Open questions to the murderers

OPEN QUESTIONS FOR HBO, SHOWTIME & PROMOTERS By Matt Goldstein Boxing Promoters Association Please Read Carefully! 1) Do people without HBO & Showtime actually buy your PPV's? 2) Do people without HBO & Showtime actually know who your fighters are, watch the fights or buy tickets to the fights? 3) Has the popularity of boxing gone down as premium channels and PPV's have taken over? 4) Are HBO, Showtime & promoters attempting to market their sport & fighters to other fans outside of the premium channel subscriber? 5) Can HBO & Showtime expect to reel in the non subscriber when there is simply no accessibility to the fights or fighters outside of the premium networks? 6) If a countdown show to a fight is only previewed on the premium network, how can the premium networks expect to bring in more viewers for that fight? 7) If the HBO's 24/7 and other countdown shows were broadcast on basic cable, would the PPV sales, ticket sales and regular premium channel championship fight ratings significantly increase? 8) Have HBO, Showtime & Promoters ever considered allowing highlight reels and KO clips of their biggest stars and best fighters to be released unconditionally so all sports news and highlight shows/segments have free reign to show the clips? That's what every other flourishing sport does! 9) Consider any random fighter who you've never really seen before. Now picture a clip of them shadow boxing, hitting the speed bag and flexing at a weigh in. Were you overwhelmingly enticed to order a PPV? 10) Have HBO, Showtime & Promoters ever considered allowing all past fights to be seen on basic cable or other TV networks? 11) Do you think the Sopranos being syndicated to A&E helped or hurt ratings? (Hey HBO, didn't you make serious money off of the syndication?) 12) Why can't HBO, Showtime & Promoters syndicate all of their best fights & top fighters? 13) Do you think the ratings for future premium channel and PPV fights would actually be worse if fights for Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Joe Calzaghe, Rafael Marquez, Israel Vasquez, Kelly Pavlik, Vic Darchinyan, The Klitschko's, Ricky Hatton, Juan Manuel Lopez, Paul Williams, Andre Berto, Andre Ward, Jermain Taylor, Chris Arreola & Mikkel Kessler were all syndicated to basic cable? 14) Outside of Pacquiao, Mayweather, Cotto & Mosley, does anyone in the U.S. other than boxing fans actually know who any of those guys are? 15) Isn't the UFC's basic cable deal directly responsible for their explosion? (Hey Top Rank, maybe with all of your independent PPV's, couldn't you can put together a knockout show of Pacquiao, Cotto, Mayweather, Pavlik & Morales and sell it to a basic cable network so they can show it over and over? I'll even edit the piece for you, call ESPN, Fox Sports & Comcast and let the bidding begin. Just tell me where to send the check and ratings analysis for all of their future fights.) 16) Could it be possible that no one knows who they are because outside of watching an occasional fight on the premium channels and the very occasional PPV, no one has actually seen real highlights, knockouts, fight clips, countdown shows, 24/7, an actually really fun fighter to watch or exciting toe to toe action because it cannot possible be seen unless you have HBO or Showtime. 17) Are you not cutting your nose off to spite your face? Matt is talking some real sense once again!:boxing: