Comments Thread For: What HBO Should Do Now – Part Two

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Thomas Hauser - 2011 began poorly for HBO. On January 29th, the network televised Timothy Bradley vs. Devon Alexander.

The bout was billed as “The Super Fight.” At the December 8, 2010, kick-off press conference in New York, co-promoter Gary Shaw told the media, “Other than Pacquiao-Mayweather, there’s no bigger event in boxing than Bradley-Alexander.” Ross Greenburg declared, “This is a star power fight.”

Greenburg also championed the fight internally. At one of his weekly HBO Sports staff meetings, he expressed the view that Bradley-Alexander would be “one of the best HBO fights in years.”

HBO did its best to prop up the promotion with an expensive marketing campaign. Then reality intervened.

Greenburg had agreed to pay a $2,750,000 license fee for Bradley-Alexander. As part of the deal, win or lose, each fighter was guaranteed a seven-figure payday for his next bout. As I wrote on January 23rd, “In a vacuum, it’s an intriguing fight. Bradley and Alexander are good young fighters. But HBO is spending close to $4,000,000 on the license fee, marketing, and production costs for a fight that most likely will draw a poor rating because only hard-core boxing fans are interested in it. Also, styles make fights and this could turn out to be a boring styles match-up. Worse, HBO has mortgaged its future to make Bradley-Alexander. HBO hopes that its 140-pound festival will evoke memories of the glory years when Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler fought each other. Unfortunately, Bradley, Alexander, [Amir] Khan, and [Victor] Ortiz aren’t Leonard, Hearns, Duran, and Hagler.” [Click Here To Read More]

[mushahadeen]

There's only one man that can save HBO.

[jjbj2]

I'm still pissed that HBO didn't promote Donaire vs Montiel fight. No commercials, no promotions, and nothing. Everyone in HBO was quiet and look at it another great performance. It is the same treatment they did to Martinez vs Williams fight not a lot of hype coming from HBO just the websites and forums continuously reminding people of the fight.

While back in November they didn't stop promoting the Bradley vs Alexander fight and what happened? No one watched it and it was a boring fight. Berto will never be a fan favorite he clinch too much. Boxing is not wrestling. He isn't like Hatton. At least, Hatton eats and throws as many punches before he clinches. While Berto's plan is so predictable hit the guy 3 times then clinch. I mean 3 freaking times at least Hatton goes for 10 shots before clinching. And most of the time Hatton also goes toe-to-toe. The only reason why May Weather became famous is because of Oscar de la Hoya before that who was he. Point closed May Weather was never an exciting fighter but because of Oscar he became famous.:gay:

[Carlos Alberto]

Great article.

[tripods68]

Great Article

thank you Mr. Hauser for exposing the FRAUD at HBO ROSS GREENBURG pellet. I hope they fired his A@@@. This is exactly HOW i feel. They cherry pick a fight that NO FANS wants to watch. By went big on Bradley/Alexander got big F minus. No commercial on Montial vs Donaire but HUGE UPSIDE on viewership. Go figure!


You sir keeps Boxing real. Thank you.

[JoeDaWg]

Damn I feel like I just read a book....but it was well worth it.

[SCEN3RY]

By Thomas Hauser - 2011 began poorly for HBO. On January 29th, the network televised Timothy Bradley vs. Devon Alexander.

The bout was billed as “The Super Fight.” At the December 8, 2010, kick-off press conference in New York, co-promoter Gary Shaw told the media, “Other than Pacquiao-Mayweather, there’s no bigger event in boxing than Bradley-Alexander.” Ross Greenburg declared, “This is a star power fight.”

Greenburg also championed the fight internally. At one of his weekly HBO Sports staff meetings, he expressed the view that Bradley-Alexander would be “one of the best HBO fights in years.”

HBO did its best to prop up the promotion with an expensive marketing campaign. Then reality intervened.

Greenburg had agreed to pay a $2,750,000 license fee for Bradley-Alexander. As part of the deal, win or lose, each fighter was guaranteed a seven-figure payday for his next bout. As I wrote on January 23rd, “In a vacuum, it’s an intriguing fight. Bradley and Alexander are good young fighters. But HBO is spending close to $4,000,000 on the license fee, marketing, and production costs for a fight that most likely will draw a poor rating because only hard-core boxing fans are interested in it. Also, styles make fights and this could turn out to be a boring styles match-up. Worse, HBO has mortgaged its future to make Bradley-Alexander. HBO hopes that its 140-pound festival will evoke memories of the glory years when Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler fought each other. Unfortunately, Bradley, Alexander, [Amir] Khan, and [Victor] Ortiz aren’t Leonard, Hearns, Duran, and Hagler.” [Click Here To Read More]

Good read, you're really giving me a reading workout today. You made some excellent points though, perhaps someone should present this (as if 'they' don't go on BScene to check with the fans) to the guys at HBO. I'm personally glad you discussed the whole thing about planning these shows on the same date with Showtime fights, that **** just confuses me.

[Stl_Buay]

Juan Urango threw a wild hook and put his chin in the air and got caught by Alexander and Bradley got off the canvas twice to beat Holt and that is what the fight was based on. Superstars are not made, they are a product of hardwork. Pacquiao gave several great performaces from 2001 to 2006 when he became a star. But why only blame HBO, all the so called experts said this was a must see over looking that Bradley has a less than 45% KO rate against average competition and Alexander landed a good shot against a guy that left himself wide open. Let them clean out their divisions first and then sell them as stars but don't sell them as stars based on one or two fights.

[goblin213]

What HBO should do now is adapt a bunch of babies and raise them in a boxing gym. Then they'll have more future superstars.

[Dave Rado]

Maybe I'm missing something, but these quotes in Hauser's article seem to me to contradict each other, whereas he quotes them side by side as if they reinforced each other:

Lou DiBella is in accord, saying, "If you're boring and you fight going backwards, I don't care what your pound-for-pound ranking is; you shouldn't be on HBO. It's not about appealing to 250,000 hardcore boxing fans. You have to appeal to a wider audience."

Gary Shaw states, "Fans don't want to see easy fights. That's not what it's about. It's about the best fighting the best."

The best fighting the best is what hardcore fans want, and what Gary Shaw wants, but will often result in fights that aren't very entertaining. Whereas Lou DiBella wants HBO to only show entertaining fights, which would frequently mean freezing out match-ups between the best fighters, and would also mean completely freezing out some of the best fighters from the network (any fighters who go backwards, according to DiBella, should be completely frozen out - although I wonder if he really thinks Mayweather should be frozen out).


Hauser also writes further on:

"When feasible, [HBO] should match the #1 fighter in a given weight class against the top-ranked available challenger."

Well that's exactly what HBO did with Bradley-Alexander, and with the Pascal-Hopkins-Dawson rematches, and to an extent, with the Martinez-Dzinziruk fight - and yet Hauser appears to disapprove of those decisions.

So I'm confused.