Has the PBC experiment failed?

[al-Xander]

Can't wait to hear Mayweather's take on this one, call a spade a spade. Also knowing that TBE expressed dissatisfaction over the way Haymon has been overpaying his fighters for fighting sub-level opponents.

Mayweather: I'll Tell Haymon - Fighters Getting Too Much Money!

[Scipio2009]

The theory was good. Bring boxing back to the mainstream, by showing world level boxing for free on TV. What was not to like? However, the execution has been flawed.

Rather than delivering consistent, competitive match ups, the PBC has become the butt of many jokes in boxing. PBC unfortunately has been associated with mismatches for its most protected fighters, with wilder v wawryzk and lara v foreman upcoming examples of this. The occasional competitive fight on paper has become the exception, not the rule.

Haymons control of US boxing has coincided with the exponential increase in popularity of the UFC, whilst viewing figures for boxing gets lower by the day. Although he is not the only major promoter at fault, haymon must take a large portion of the blame for the transition of boxing into a niche sport.

2016 was a disastrous year for haymon and the PBC, with dwindling figures as a result of one sided match ups. Much of the reported $500 million investment has been thrown away, and the purses for PBC fighters are now decreasing as the money is drying out.

With rumours that his flagship fighter errol spence is looking to leave, and james degale potentially off after the jack fight, its looking as if the foundations of PBC may be beginning to crack and it would be a surprise to see the organisation continuing past 2017.

So what are peoples thoughts on PBC? Has it been a positive influence on the sport, and has its mission objective been completed- to bring boxing back to the levels of mainstream popularity it once held?

Year 3 of PBC (the alleged money year) is just about to begin and the UFC just saw 1 of their only two bankable draws getting her face smashed into oblivion (with their only other star openly talking about taking an extended time off). would wait a moment before gloating, tbh.

Jack-Degale this weekend, Frampton-Santa Cruz 2 shortly after, Deontay Wilder is coming back in a heavyweight tripleheader in February (with the clear hint towards another heavyweight unification fight in April), and Garcia-Thurman is laying the foundation for a big event come March, among other shows.

With the seeming plan for HBO to continue on with delivering largely only PPV events, and the fact that the first few UFC PPVs likely won't draw much of anything, the stage is set for PBC to deliver quite well in 2017 (especially if they keep to the top matchups being talked up)

[-DSG-]

If Thurman and Garcia were fighting regularly on HBO and they were matched up the fight would have been huge. Its still going to be a decent event, but not close to what it could have been

If the fight is on CBS like it should be it will be seen more than 3-4 million than it would have on HBO lol.

[Scipio2009]

Question is is Waddel and Reed still on board? Is there a new investment firm funding PBC fights? It appears Showtime has taken over, or Haymon is back in Espinoza's arms.

Waddell & Reed is the money backing PBC/Haymon, and Showtime/CBS (of the networks so far) seem more than ready to commit longterm funds to feature content tied in with Haymon.

The next question to answer is what happens with the roughly 50 fight cards that are dedicated to delivering PBC fights to broadcast TV.

If ESPN picks up a summer boxing series (rather than the spread-out, largely prospect in blowout fights on ESPN2, PBC can deliver 11 quality cards, during ESPN's dead time in content until football starts again), SpikeTV (in the CBS family, basically) continues with PBC fight cards for their combat sports series, and Bounce TV keeps their quarterly PBC cards, you're looking at 25-30 fights cards to still place.

CBS picks up the Toe-to-Toe/FNF series for CBS Sports, on top of deciding to somewhat regularly air fight cards on CBS [NFL/NCAAF will crowd out the schedule options for Aug-Jan, but there are still openings to run shows on CBS during that time] and you've got all of the shows placed.

[hhs661]

Dudes can't off the Haymon dıck. Poor disgruntled ex gf like posters on here. Damn shame, imagine if they like Haymon. Deep throat city

[Scipio2009]

Not staying aligned with HBO was a big mistake imo. Like Sky sports over here, they are the kingmakers in boxing.

He also should have kept ODLH on board. He might have been a coke head but people listened to him, and unlike Floyd he understands he actually needs to talk about people other than himself to be an effective promoter.

Alot depends on the outcome of these legal battles. If his investors pull out its game over in terms of being a major player.

I havent minded PBC. I like their online content. I like their attempt to build a brand around the sport rather than individual fighters and fights. Theres plenty of flaws that needed to be ironed out much quicker though

HBO has consistently reduced the amount of money they're willing to put behind boxing, replacing the audience willing to pay the premium to catch fights with an audience willing to pay the premium to watch episodic dramas (GoT being the biggest one at the moment).

If Haymon had stuck with HBO, he'd be in the same spot that Bob Arum is being tortured in.

Haymon jumped ship to Showtime, Showtime drastically expanded the money that they were willing to invest in boxing (with CBS boss, Leslie Moonves, being openly interested in pushing the sport), Showtime is now seemingly committing the same/more money to boxing than HBO, and Haymon is now the main provider of content to HBO (with promoters with working relationships with Haymon, also getting opportunities with fighters not directly tied to Haymon).

Beyond that, Haymon made the exact move needed in cutting Oscar completely out when he made the move against Schaefer; in case you didn't know, Oscar with "people listening to him" saw all of the financial backers, AEG and the rights to lead rights to their venues, and any interest from FS1 immediately disappear once Schaefer was out.

Oscar is on the hook for 95% of the risks in his company, with the only fighter under his banner that has interest from TV being Joseph Diaz Jr (Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, if the Schaefer understanding sunk in, likely has a co-promotional deal between Canelo Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions near an 85/15 Alvarez share, with Golden Boy getting near no piece of Alvarez's money in Mexico).

Sky Sports has continued to expand the amount of money that they're committed to spend on delivering top-level fights for their audience (with the heavy emphasis on featuring fights with meaning to the British audience above anything); to try and parallel them with HBO is a mistake

[Clegg]

They've made mistakes along the way but at one point in 2016 they had nothing scheduled and it looked like it might be on the way out, here in 2017 they have a lot of good events coming up so things are looking a lot better.

If you mean the experiment of buying network airtime, hoping to get more attention/ratings for your fighters in a way that will improve their popularity in a big way or secure a big money network deal, I'd say that aspect of PBC has failed.

[Scipio2009]

and you idiots siding with some shady manager are no different. hymie doesn't give **** about saving boxing

If given the choice between siding with the fighter and siding with a promoter, side with the fighter every time.

"save boxing" by defending folks like Bob Arum? gtfoh

[Scipio2009]

I like the premise but PBC has had SO many mismatches, it's what has turned off a lot of people from Boxing. It's not about quantity, it's about quality. I think PBC is just fleecing networks with **** fights. If they had more competitive fights between the top names i.e. like Thurman/Porter, it'd be fantastic.

Al Haymon has inflated the market with getting fighters like Berto a million dollar paydays for fighting binmen. Look at what Eddie Hearn has been saying for a while now, American Boxing is going to struggle big time unless it sets more realistic expectations for everyone. They took and took so much out of the game for short term value/paydays and have damaged it long term. If you want to see it done right, look at what Eddie Hearn is doing with Matchroom and Sky across the UK. That's smart business.

2017 is just getting things going, and you can't really argue that things are setting up poorly, if you're being honest about it.

[Kigali]

Dudes can't off the Haymon dıck. Poor disgruntled ex gf like posters on here. Damn shame, imagine if they like Haymon. Deep throat city

You're the one talking about d*cks and deep throating.

B*tch ass dudess