Today I listened to an interesting podcast by AER entitled “Is Breakin Lucrative?”  I was excited to see this topic come up because I have been speaking about this for the past 5 years and it was instrumental for me developing “The Plan”, which is to teach Bboy crews how to create a “Breakin Battle Business” and create a self sustaining industry.

Listening to the podcast early in the morning while in bed next to my sleeping wife and 1 yr old daughter, I had to refrain myself from yelling at the pre-recorded podcast. While the host didn’t say anything wrong, and each of the guests had legitimate opinions and questions expressed, I was hoping that someone would speak out and say “YES BREAKIN IS LUCRATIVE!” while also explaining why and how.

Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone who could go further into this lucrative industry perspective so this blog will be my attempt to shed light on the lucrativeness of Breakin from the perspective from an international Bboy who was behind the scenes, organizing one of the biggest global tournaments through the R16 World Championships, and witnessing millions of dollars moving in and out through the Breakin industry.

Defining Lucrative

Firstly, let’s define the word lucrative. The online dictionary definition of lucrative is “producing a great deal of profit”. While the amount in which constitutes a “great deal of profit” is subjective, with a notion of the majority of Bboys being broke, let’s set a low standard of a million dollars.

Secondly, I need to clarify that I have yet to see an individual participant of the Bboy culture earn a million (off Breakin), but technically, an organization or company can earn a million dollars in profit and it doesn’t have to be in one shot. It can be over a period of time, such as athletes signing million dollar contracts for a 3-5 year contract.  A million dollars over 5 years is technically only 200 thousand a year, and those type of contracts may also include housing and other amenities worked into that budget. So one shouldn’t let the phrase “signing a million dollar deal” impress them too much.

With that said, let me break down a few semi-hypothetical scenarios.

Let’s say there was large scale annual Breakin tournament that at the world finals on their best year sold 15,000 tickets for a median price of $50. On top of that, they sell out their merch, 1000 pieces of event shirts, hats, jackets at an average price of $20. They don’t need to pay for their contestant’s flight or travel tickets because they have 30+ qualifiers from all around the world who pays $1000 for licensing. Plus title sponsors who pays a total of $25,000 for gold and silver packages.

To do a rough calculation:

• 15000 tickets x $50 = $750,000
• 1000 merchandise sold x $20 = $20,000
• 30 qualifiers x $1000 = $30,000
• Sponsors =$25,000

Final revenue: $825,000

Now as I said earlier, that wouldn’t go to one person, but rather to the company. And of course, there are a lot of company and event expenses. Especially if you have 7 staff, each making 40k a year ($280,000). And of course, there are accommodations for all the guests, Hiring judges, DJ’s, emcee’, videographers, production costs, venue costs and prize money, when combined can be very costly. However smart businessmen will know how to lower or cut those costs in order to save on budget. Also, all the above revenue doesn’t include government funding and support which is a whole different ballpark.

Government Funded Breakin Events

Government funding is very strict on how the money is used and who is earning a profit. So many times a non-profit agency is formed in order to utilize the government funding to pay for the costs of events. For example, the government funding for R16 averaged about 1 million dollars per year throughout the 10 years of R16. The budget came from Korea’s Ministry of Culture Sport and Tourism (MCST), and went to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) who then hired the Bboy agency (Cartel Creative) to organize R16 World Championships. The way that usually works is that the agency gets to retain a percentage of the budget. In the case of R16, my former company retained 20% of the million-dollar budget ($200,000) on top of all the other revenue streams as painted in the first example.

Not all Government Funded events work like that. Let me give another semi-hypothetical scenario.

Let’s say there is Breakin Festival held in a city that funds around $220,000. The government may also have access to government owned venues and can give away free permits to use government properties. The rest of the budget would be used for accommodations, flights, sound systems, judges, prize money, etc. All that money would have to be spent, except for the normal agency fee of usually 20% ($22,000). But if they had 2000 participants who pay $65 for all access tickets ($130,000), as well as 30 vendors pay $500 ($15,000), and 20+ qualifiers who pay $1000 license fees ($20,000), plus 500 pieces event merchandise sold out at an average price of $20 ($10,000), and a small title sponsor who pays $10,000 cash, let’s do a rough calculation:

• 20% Agency fee = $22,000
• 2000 tickets x $65 = $130,000
• 30 vendors x $500 = $15,000
• 20 Qualifiers x $1000 = $20,000
• 500 merchandise x $20 = $10,000
• 1 Title Sponsor = $10,000

Final revenue: $207,000

With that said, after living in Korea and seeing and learning for myself how large scale events actually work, I realized that there IS money in Breakin… just not for the Bboys and Bgirls. Plus, only the good organizers have the potential to earn (or lose) real money. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with making big money from organizing events, because the promoters assume all the financial risk. But as long as you have a big event that can sell out 1500 to 2000 tickets, and have government support, you can earn enough money to do an annual event as a full-time job!

learning for myself how large scale events actually work, I realized that there IS money in Breakin… just not for the Bboys and Bgirls.

For example, there are countless big events in France that are marketed for their local city’s general population. The average International Breakin event supported by the government sells about 1500 to 2000 tickets, each ticket averaging about 20 euros each, earning about 35,000 to 40,000 euros on Ticket sales alone. That with the other event revenue streams is enough for a single event promoter to organize their annual event full time. Of course, majority of Bboys are more community organizers rather than event promoters and usually lose money on events. However, good event promoters can read the numbers and turn a profit.

The Problem with the current infrastructure

This is the reason why I created “The Plan” and the Breakin Battle Business, because I realized that if all one needs is to sell tickets to their local general audience and get government support, then technically, a crew can run their own local city event that is geared towards the general audience and in a way that can gain local government support. But the problem is that most crew annual events (anniversaries) are competition tournaments which the celebrating crew couldn’t and shouldn’t enter. As a matter of fact, the tournament (bracket style elimination) is a system that in some ways, exploits the participants.

Tournament Bracket styles are only used for “amateur”sports, while professional sports focuses on the BEST OF THE BEST, and pays them to perform and represent a specific city, country or brand.  Can one imagine if the NBA or NFL, abandoned it’s city franchise and play off format for one off tournament structure events like in Breakin? Focusing on the best of the best talent while building their local city following and selling millions of tickets while having the backing of the city government is the reason why professional sports can afford to pay their athlete’s millions of dollars.

the tournament (bracket style elimination) is a system that in some ways, exploits the participants.

So with that said, for every athlete or artist that gets paid a million, there is a company that has earned double, triple or 10x more in order to pay the artist a million. We as a culture need to start marketing our local hometown heroes to their cities and build them a huge local fan base, rather than marketing annual events and dangling cash prizes like carrots to see which hungry Bboys will take the bait.

How Breakin Can Move Forward

For our culture to reach its full potential, we need to grow past the “one off” annual event structure where only a select few good promoters can earn a decent living.  If everyone of these good promoters, focused their attention on creating an official city team and set up huge rival city showdowns against other cities, not only could it earn as much revenue as an annual event, but like sports, can be organized more frequently, bringing in an even greater profit AND, paying the Bboys and Bgirls what they truly deserve… and for Battling!

I have already proven this business model in the small city of Chiayi where the Dream Runnerz has not only their own official Bboy clubhouse, but also the support of their local city government and has earned well from their rival city showdowns. For example, their battle last year against the New York City Hitsquad was supported by the government. There were 3500 tickets sold at an average price of $20usd, and nearly 1000 pieces of Dream Runnerz merchandise sold.  Feel free to do the math.

This is the Breakin Battle Business that is my lifes dream to teach to the true Bboy crews out there. It’s something that I wish I had known before, so that my crew Supernaturalz could have kept going strong.

With Breakin going to the 2024 Paris Olympics, there will be more government support opportunities, investors and interest in Breakin, but without a solid business infrastructure and model, the only ones who will be making real money are the promoters.

Once again, the value of Breakin is greatly undervalued. Breakin has millions and millions of views. This is the reason why Redbull is willing to spend 1.5 million euro for the BC One World Finals! Millions and millions of views = millions of advertising revenue worth.

So, the answer is yes, Breakin is lucrative! But just not for the Bboys… yet!

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