Nah. Terrible decision. There’s a reason HBO left and Showtime didn’t. The former was losing money everywhere, while at the very least Showtime is breaking even. Which is at the very least considering Showtime has ruled the Boxing landscape in the 2010s.
Showtime is the financial backing for big named fighters and exists as an incentive to make the right fights in your career and have great promotion.
What Sho needs to do is capture more promoters. But with every network offering lucrative deals in different directions that will be hard to do.
Boxing on Fox is so the majority of Americans have access to the sport- whether they watch or not it’s the potential to build the sport. Showtime is for those premium quality fighters in high demand OR upcoming superstars.
If HBO came back they could probably back Whatever Dana whyte is doing.
Dana coming to Boxing is a good thing. Not because he’ll change the landscape or the sport forever. Simply because he’s built up a solid fanbase of a certain demographic of people who will follow him back to Boxing.
Bro anything SHO can do, FOX can do a better job. FOX PPV will reach more Homes than SHO PPV. Due to FOX's larger viewer base from which they can promote the hell out of any major fight much better than SHO's All Access can.
I'm not going to argue than SHO has the best production team. But I'm talking about making money and hitting viewing numbers. Wilder v Fury would've probably got more buys if Fox had the fight on FOX PPV.
How would Showtime leaving help the congestion when only Haymon fighters fight on Showtime? Showtime is a supplement to boxing on Fox.
Your argument should be Showtime should look to bring in more promoters. The congestion argument makes ZERO sense
It would help create one unified PBC Platform on FOX. All PBC Content on FOX. The bigger network with bigger promotional muscle behind it. It would also reduce the cost burden for a boxing fan, if you have SHO just for Boxing, you can drop it.
Showtime doesn't have the licence fees to match DAZN or the platform to match the audiences FOX or ESPN can offer. And realistically which promoters/fighters can SHO get on their platform ?
Hearn's with DAZN. SHO can't match DAZN for Farmer v Davis or Joshua fights
Arum and Frank Warren with Top Rank/ESPN
Those are the main guy's with the big fighters everyone else's boxing stable is just QUANTITY NOT Quality.
CBS has juice, they need to flex it more.
With the new merger between Viacom and CBS. Viacom will have control of Showtime NOT CBS. So It'll be interesting if Viacom follow CBS's strategy in regards to Boxing as a Premium Cable product.
The big deal is that Showtime turned their back on Deontay Wilder because they didn't believe in him being able to sell a PPV to make it financially viable for them.
That's big news for an American heavyweight champion KO artist. It's further confirmation that he is not a draw and he is not attracting the financial investment he appears to have been promised by turning down the DAZN $100m.
FOX aren't exactly blowing them out of the water financially as far as we know.
Where the hell does he go and make $30m/$40m/$50m if Fury's cut doesn't heal and he only sells 3k seats on his own anyway? Are broadcasters going to be generous when looking at these numbers? Deyonce was talking about $2m PPV buys for this first fight.
What if AJ beats Ruiz Jr and ignores Deyonce then goes and fights Fury? There's another payday gone. All he's left with are high risk and low reward fights with Whyte, Ruiz Jr (beltless) and Kownacki.
Since turning down the AJ fight Wilders earnings are nosediving compared to what they would have been if he had just taken the AJ fight and knocked him out.
These deluded yellow toothed British nationalists are coming
out of the woodwork again after their hero got bullied by a fat man.
Why are you so obsessed with how much Wilder earns ? Why are you obsessed with Americans ? Why are you obsessed with American Networks and Broadcasters which are not available in your country ?
You're Nigerian hero and all his inbred nationalistic Welfare stinking fans seem to be really agitated ever since he got pinged around the ring by a hideous looking blob