Business | Missed punches

YouTube is fighting for a slice of the premium-video market

But first, it needs a game plan

Aug 30th 2018

SOME 20,000 spectators paid an average of £135 ($175) to see the bout live at the Manchester Arena in Britain. Another 800,000 or so spent £7.50 to follow it on YouTube. An estimated 1m more were glued to pirated streams. The fighters in the ring had no boxing experience. But they have plenty of YouTube fans. KSI, a British internet personality (whose real name is Olajide Olatunji), has more than 19m followers. His challenger, an American vlogger named Logan Paul, has 18m. In the fight for eyeballs, Messrs Olatunji and Paul knocked out David Haye and Tony Bellew, two British professional fighters whose heavyweight clash in May attracted 775,000 paying viewers.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Missed punches”