Boxing promoters work at building buzz for July bout

The guys who own Reno Ring LLC find themselves in that uncomfortable position in which all promoters occasionally find themselves they know they've committed to spend a lot of money upfront and they're not entirely certain they'll get it back.

And like any good promoters, the guys who own Reno Ring LLC are hustling to sell their product, a nationally televised heavyweight championship bout in Reno on July 2.

The numbers are fairly simple, says Kent Wallace, a writer and publicist who owns the company with businessmen Jack Caramella, Frank Leonardi and Chuck Travella.

On the cost side, start with the six-figure fee paid to Duva Boxing, the legendary boxing promoter that put together the card and signed up Showtime to broadcast the title bout between Samuel Peter and Taurus Sykes.

Add in the costs of renting the Reno Events Center for the night.

Don't overlook the soft costs advertising from here to the Pacific Ocean, the limousine to take Lou Duva from the airport to a press conference last week, the cost of hiring beautiful women Penthouse cover girls and the like to serve as ring girls between rounds.

"The costs just keep adding up,"Wallace says.

On the other side of the ledger, calculate ticket sales.

The events center can seat about 7,000 for boxing.A few rows at ringside are priced at $200, but the majority of the seats for the July 2 fight range from $30 to $100.

And if the figures are simple, the promoters' math is even simpler: Sell enough tickets to turn a profit, and they've taken a giant step toward re-establishing Reno as a boxing town.

Fail to sell enough tickets? Don't think about it.

Wallace, who learned the publicity business promoting the rap star now known as P.

Diddy, is working the phones hard.

"I'm a guerrilla marketing fool," he laughs, telling how he'll rely on media friends in the Bay Area to begin building a buzz about the event.

At least initially, here's one of the story lines Wallace is pitching: "Fists and Fireworks," the July event, comes 95 years after the history-making bout between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries drew more than 30,000 fight fans to the area.

"We will get so much free publicity simply by creating stories around the event," he says.

"People have to feel that they are part of something important.

There has to be sizzle."

It's critically important,Wallace says, that locals feel the sizzle just as much as visitors to Reno during the holiday weekend.

The region's major casinos will devote part of their advertising budget to selling "Fists and Fireworks" in northern California, a contribution that makes the event pencil out.

The Reno Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority, which owns the events center, gave the promoters a break on rent to help rebuild boxing as part of the region's tourism draw.

But,Wallace says,"We cannot sell enough tickets to visitors alone.

We have to have a locals market as well." Reno Ring LLC essentially broke even with its first boxing promotion last July at Caesar's Tahoe.

This time around, the financial stakes are bigger, and the company has its future on the line.

"This is hopefully a template for future fights,"Wallace says.

It's a template that Reno Ring doesn't have much time to create.While it

had been working with Duva Boxing for months to find a fight card that made sense for Reno, the package including the heavweight title bout came together only a month ago.

That's not a lot of time,Wallace acknowledged, to line up partners, generate some buzz in the media and feel comfortable that ticket sales will cover the costs.

"It is," he says,"nerve-wracking."