Comments Thread For: Boxing Comes Back To Prime Time

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Cliff Rold - Before 2015 is over, boxing will have been seen on US network television in prime time five times on NBC.

Let that roll around in the ol’ noggin for a minute.

While it’s rolling, consider this: last year, HBO televised the fight with the single largest amount of live households viewing of any network. The rematch between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Brian Vera pulled somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.4 million.

That was the best number for boxing in the US in 2015.

That is not a good number. As boxing’s best, it was horrific. The last time a live premium card topped two millions viewers was the 2009 Heavyweight battle between Vitali Klitschko and Chris Arreola. The 2013 pay-per view battle between Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez did more than two million buys.

Plenty of money.

Not enough eyes.

Boxing is doing well globally. The myth that it’s dying is absurd. That the audience in the US is dying is not a myth. We’ve seen a steady erosion of audience in the last thirty years. Every once in awhile there will be a spike, or a leveling off, but the overall trend has been gradual decline. [Click Here To Read More]

[Cracaphat]

Gonna withhold singing Haymon's praises until we see what happens moving forward beyond the teasers we were given.Though it's clear a lot of the support is based on racial grounds.I remember the last time people did that and look how that turned out.Talking 'bout the POTUS.

[MDPopescu]

... Online feed is taking over... There's no rocket science in this.

[Kingraleck]

It appears to me that the only loser to this particular deal is Showtime. Espinoza got hosed by Haymon in 2014. Haymon is now making big fights with his own league. We the fans are the winners now. Stevenson and Quillin will both be in big fights now. I question about the opponents, but 2014 for them was all about getting to NBC. From what I've read, a lot of these fighters are making over 7 figures for these first two events.

For as much as Haymon made it hell for fans and Showtime in 2014, this development is a much needed shot in the arm for the sport. My only concern is whether this develops into a league and other matches don't get made from rival promoters (GB, Top Rank, etc.). At this juncture, due to the deal Haymon has set up, he has tremendous leverage to showcase fighters on a far more reaching and prevalent platform, network tv. I'm sure he'll either require a payment from the promoter to get on the network, futures for the winner if not promoted by him, or require the promoter to promise the entirety of the purse for both fighters.

In any event, I'm excited to see these first two shows. Big ups.

[Real Talk85]

It appears to me that the only loser to this particular deal is Showtime. Espinoza got hosed by Haymon in 2014. Haymon is now making big fights with his own league. We the fans are the winners now. Stevenson and Quillin will both be in big fights now. I question about the opponents, but 2014 for them was all about getting to NBC. From what I've read, a lot of these fighters are making over 7 figures for these first two events.

For as much as Haymon made it hell for fans and Showtime in 2014, this development is a much needed shot in the arm for the sport. My only concern is whether this develops into a league and other matches don't get made from rival promoters (GB, Top Rank, etc.). At this juncture, due to the deal Haymon has set up, he has tremendous leverage to showcase fighters on a far more reaching and prevalent platform, network tv. I'm sure he'll either require a payment from the promoter to get on the network, futures for the winner if not promoted by him, or require the promoter to promise the entirety of the purse for both fighters.

In any event, I'm excited to see these first two shows. Big ups.

I myself can't really figure out how Showtime plays into this but they did say they will run the ppv events for the fighters so he is still working with them in some capacity.

As for this developing into an exclusive league and preventing other fights we wont have to worry. Because if it did develop into a league it would have to be incredibly successful. At that point, it pretty much forces other promoters to a.) work with Haymon and whatever he demands or b.) lose their fighters to him. Really there would be no way to compete because of the exposure and solid garaunteed pay, who would want to fight for anyone else?

[big_james10]

It appears to me that the only loser to this particular deal is Showtime. Espinoza got hosed by Haymon in 2014. Haymon is now making big fights with his own league. We the fans are the winners now. Stevenson and Quillin will both be in big fights now. I question about the opponents, but 2014 for them was all about getting to NBC. From what I've read, a lot of these fighters are making over 7 figures for these first two events.

For as much as Haymon made it hell for fans and Showtime in 2014, this development is a much needed shot in the arm for the sport. My only concern is whether this develops into a league and other matches don't get made from rival promoters (GB, Top Rank, etc.). At this juncture, due to the deal Haymon has set up, he has tremendous leverage to showcase fighters on a far more reaching and prevalent platform, network tv. I'm sure he'll either require a payment from the promoter to get on the network, futures for the winner if not promoted by him, or require the promoter to promise the entirety of the purse for both fighters.



In any event, I'm excited to see these first two shows. Big ups.

I disagree that Showtime will be the only loser. I think HBO as well as GBP and Top Rank will also end up being losers. If Haymon follows up these first two shows of quality fights (Guerrero/Thurman and Garcia/Peterson) with more fights of this quality, HBO, Showtime and the promoters will have no choice but to make equally quality fights to keep fans attention.

If Haymon continues with shows like these first two, we will not be seeing "GGG vs the journeyman of the month" on HBO because the ratings will be terrible. HBO will be forced to spend money on something like a GGG/Ward or Ward/Kovalev fight just to keep fans interest. We will also not be seeing Pacquaio vs. Vargas on PPV for $70 or Canelo Alvarez vs Joshua Clottey on PPV because no one would waste money on these crappy shows when we can watch quality fights for free.

Bob Arum, in particular, will not be able feed fans crap like Pacquaio vs. Algieri and make millions of dollars off of it. He also won't be able to feature his top fighters in fights against no hopers. He will be forced to make fights such as Bradley/Provodnikov II and Terrance Crawford vs Mikey Garcia to keep fans interest.

There will be several losers but the fans will be the winners and that is all that matters.