Anthony Joshua reportedly saw a 40 per cent decrease in his sponsorship and endorsement deals during 2021 – the year in which he was first beaten by Oleksandr Usyk.
According to reports obtained by iNews, the drop is due to “third parties placing less value on the use of the fighter’s image rights”. A year prior, Joshua was still the WBA (super), IBF, and WBO world champion but relinquished those belts to Usyk at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in September 2021.
One of his many businesses, 258 Marketing, which sells sponsorship and endorsements saw a large decline in profits and turnover. In the year ending in February 2021, the company turned over £8.45million to return a profit of £6million, but in the following 12 months, 258 Marketing returned a profit of £3.9million from a turnover of £5.5million.
Elsewhere, his non-EU marketing earnings (excluding the UK) dropped from £3.58million in 2021 to £1.6million in 2022, while his EU earnings went from £1.4million to £ 1 million and his UK turnover from £3.5million to £2.9million.
Joshua is currently rebuilding his in-ring career after coming off his second consecutive defeat to Usyk in August 2022. The Watford powerhouse had been in negotiations to stage an all-British showdown against Tyson Fury on December 3 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales but talks have since officially ended.
George Warren and Eddie Hearn had been in discussions over a renewed contract for the fight after Hearn raised concerns over several undisclosed points in the original paperwork. Warren and Hearn went back and forth with marked-up versions of the official terms until Warren didn’t come back with a new deal last Thursday, prompting the Matchroom Boxing chief to declare that the fight was ‘off’.
Warren responded in kind by stating that communication had dropped due to AJ’s camps’ responses lacking ‘substance’.
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Speaking to talkSPORT, he said: “We made quite extensive requests over to their side both verbally, in emails, text messages, chasing them down to try and engage with us in a quicker fashion last week. And it fell down because quite frankly we got to a point with them where the communication coming back from them, and the substance of that communication was lacking.”
Joshua is now expected to face off against a ‘credible top 15 opponent’ on December 17 at Wembley Arena.
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