in 2023.
3. Golden Boy Promotions
>Founded: 2002 in California, USA, by Oscar De la Hoya
>Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
>Website: goldenboypromotions.com
>Youtube: GoldenBoyBoxing (400k subscribers)
Boxing royalty and ten world-title-winning Oscar De la Hoya founded Golden Boy Promotions in 2002 and has turned it into one of the best boxing promotions in the world.
Golden Boy has had some of the best fighters on its roster, such as Adrien Broner, Amir Khan, Canelo Alvarez, Deontay Wilder, Manny Pacquaio, Marcos Maidana, Ricky Hatton, Ryan Garcia, and more.
Its current champions include Shane Mosley Jr, Oscar Collazo, Marlen Esparza, and Arely Mucino, and its former champions include Joseph Diaz and Patrick Teixeira.
Golden Boy is known for often having the strongest female roster and fighters, as well as having a huge roster of many of the best Latino boxers.
Some of the biggest fights Golden Boy has promoted are:
- De La Hoya’s vs Floyd Mayweather – 2.4 million PPV buys
- Pacquaio vs De La Hoya – Collaborated with Top Rank – 1.25 million PPV buys
- Ryan Garcia vs Tank Davis – 1.2 million PPV buys and a $22 million gate
- Canelo Álvarez vs. Julio César Chávez Jr – 1.2 million PPV buys
- Canelo Álvarez vs. Amir Khan – 600,000 PPV buys
4. Premier Boxing Champions
>Founded: 2015 by Al Haymon
>Headquarters: Las Vegas, Nevada
>Website: www.premierboxingchampions.com
>Youtube: www.youtube.com/@PremierBoxingChampions (1.71M Subscribers)
Premier Boxing Champions is very active on its social channels, especially Youtube where it’s one of the fastest-growing boxing promotions because of the great speed and quality of uploads.
It has fight highlights, full fights, interviews, podcasts, All Access episodes, and many other video formats for boxing fans around the world.
PBC also has a huge roster of around 150 fighters, and the best to have been there are Dominic Breazeale, Joe Joyce, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao, Andy Ruiz, Jr, Errol Spence Jr, Deontay Wilder, Carl Frampton, Danny García, Amir Khan, David Benavidez, and Julio César Chávez Jr.
A huge part of Premier Boxing Champions’ success is the broadcast deals it secured with Fox, FS1, and SHOWTIME – all premier boxing broadcasters.
PBC pays great fighter contracts and Haymon is known to stand by and support his boxers. PBC is also one of the best boxing promotions in terms of exposure and fights in the welterweight division (147 lbs).
Some of Premier Boxing Champion’s biggest fights have been:
- Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury (II) – 1.2 million PPV buys
- Canelo Álvarez vs. Caleb Plant – 800,000 PPV buys
- Terence Crawford vs. Errol Spence Jr. – 700,000 PPV buys
5. Queensberry Promotions
>Founded: 2010 by Frank Warren
>Headquarters: Hertfordshire, England
>Website: queensberry.co.uk
>Youtube: www.youtube.com/@QueensberryPromotions
UK-based boxing promotion, Queensberry Promotions, is led by Frank Warren, a Hall of Fame boxing promoter who’s been in the business for 40-plus years.
Queensberry Promotions has become known for nurturing young UK talents in boxing and has around 70 boxers on its roster in 2023.
They have prospects aiming for titles, and fighters like Dennis McCann, Hamzah Sheeraz, Caoimhin Agyarko, and Denzel Bentley have been praised for their skills and potential.
Queensberry’s current best fighters are Tyson Fury (co-promoted), Zhilei Zhang, Daniel Dubois, Moses Itauma, Joe Joyce, David Adeleye, Anthony Yarde, and Ellis Zorro.
In the past, Frank Warren has promoted huge UK stars such as Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Nigel Benn, Steve Collins, Chris Eubank, and Amir Khan.
One of the best things about Queensberry Promotions is its willingness to co-promote with the other top boxing promotions on this list, especially with Top Rank. This is something other promotions are unwilling to do.
In terms of broadcasting, Queensberry has a TV deal with BT Sport which was further extended in 2022.
Also in 2022, Queensberry continued its video archive partnership with IMG Replay, which has over 450 classic Queensberry boxing fights dating back to 1993 – representing one of the deepest boxing archives in the world.
Some of the biggest fights Queensberry has promoted are:
- Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder (II) – 850,000 PPV buys
- Tyson Fury vs. Dillian Whyte – 800,000 PPV buys
- Billy Joe Saunders vs. Canelo Alvarez – 400,000 PPV buys
- Joe Joyce vs. Zhilei Zhang – PPV buys unknown
The Bottom Line
Ranked in order, the best boxing promotions in 2023 are Top Rank Boxing, Matchroom Boxing, Golden Boy Promotions, Premier Boxing Champions, and Queensberry Promotions.
These are the 5 top boxing promotions because they have a history of putting on the biggest boxing fights, they have great broadcast deals making their events accessible, the head promoters have decades of experience, and they’ve had the best boxers in history under contract.
