HBO'S budget in 2016... less than $25 million.

The potential for demand will always be there. It's not hard to capture people's interest and imagination when it comes to having two guys fight, but they need to build fans awareness and appreciation for those two guys. Fighters are fighting too infrequent and against too low a level of competition for people to care and having an already shrinking sport be fractured is a big reason. If somebody starts making real fights again on a regular basis, it could turn around pretty quick. True. Maybe we can look at this as a bubble burst/market crash. Fighter purses will come down = fight more often = more hungry to be the best and earn their way.

The potential for demand will always be there. It's not hard to capture people's interest and imagination when it comes to having two guys fight, but they need to build fans awareness and appreciation for those two guys. Fighters are fighting too infrequent and against too low a level of competition for people to care and having an already shrinking sport be fractured is a big reason. If somebody starts making real fights again on a regular basis, it could turn around pretty quick. That's the problem. We need a Dana White.

Why does it matter? There is no demand in the United States for this sport. It's in shambles right now. The potential for demand will always be there. It's not hard to capture people's interest and imagination when it comes to having two guys fight, but they need to build fans awareness and appreciation for those two guys. Fighters are fighting too infrequent and against too low a level of competition for people to care and having an already shrinking sport be fractured is a big reason. If somebody starts making real fights again on a regular basis, it could turn around pretty quick.

I'm glad, this means that fighters will not be getting overpaid to fight bums and that HBO will be more selective on the fights being made. It will likely show Fury/Wlad II, it's putting muscle behind Khan/Canelo and is likely to show a bigger fight featuring GGG or Kovalev at some stage, maybe even Gonzalez and Crawford. I'd rather quality than quantity and I'd rather guys were getting paid for what they were willing to do. I hope this translates to less 1 million plus purses for guys like Ward and Crawford for fighting less than stellar opponents.

LMFAO i love it when you guys act as if you are some business insiders, reality is you have no fckin idea of what you talking about. Unless you are part of HBO's financial team then i suggest you shut the fkc up.

Am i blind or where is the source? the streetz!

So the beginning of this thread is filled with the usual Flo-mo's celebrating the demise of HBO based on the opinion of some guy who claims he used to clean toilets at Showtime and he knows somebody who cleans toilets at HBO. Those same people celebrating this baseless statement were all shaking their fingers when people were talking about the publicly disclosed numbers at W&R regarding the PBC. Meantime where are all the PBC shows we were promised? ESPN just pushed back their PBC programming another two months, wonder why? I'm told the 2016 #PBConESPN debut, delayed from January to April, has been pushed back again. No shows until June at this point. #boxing— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) March 1, 2016 Why does it matter? There is no demand in the United States for this sport. It's in shambles right now.

So the beginning of this thread is filled with the usual Flo-mo's celebrating the demise of HBO based on the opinion of some guy who claims he used to clean toilets at Showtime and he knows somebody who cleans toilets at HBO. Those same people celebrating this baseless statement were all shaking their fingers when people were talking about the publicly disclosed numbers at W&R regarding the PBC. Meantime where are all the PBC shows we were promised? ESPN just pushed back their PBC programming another two months, wonder why? I'm told the 2016 #PBConESPN debut, delayed from January to April, has been pushed back again. No shows until June at this point. #boxing— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) March 1, 2016

No one knows what HBO's budget really is, but if it has been reduced, that means we won't be forced to watch garbage like GGG vs. the bum of the month or that crap we watched on Saturday night. With fewer resources, they will be forced to show only matchups between top quality opponents. So, if their budget is being cut, that is a good thing for fans. Except that's not what hbo is doing. Instead they are giving us ortiz vs Tony Thompson and crawford vs lundy 2 meaningless fights. That just took away money from the budget. Meanwhile we may not get Lomachenko vs Walters or Gonzalez vs Estrada 2. But they give us ortiz vs thompson. I have had it up too here with hbo the only good fights on hbo over the next year will all be ppv Canelo vs khan Pacquiao vs bradley Canelo vs golovkin Ward vs Kovalev Crawford vs pacquiao Anything else will be hbo fighter vs no hoper

Hbo needs Better opponents, no doubt. but they have more stars by far. But Showtime just spent a bunch on Jacobs/Quillin, did a all access for it, and it couldn't even do espn numbers. PBC is not growing or building anything special, and showtimes numbers prove it to be a failure. Hbo remaining consistent, and will be on there 3rd ppv since Floyd/Pac. Haymon and Showtime have 0 ppv fights since Floyd left. Ppv fights don't come out of HBO's budget. So I don't get your point about ppv. And the reason hbo is sinking is because the best opponents are pbc. So with nobody for crawford,kovalev,canelo,golovkin to fight it's only a matter of time before all haymon fighters are welcomed back or hbo leaves the boxing game for good

Am i blind or where is the source? still waiting

Am i blind or where is the source? boxingscene is great for threads with no source. some people don't even ask for links/source and just go off the thread title lol

Am i blind or where is the source? the OP wrote the numbers 1 - 9 on scraps of paper, crumbled them into little balls, shoved them into his sisters anus, and then pulled out 2 at random. It just so happened he pulled out the 2, and then the 4.......

Am i blind or where is the source?

Aren't things for PBC not looking too good either? So not only is PBC in trouble but HBO is too.

I don't think the actual amount hasn't been reported, but Dan Rafael has written that HBO is facing a budget crunch, and that they're supposedly pushing Cotto to have his next fight on PPV so it doesn't eat into their budget. So I'm assuming cotto will fight a name opponent like jmm?

I'm not too optimistic. Floyd Pac did a lot of damage too. Exposed a lot of open minded non fans to boxing, and they decided this is not worth my time. IMO PBC was a huge bet on that event reigniting interest in boxing. I bet that's how it was sold to the investors. Yea, and the fight was so huge financially that getting a group to want to be a part of the next big thing could be done. It is not an easy road though and PBC if it was going to be successful was going to need to be a long term thing. I don't think that fight did all that much damage, but the long term structural issues that have been damaging the sport for a long time have kind of come to a head.

I would have to do the math but 20 years of inflation is a lot and a million dollars compared to 20 years ago is a lot less. Boxing purses could be up a bit but I don't think boxing purses outside of a few cases are much higher on a whole. If boxing purses shrunk a lot I know boxing purses would be behind inflation. Boxing popularity has shrunk, which is the problem with the whole divide the sport is split an an absolute low point which is the worse time for this to be going on. It takes a long time to really come back, once it ends. So hopefully that stops so the sport can start actually moving in the proper direction. I'm not too optimistic. Floyd Pac did a lot of damage too. Exposed a lot of open minded non fans to boxing, and they decided this is not worth my time. IMO PBC was a huge bet on that event reigniting interest in boxing. I bet that's how it was sold to the investors.

Is that true? I doubt the likes of Guerrero, Berto, Lara were getting million dollar paydays vs scrubs back then, inflation adjusted. Boxing has been losing relevance with the mainstream for a while though. Now you have way more entertainment options, including guys ready to beat up on each other for way less, in a more viewer friendly format I would have to do the math but 20 years of inflation is a lot and a million dollars compared to 20 years ago is a lot less. Boxing purses could be up a bit but I don't think boxing purses outside of a few cases are much higher on a whole. If boxing purses shrunk a lot I know boxing purses would be behind inflation. Boxing popularity has shrunk, which is the problem with the whole divide the sport is split an an absolute low point which is the worse time for this to be going on. It takes a long time to really come back, once it ends. So hopefully that stops so the sport can start actually moving in the proper direction.

Boxing compensation has been the opposite it has been rather stagnate, especially adjusted for inflation. 1 Million purses for a fight is not all that much money currently and has been paid for decades. That is the opposite of inflation. The crux of the matter is HBO a long time before the guy you are suggesting paid tons for fight to get boxing controlled by premium networks. They have consistently been pulling back resources which have kept wages roughly the same over a two decade period. Takes time and capital to reverse that trend, which hasn't been allowed to happen yet. Is that true? I doubt the likes of Guerrero, Berto, Lara were getting million dollar paydays vs scrubs back then, inflation adjusted. Boxing has been losing relevance with the mainstream for a while though. Now you have way more entertainment options, including guys ready to beat up on each other for way less, in a more viewer friendly format