I do get that during a normal year it would be PPV but as Samie points out above it’s more for me that you’ve got Lomachenko fighting in a massive fight on free to air plus the current situation in the world. It just doesn’t seem to be the right time for PPV events.
I agree it's not the time for PPV events but without a crowd it's the only way they can pay for it. I'd be surprised if it does more than 200,000 buys. They might also use the PPV to forecast the buy rate for Joshua-Pulev because there is no guarantee they'll be crowds again this year.
But you have the P4P #1 currently not fighting on PPV for his next fight. Which is arguably his biggest and definitely most toughest fight.
The US PPV model is different from the UK one, primarily because they pay a lot more in the States. Essentially they're paying £60-£75 and I don't know the strength of the undercard. Here are Bob Arum's comments on the subject.
https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/29654068/teofimo-lopez-jr-fight-vasiliy-lomachenko-always-personal"I think that sanity prevailed," Top Rank CEO and founder Bob Arum told ESPN. "I don't blame anybody here, if this was ordinary, normal times, the fighters would've got what they believed the fight was worth, more money.
"But again, we had to make them understand that I don't have a live gate, which was at least two, three million dollars. I couldn't do it on pay-per-view because I don't have an essential element -- the closed-circuit [showings], all the bars and places are closed. Who's going to buy it?"