PBC and HBO can now work together

he said all promoters. haymon is not a promoter. don't be silly

Yeah right ... The purses for Jacobs $1.5M, Quillin $1.5M do you really see HBO putting up that type of money for a fight like this?? They getting more then Rousey and Holm , and that fight was next to 42,000 fans in the arena

No, the point is maximum value, hedge funds, venture capitalist, they don't care about anything else. They want serious returns on their investment. The only want to ensure that, is be non discriminatory when it comes to diversifying. the only way to ensure that is to land a 9 figure annual guarantee from a TV network. HBO is never going to make that kind of commitment to boxing again, let alone make that commitment to a single manager, so HBO's influence must be minimized and/or eliminated for haymon to achieve his objective. it's not a question of discrimination, it's a question of reaching a broad audience, something premium cable doesn't offer.

why would haymon put pbc on HBO though?? whole point was to have boxing on free tv? No, the point is maximum value, hedge funds, venture capitalist, they don't care about anything else. They want serious returns on their investment. The only want to ensure that, is be non discriminatory when it comes to diversifying.

Ninth Layer - HBO is still the elite boxing brand in the states. I personally think PBC will eventually garner that distinction, but it will take several years. However, I think we can both agree that Haymon's ability to pull off that feat would be compromised if assisted HBO with making any big fights. Your reasons why boxing may never be a successful major network sport again are all valid and those reasons have been given for decades for why boxing could never return to its former glory. Haymon clearly disagrees and time will tell. But it is worth noting that when the heavyweight championship of the world was regularly defended on network TV, there was still only one minute of commercials between rounds. Not to mention soccer is the world's biggest sport and there aren't commercial breaks during the halves.

he said all promoters. haymon is not a promoter.

Nelson was involved in the decision to ban Haymon in the first place. I don't think airing a fight with a Haymon fighter is an issue. The issue is Haymon having control, which is a huge no no. Hbo cannot afford to be destroyed by Haymon.

Ninth Layer - But the point is that HBO's budget is too small for overall business to grow as long as they are the top dog, so Haymon is trying to create a scenario that will entice another entity into wanting to become a much bigger top dog. If Haymon's longterm goal is either Disney, NBC Universal or Viacom paying NINE FIGURES a year for the exclusive rights to top tier boxing in America, he's not going to do anything that will help HBO prevent that. So when a fan, who doesn't understand that reality, thinks HBO promoting a new boxing executive is somehow going to result in some of Haymon's fighters appearing on HBO, they need to realize that it's never going to happen. Haymon is all in. He's fighting for all the marbles. He's not going to do anything that assists HBO in any way. Yes, HBO have 5-6 great stars right now that can fight 2-3 times a year each and fill HBO's schedule. HBO isn't going to leave boxing next year, the year after, or the year after that. BUT, as their budget continues to shrink and as boxing continues to become less and less important to them, if PBC successfully develops the NEXT generation of stars and due to the major network exposure, manages to minimize the influence of HBO boxing, at some point HBO is going to wash their hands of the whole thing. It would be too damaging to HBO's image to be thought of as a third rate boxing brand. Well I agree with you that whatever happens, won't be for a few years at least. HBO is a long way from being thought of as third-rate, and PBC has a long way to go to match their quality of promotion and presentation. Boxing is a tricky sport for big networks because it's not the most advertiser-friendly, not just due to the way the fights are laid out (breaks only between rounds, variable fight lengths) but also because the sport is violent and somewhat unsavory to the public, making it less appealing to a lot of companies. Does Mercedes want their car commericals so close to an image of a guy's bloody ****ed-up face? Possibly not. This also means boxing would have to get a lot more sanitized and corporate. More importantly for advertisers, is the general public going to care that boxing is on free TV enough to tune in? I don't see boxing ever becoming as popular as, say, college football, which boxing competes with for nearly half the year. HBO doesn't have to worry about this problem because they're catering specifically to boxing fans, not a general audience, with their programming. I agree with you that the deciding factor for Haymon is going to be how well he can develop the next crop of up-and-coming fighters. IMO the only guy in his current stable with any real cross-over star power is Deontay Wilder, mostly just because he's an American heavyweight with some promise, but outside of that I have trouble picturing, say, Keith Thurman or Danny Garcia suddenly capturing a ton of public interest. Finally, boxing is a global sport which means that stars can come from literally anywhere. That's okay if you're HBO catering to boxing fans, even if a fighter has an eight-syllable name and can't speak English you know that people are still tuning in and watching the fight, just because they are boxing fans, plus from HBO's perspective more demographics = more subscribers. If you're NBC then you probably don't want some Slavic guy's name showing up on the TV guide for people to flip past.

Ninth Layer - But the point is that HBO's budget is too small for overall business to grow as long as they are the top dog, so Haymon is trying to create a scenario that will entice another entity into wanting to become a much bigger top dog. If Haymon's longterm goal is either Disney, NBC Universal or Viacom paying NINE FIGURES a year for the exclusive rights to top tier boxing in America, he's not going to do anything that will help HBO prevent that. So when a fan, who doesn't understand that reality, thinks HBO promoting a new boxing executive is somehow going to result in some of Haymon's fighters appearing on HBO, they need to realize that it's never going to happen. Haymon is all in. He's fighting for all the marbles. He's not going to do anything that assists HBO in any way. Yes, HBO have 5-6 great stars right now that can fight 2-3 times a year each and fill HBO's schedule. HBO isn't going to leave boxing next year, the year after, or the year after that. BUT, as their budget continues to shrink and as boxing continues to become less and less important to them, if PBC successfully develops the NEXT generation of stars and due to the major network exposure, manages to minimize the influence of HBO boxing, at some point HBO is going to wash their hands of the whole thing. It would be too damaging to HBO's image to be thought of as a third rate boxing brand.

So you're saying Duva taking one fight over to another network effectively loses her long-term relationship with HBO. Exactly what I was lamenting in my previous post. You say this as if Duva and Kovalev aren't benefiting from that long-term relationship. They are certainly doing better as the A-side of their own promotional efforts than they would as the B-side of whatever Haymon wants to do.

HBO is in the business of promoting their brand, not in the business of making sure good fights get the most money possible. As for Duva, I'm guessing the reason is because the HBO offer/deal is more lucrative long-term than anything Haymon would offer them, they also have a stronger negotiating position with their HBO backing. So you're saying Duva taking one fight over to another network effectively loses her long-term relationship with HBO. Exactly what I was lamenting in my previous post.

why would haymon put pbc on HBO though?? whole point was to have boxing on free tv?

I don't know what this even means. What HBO should be saying is promoters should be allowed to take their fights to the other networks if the fight happens to look more lucrative. Why is Duva, for example, intent on making the Kovalev vs Stevenson fight on HBO when the other side's offer is presumably more lucrative? HBO is in the business of promoting their brand, not in the business of making sure good fights get the most money possible. As for Duva, I'm guessing the reason is because the HBO offer/deal is more lucrative long-term than anything Haymon would offer them, they also have a stronger negotiating position with their HBO backing.

I don't know what this even means. What HBO should be saying is promoters should be allowed to take their fights to the other networks if the fight happens to look more lucrative. Why is Duva, for example, intent on making the Kovalev vs Stevenson fight on HBO when the other side's offer is presumably more lucrative?

Ernie - Yes, I own several businesses. I own a newspaper, a gym, a music festival, a regional sports league and a talent management company, to name a few. I agree that maximum value is always the objective, but with HBO's annual boxing budget at $30 million and UFC's TV contract at $100 million, it's clear that maximum value will come from a network deal, not by working with HBO. And that $100 million network deal becomes far more realistic if HBo boxing is marginalized as much as possible. As another poster mentioned, HBO is the premier brand in boxing. HBO's demise is a necessary goal for PBC to emerge as the dominant brand. Showtime is becoming a wasteland by design and if PBC is successful, HBO will eventually become a wasteland as well. Has nothing to do with what boxing fans want to see. I am not a boxing fan. I am a business man. I have no emotional attachment to any of this. Different scales of business though. HBO has $30 million but no worries about advertiser demands. They just need to put on shows their subscribers find valuable, which they can do by putting that money behind 5 or 6 TV-friendly guys to get opponents for them. There will always be those 5 or 6 guys because, as much money as Haymon has, he doesn't have enough to pay every top fighter's salary. Take a look at the guys HBO has headlining their fights. Forgetting Pacquaio who his on his way out, they have Tim Bradley, Gennady Golovkin, Andre Ward, Miguel Cotto, Terence Crawford and Sergey Kovalev to name a few. Those are great fighters and they look quite good when compared to Haymon's best (Amir Khan, Deontay Wilder, Keith Thurman, Adonis Stevenson, Adrien Broner). Haymon doesn't have the money or the platform to steal those fighters from HBO. He's still struggling to create a platform that can help establish the fighters he has. In the meantime, HBO will continue to attract top fighters who see the HBO brand and what they can do for fighters. Finally something to consider is that HBO is really good at building up fighter names from nothing. In fact just fighting on HBO is a sign that a fighter has made it to the big leagues. It remains to be seen whether Haymon, on his own and without the help of HBO, can build a fighter up to the point that they can start making PPV-scale revenue. At the moment he hasn't shown he can do it.

Solid Post, we may disagree fundamentally, but I respect your argument. There's no guarantee Haymon's plan will work. Working with HBO very well may be the smart business decision. Time will tell on that. But if the question is what WILL he do, not what should he do, it appears (to me at least) that he is all in on taking over the sport. In order to do that, he needs control of HBO, or he needs HBO to become irrelevant. Having one of his fighters occasionally on HBO is counter productive to his objective. If what was on the table was Haymon taking over HBO boxing completely and getting their entire $30 million budget, then maybe he'd alter his plan a bit, but unless HBO is going to stand for Haymon Boxers Only again, he needs to take them out. And the only way to take them out is to starve them slowly until they decide boxing isn't worth the headache. Boxing is only 3% of HBO's programming budget at this point. It's not like boxing is a major priority for them. The more expensive and inconvenient Haymon can cause boxing to become, the sooner we see the end of boxing on HBO.

Ernie - Yes, I own several businesses. I own a newspaper, a gym, a music festival, a regional sports league and a talent management company, to name a few. I agree that maximum value is always the objective, but with HBO's annual boxing budget at $30 million and UFC's TV contract at $100 million, it's clear that maximum value will come from a network deal, not by working with HBO. And that $100 million network deal becomes far more realistic if HBo boxing is marginalized as much as possible. As another poster mentioned, HBO is the premier brand in boxing. HBO's demise is a necessary goal for PBC to emerge as the dominant brand. Showtime is becoming a wasteland by design and if PBC is successful, HBO will eventually become a wasteland as well. Has nothing to do with what boxing fans want to see. I am not a boxing fan. I am a business man. I have no emotional attachment to any of this. Solid Post, we may disagree fundamentally, but I respect your argument.

All this means is that Haymon fighters should now stop making excuses why certain fights won't happen. It's also more likely that they would stop calling out HBO fighters for fear of their bluffs being called. Quillin, for instance, has moved his goal post and wants $10 million to fight Golovkin. I totally agree with you. 1000000%. There will be no excuses for certain boxers that shall remain nameless.

Ernie - Yes, I own several businesses. I own a newspaper, a gym, a music festival, a regional sports league and a talent management company, to name a few. I agree that maximum value is always the objective, but with HBO's annual boxing budget at $30 million and UFC's TV contract at $100 million, it's clear that maximum value will come from a network deal, not by working with HBO. And that $100 million network deal becomes far more realistic if HBo boxing is marginalized as much as possible. As another poster mentioned, HBO is the premier brand in boxing. HBO's demise is a necessary goal for PBC to emerge as the dominant brand. Showtime is becoming a wasteland by design and if PBC is successful, HBO will eventually become a wasteland as well. Has nothing to do with what boxing fans want to see. I am not a boxing fan. I am a business man. I have no emotional attachment to any of this.

HBO does not have "unlimited resources", quite the opposite, they have a budget, they are a division, not a company. They are but a component of Time Warner, and the powers that be having been cutting HBO boxing's budget steadily for years. They are a subsidiary, don't get it twisted. They only have so much money to spend, they don't have 25% of the budget Haymon has to make fights. I understand that they have a budget and they can't go around giving people blank checks for fights or rights, but if you're banking on stability, HBO has two giant luxuries that Al Haymon does not which are longevity and brand. If it sticks around long enough, maybe someday we'll be talking about "PBC" in the same way we talk about "HBO", but they are far, FAR from that.