is PBC fails; Showtime grows

[Dr Rumack]

What happened to all the 'bringing boxing back to free tv' and 'growing the boxing fanbase' talk?

Is all of that done already?

[The Big Dunn]

SHowtime just signed Joshua and PBC has almost a dozen shows on TV this quarter. How is this bad for the sport?

Why are posters on NSB not watching or DVRing the PBC cards since we all claim to like boxing so much?

[Eff Pandas]

What happened to all the 'bringing boxing back to free tv' and 'growing the boxing fanbase' talk?

Is all of that done already?

I know your one of the more intelligent reasonable guys on this forum who happens to be asking this question in comical kinda way maybe, but the answer is no its obviously not done.

It took years & years for boxing to become a sport largely supported by premium cable networks (HBO goes back to the early 70's, yet HBO didn't really hit their prime & peak of their power til the mid to late 90's 20 or so years later) & it will take years to flip that script & PBC has been at it for 1 year & 2 months.

The reality is things like this take time & are risky & may even need to pivot to a new plan/business model to be successful. Haymon entered the concert promotion business as a college student & pivoted that into a huge success & maybe most notably multiple side businesses with relationships to his original concert promotion business. Haymon is a pivot master. I think its very possible the PBC plan might ultimately include Showtime PPV &/or their own PPV &/or an online streaming network among other things up for discussion. The thing with PBC that people keep ignoring is no one really knows the end game here since Haymon holds his cards tight to his chest like no one else in the boxing business. I highly suspect the discovery phase of this TR lawsuit might end up changing the publics narrative of what exactly Haymon is doing when more of those details get leaked or found out by the media.

[-PBP-]

Rumor has it HBO didn't even have the budget to make an offer for Anthony Joshua & thats why Joshua signed with Showtime.

Showtime & HBO have similar budgets these days & I've even seen it suggested Showtime has a bigger budget than HBO these days. Whatever the case I think its beyond obvious Showtime has more of their budget unaccounted for. If HBO spends too much money in this quarter Roman Gonzalez might be having a PPV in the 4th quarter of this year.

And I think most people are under thinking what PBC succeeding or failing is gonna mean for friends of Haymon of which Showtime surely is. People ignore that Espinoza was saying from day 1 that PBC fighters would be fighting on Showtime in the future.

Stephen Espinoza in Jan. 2015 when PBC first got announced:

http://******.craveonline.com/news/3...-for-the-sport

People keep acting like some PBC guys going "back" to Showtime is some sign PBC is weeks away from a going out of business sale, but this was ALWAYS PART OF THE PLAN.

Either way, that's a lot of fighters and Showtime doesn't have the budget to carry that entire load. PBC is needed to Haymon can get his huge stable network dates.

[Eff Pandas]

Either way, that's a lot of fighters and Showtime doesn't have the budget to carry that entire load. PBC is needed to Haymon can get his huge stable network dates.

Haymon didn't have a huge stable til he started branching out more. So yea part of the plan includes Showtime & all these regular TV & basic cable networks fulfilling dates for these boxers. So yea of course Showtime can't pay the entire Haymon roster, but that was never the plan seemingly, that isn't what is being asked of Showtime & if worse came to worse with Haymon Showtime would likely have first dibs at the cream of the crop of this roster to put on Showtime exclusively. So I don't think Showtime is in a very bad situation, all they need to do is start to get a regular & consistent schedule so they can get where they were at previous to the hiatus-y period they were in during PBC's first year & gain ground from there.

[-PBP-]

Haymon didn't have a huge stable til he started branching out more. So yea part of the plan includes Showtime & all these regular TV & basic cable networks fulfilling dates for these boxers. So yea of course Showtime can't pay the entire Haymon roster, but that was never the plan seemingly, that isn't what is being asked of Showtime & if worse came to worse with Haymon Showtime would likely have first dibs at the cream of the crop of this roster to put on Showtime exclusively. So I don't think Showtime is in a very bad situation, all they need to do is start to get a regular & consistent schedule so they can get where they were at previous to the hiatus-y period they were in during PBC's first year & gain ground from there.

I agree. I'm not criticizing Showtime or PBC. It's just that if PBC fails, they will still need other networks to televise some of these fighters. PBC puts on cards week after week. Between ShoBox and WCB, they can't fill all those dates.

[sicko]

Worst Case Scenario if PBC doesn't work out yeah they will just head back to Showtime/CBS. All we can do is wait and see how things play out, nobody can confirm anything about PBC, everything about them is pure Theories and Speculations. Yeah it would be great to know what is going on but it is also smart to keep people guessing and assuming

[al-Xander]

PBC will eventually fail if it keeps wasting money on meaningless fights. Don't even know why this is hard to understand for some people.

Of course, fans want free boxing. Look at them. They stream fights that are riddled with ads on a tiny monitor, and could tolerate lags, crashes, freezes, you name it.

Look at the top fighters that are available at this moment:

Brook
Bradley
Garcia
Broner
Vargas
Spence
Peterson
(who else?)

And guess who is not being prompted, or making any effort to put some of these fights on PBC despite being mentioned in a lawsuit filed by investors?

[Eff Pandas]

I agree. I'm not criticizing Showtime or PBC. It's just that if PBC fails, they will still need other networks to televise some of these fighters. PBC puts on cards week after week. Between ShoBox and WCB, they can't fill all those dates.

Most of these guys aren't even on TV or are barely are on TV so if things go south with PBC part of that dynamic will be that they will need to accept more non-TV fights or fight more for the random TV spots that end up coming back once PBC is outta business.

Thats always the nature of the boxing business or really the life of anyone, more or less, independent contractor in any competitive marketplace. You take opportunities presented to you, but those opportunities could always disappear or dry up. Most of Haymon's roster has maybe had 1 or 2 TV fights or no TV fights at all so they aren't losing a whole lot if PBC fails outside of the potential in the future they currently have to move up more easily into TV/a broader audience.