The HBO Budget Crisis and What it Means

[-PBP-]

I've been reading a lot lately and it seems this HBO budget issue is becoming serious. I'm not a business expert but the main issue is Time Warner made some budget cuts and HBO sports took a significant hit.

This is coming up in a lot of articles:

1. HBO has no interest in Cotto's next fight unless it's PPV

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...lanning-stages

2. Per Bob Arum, they are not interested in pushing Lomachenko or Postol. This is somewhat confirmed here:

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...o-walters-card

So now, they will likely pass on one of the best cards of the year: Walters/Lomachenko and Postol/Granados. It's become the network of mismatches and the upcoming schedule is full of them. Rumor is Showtime might be picking that card up.

Why should we care?

They have nearly the entire top 10 p4p list to exclusive network deals but can't afford to bring in top competition for them. Then you have PBC across the street paying big bucks so would want to fight on HBO anyways.

Are they just going to continue to shove Kovalev, Golovkin and Crawford down our throats in these one sided mismatches?

So basically, it's not looking good. What are your thoughts?

[Raonic]

I assume most of their money comes from PPVs and they don't have anyone now outside of Caenlo for that. I don't think it's a long term problem though. Someone else will come in and be a big draw for HBO in the next couple of years.

[Chiboxing123]

hbo hurting... is not good for the sport. this hurts boxing big time

[sicko]

Everybody focused on PBC Struggles but those people are not telling the full story...BOXING IN GENERAL especially here in the US is not doing very well. Ticket Sales are down all over and lets just say, PBC are not the only ones giving away tickets to fill up the place. HBO is going to take the budget down and give us what they want to give us and what they can afford and the Gullible Casuals will gladly accept it and defend in while in the same breath bash PBC every chance they get when in actuality the "HBO vs PBC" stuff is absolutely KILLING the sport of boxing right now

[Kagami Taiga]

HBO sports is going the way of the dinosaurs

[-PBP-]

hbo hurting... is not good for the sport. this hurts boxing big time

I agree. I'm already getting impatient with these garbage cards and it seems like this is just the beginning.

[Dr Rumack]

I would miss boxing on HBO for sure, but if HBO boxing folds it strengthens the viability of PBC. HBO are the main competitor within boxing itself and if they're gone then PBC are firmly in the driving seat. Purses would plummet over the next couple of years. That's for sure.

[original zero]

I told you guys over and over this was going to happen and honestly it's the best thing for boxing. When HBO finally pulls the plug on boxing in 5-10 years, Haymon's takeover will be complete and we'll finally have a UFC/WWE type league with all of the top fighters under the same umbrella and nothing standing in the way of always making the biggest fights.

[joe strong]

The way the economy is in Canada & the USA a lot of people don't have extra money to attend a live boxing event. Up here in Canada our dollar is around 72c to the US dollar. The entertainment industry in a whole is hurting somewhat. Sports, concerts & any other live entertainment. Maybe a lot of people don't have that extra $18/month for HBO.

[Kagami Taiga]

Funny thing is if this was a thread about PBC and it's budget crisis it'd be halfway to a dozen pages by now. This is how you separate the boxing fans from the graft.