BOXING
They rolled the dice and lost, with Sydney-based boxing promoters Next Generation Events taking a financial hit in the vicinity of $40,000 following Saturday's woefully-supported 'big time' professional event in Tauranga.
Dubbed "Big Time Boxing hits the Bay," Next Generation management hired Tauranga's QEII Youth Centre for the 11-fight card, which was highlighted by the WBO Asia-Pacific heavyweight title bout between American Indian Chauncy Welliver and Auckland-based former kickboxing champion Daniel Tai.
Needing 1000 punters to fork out between $35 to $200 each to cover their $70,000 outlay, Next Generation's George Christodolou and business partner Calum Morrison are today counting the cost of the failed venture, with half that number - not all paying - attending the hyped fight night, leaving the substantial five-figure financial headache.
"She's been a real tough week, mate - it's a tough town and a tough crowd," a shellshocked Christodolou said at 1am on Sunday morning as he totted up the damage.
"It's been a learning curve, and a pretty steep one for us. We took a massive gamble and in this game you win some and you lose some. For us tonight unfortunately it's a big loss.
"Everyone's had an unbelievable time, and I think we've put on an entertaining night, but it's a big financial blow."
The night didn't get off to a great start when spectators who had turned up at 5.30pm were locked out of the QEII for 45 minutes while tickets were tracked down, with complaints also about the quality of the food and lack of service on offer at the sparsely-populated corporate tables.
Christodolou, who singled out Tauranga after noticing a dearth of top-level sport in New Zealand's fifth-largest city, conceded on Saturday it was probably a mistake to target such a boxing backwater.
"The city was completely foreign to us and that was probably our biggest mistake. We arrived with no real local contacts, a lack of local knowledge and everything was probably a little rushed.
"Hamilton (on the back of last October's David Tua/Shane Cameron fight) might have been the better option for attracting a bigger boxing crowd."
Tauranga-born Australian Idol winner Stan Walker was contracted by Next Generation to provide fight-night entertainment. Walker's fee for what amounted to just five songs accompanied by CD back-up music was believed to be $15,000-$20,000.
"That was a vital mistake, too. We overestimated the pulling power of Stan and mish-mashing an entertainment show and a boxing event like we did.
"Stan wasn't cheap and it's obvious the boxing market didn't quite like Stan and Stan's crowd, or the the kind who'd pay to come and see him sing, didn't necessarily like boxing, or didn't have the money to come to our show."
Oropi's Peter Fluerty, who has successfully staged professional fights in Tauranga in the past and refereed several of Saturday's fights, said Next Generation fell down in several key areas.
"It's a tough sell for sure but this event was probably a month too early. I've done promotions in this town and it takes two or three months to get people on board.
"These guys came in at such short notice, with their total promotion done in four weeks. Tauranga's not the sort of city where you can do that and get away with it."
Fluerty said Christodolou and Morrison also didn't give themselves sufficient time to tap into the corporate market or source sponsors for individual fights, vital areas that could have alleviated their extensive overheads.
"It was a good night in patches - that Aussie girl (super featherweight Erin McGowan) was world class - but these guys took a huge risk that failed to pay off.
"I'm still questioning what possessed them to come to Tauranga in the first place. I know behind the scenes they were advised by several people it was the place to come . . . clearly it was the wrong advice."
Christodolou said they would be re-thinking their entire New Zealand strategy, despite past success in Auckland.
"If we came back we'd know a lot better, but we had a crack and small consolation is that people enjoyed the night. Every promoter has their losses, that's the nature of the beast.
"We've planned to take boxing right around the country, with Tauranga our first port of call. After tonight it's probably also our last port of call.''
Promoters floored after fight-night failure
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