Errol Spence Slams Boxing’s Sanctioning Fees – ‘What Are They Doing?’
During his second press tour with Terence Crawford at the Palladium Times Square in New York, Errol Spence Jr. expressed his opposition to the sanctioning fees imposed by boxing’s governing bodies.
Spence faces the biggest fight of his career when he takes on Crawford for the undisputed welterweight title on July 29th, 2023.
The winner will become the first undisputed champion of the four-belt era. And with so much at stake, it is understandable if both fighters were looking to get an advantage over each other.
While that was the case, with both fighters exchanging verbal shots at each other as shown through Crawford’s big fish remarks and Spence’s vow to ‘smoke’ Crawford, the ‘Truth’ was also focused on issues outside of the ring.
As the sanctioning bodies receive a percentage of a fighter’s purse during world title bouts, both Spence and Crawford will give up a portion of their earnings. Spence took the opportunity to question the reasoning behind this practice.
“We give three percent to these organisations, and we got to know where this money’s going to. “I mean, you got Canelo and [Anthony] Joshua and all these guys making 50 million dollars, and these belts getting three percent of that. Where’s it going to? How is it helping the fighters out? What are they doing with it,” Spence
This is not the first time that a boxer has spoken out against such fees. Andre Ward has also questioned the validity of sanctioning fees.
After all, it may encourage fighters to relinquish their belts or avoid title fights due to the costs attached.
And in doing so, it may play into the hands that fighters are choosing currency over legacy. But for Ward, he had a much bigger issue of understanding the role of sanctioning bodies.
@andreward asks real questions of the sanctioning bodies and the cost of belts for fighters. More here : https://t.co/aaVfJHiXXR #boxing pic.twitter.com/kHoiO9nIc9
— Kate Abdo (@kate_abdo) May 16, 2022
“I don’t like them [fees]. Maybe I’m ignorant of the finer details. But I need somebody to help me understand what the sanctioning bodies do.
“How do they justify a percentage of your gross pay? Three percent, to be exact. Plus, multiple belts don’t stay at three percent, and it goes up to three percent per belt.
“Some will say, ‘They supervise the fight. They send their officials.’ They have commissions for that…No disrespect, but we don’t need that.
“That’s going to cost me three percent. I’ve been around boxing a long time and have yet to fully understand what they do to justify it,” Ward
That was not the only incident, though. Floyd Mayweather has also been critical of boxing’s governing bodies. In 2015, he was stripped of his WBO title after refusing to pay a reported $200,000 sanctioning fee.
Floyd Mayweather with a fantastic rant overnight about the amount of belts and sanctioning fees in boxing: “WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO – y’all gotta clean this s*** up. This is bad for boxing.”
[ @ShowtimeBoxing] pic.twitter.com/MLrI2wrLPI
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) October 22, 2020
“People don’t know you have to pay, for every belt you win, there’s a sanctioning fee. If a fighter has just the regular belt, he has to pay a sanctioning fee. If a fighter is a super champion, he has to pay a sanctioning fee. This is not good for the sport of boxing,” Mayweather
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