Showtime is looking to stage scintillating slugfests with high intrigue as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over.
Stephen Espinoza, president of sports and event programming for Showtime, said that once the premium cable provider returns back to boxing, fans should expect the crème de la crème from a quality standpoint pitting the best fighters the sport has to offer against one another.
“We need to take our time and come back with the right fights at the right time to try and reduce the [coronavirus health] risk as much as possible while doing premium-level fights that are worthy of the audience,” Espinoza told BoxingScene.com in an interview.
“I don’t think we are going to be one of the first ones to come back. We are not going to come back for the sake of coming back and doing something. We are a premium network and we do premium-level fights … and that’s going to remind people why they love boxing even before all of this took place.”
Promoters like Top Rank are beholden to ESPN and ESPN+ to provide a product to the network and keep the live events train chugging as soon as it is deemed safe to do so. The same goes for Matchroom Boxing and Golden Boy, who are looking to provide DAZN shows so that the streaming device can provide its paying subscribers live action instead of a library of archived fights. Ditto for PBC for providing a live event pipeline for Fox and Showtime.
That could perhaps mean more “stay-busy” style fights against outmatched opponents in the coming months so that fighters shake off the coronavirus-created gym and ring rust without full eight-week camps.
“There is a feeling that the audience is desperate for sports, which is probably true, but we’re not going to take advantage of that and throw a bunch of stuff out there to say, ‘we’re back,’” said Espinoza.
When asked to wear his matchmaker hat and pit fighters together for the high-level showcase he has in mind for his network, Espinoza said he would like for it to be a super middleweight unification fight between WBC champion David Benavidez against IBF titlist Caleb Plant on regular Showtime.
On the pay per view side of the business, a fight between Gervonta Davis versus Leo Santa Cruz will be staged as soon as fans are able to fully flock into stadiums, Espinoza said. A fight between the two champions was “very close” to being finalized for June in Los Angeles before discussions came to a halt due to coronavirus.
It remains to be seen whether or not Showtime will tweak with it’s PPV pricing model to adapt to new times in which consumers are valuing the dollar and reconsidering their spending habits and spending power even more.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com and currently does TV commentary for combat sports programming that airs on Fox Sports and hosts his own radio show in Los Angeles. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.