• Carl Froch v George Groves II

Froch-Groves II was richest ever British bout

Carl Froch knocked out George Groves in front of 77,000 fans at Wembley Stadium © Getty Images

Enlarge

Carl Froch's epic Wembley world title rematch against George Groves was Britain's highest-grossing fight ever, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

An attendance of 77,000 packed the national stadium to watch Froch knock Groves out for a second time and defend his WBA and IBF super-middleweight titles.

The report claims the fight grossed over £22 million, the highest ever total for a fight on British soil, and offered a purse of £10m. Champion Froch earned £8m while challenger Groves was paid £2m.

Froch enjoyed a controversial knockout victory in his first bout with Groves last November and the circumstances surrounding the Cobra's win fuelled interest for a rematch.

After the second fight was confirmed by promoter Eddie Hearn, 60,000 tickets for the Wembley bout sold out within an hour before an extra 20,000 were made available to satisfy demand. Those also sold rapidly to generate around £6m in total ticket sales.

However, the bulk of the income came through pay-per-view sales as millions tuned in to see the outcome. The fight was made available for £16.95 in the UK and 900,000 sales provided around £15m of income.

The fight was also offered on international pay-per-view but made significantly less in this market, around £580,000 coming from overseas. Combined with another £250,000 of merchandise sales and £250,000 of sponsorship, the fight made a total of around £22.3m.

The main outgoings were the purse for the fight and fees for Sky, with the report claiming the broadcaster received around 50% of pay-per-view sales - around £7.5m - to settle costs for production and promotion.

The undercard, which featured both James DeGale and Anthony Joshua, paid a cumulative purse of around £500,000 while the FA also benefited by renting out Wembley Stadium. The governing body received approximately £500,000 for venue hire.

The rest of the money - just over £3m - was spent on other costs such as additional security, VAT and further overheads.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd