Comments Thread For: Showtime Head on Crawford's 'Transparency' Demands: Absolutely Baffling; Got to Have Certain Level of Trust

[al-Xander]

Crawford won't fight Ennis. That falls out of line with the criteria he uses to pick opponents, I mean unless Ennis suddenly loses a bunch of skills.

Tell Espinoza to make the fight. Crawford is a free agent. He is network homeless. Seems silly to expect a guy with no network affiliation to make the offer. Ennis is a Showtime fighter. Go and email the Showtime boss to start doing his job.

[Rebelrbg]

Tell Espinoza to make the fight. Crawford is a free agent. He is network homeless. Seems silly to expect a guy with no network affiliation to make the offer. Ennis is a Showtime fighter. Go and email the Showtime boss to start doing his job.

Will do, but like I stated, Bud won't fight him, he'll find somebody safe like Rocha or Speedy Ellis, beat them up really good, and claim to be the best fighter in the world.

[Doubledagger]

This was very dramatic negotiations to start with. This is the first time I’ve seen a major fight being negotiated in the public since Leonard Hagler. Spence opened the negotiations saying Crawford has to take 60-40, or whatever he was willing to give him. Why didn’t negotiations start and resolve in the private. That was disrespectful.
Crawford didn’t say he wanted say so over the expenses, he said he wanted transparency over the expenses. You have one fighter who is P4P over boxing by many experts, and another fighter who is the unified champion of the division. Both fighters who sell out any arena in their hometown. Neither fighter is selling a million pay per views. Spence to his credit nearly doubles with a peaking 600 thousand PPV sales and Crawford a peaking 350 PPV sales. Let’s make both fighters happy and give the fans and sport what it wants.

This is a blatant lie. Spence said that LONG before negotiations started.

Soon as he was signed to fight Ugas, Spence stopped talking about splits and started talking about how he was willing to make some concessions to get the fight done.

[Kzbox]

Crawford does nothing but lie so i won't trust that guy what happened to that Bob Arum lawsuit Crawford? thought he was "stopping you fighting the best" "being racist" dude is a straight clown seriously. Now you are out the contract yet still can't get big fights? gtfoh.

[tkoboxingscene]

I see what you are saying, but struggle to find either Garcia relevant at WW either tbh. I think Kell at the time they fought is easily Spence's best win.

Still better than the guys bud fought from 135 - 147.

[-MEGA-]

PBC isn't losing those belts to anybody they don't already have under contract. Simple as that

[Monty Fisto]

Wow, Espinoza really? You made a case for Crawford being wary, you and the promotor must thing people are dumb all Bud was asking for was to see all the expenses, including the jacked up ones you guys would use to reduce his share.

The problem isn't seeing the expenses, as Espinoza explained in the article, it was asking for having a power of veto, that he had to sign off on expenses, which is unrealistic because it is such an obvious potential blocker at any stage of the proceedings.

Espinoza says, with regard to transparency, that there are financial accounts. Everything is in those. This is true. The contract could have covered various common contingencies. Eg. these are the typical costs for an event of this type and size. Parties agree not to spend x% more than a typical cost or incur a penalty fee. Crawford's lawyers would have been able to draw up something that covered it, no problem.

Espinoza says Crawford wanted not transparency, but signoff. Is he telling the truth?

Well, Crawford said this last year after pulling out of negotiations: "You know, I wanna be able to write off on, you know, things that’s gonna affect my check."

This certainly sounds like what Espinoza is describing.

I really don't think you can plan an event like this where you contintually need sign off on costs from one of the fighters.

[LAchargers373]

Let’s be clear. Dud didn’t want transparency. He wants AUTHORITY. He wants to authorize and sign off on everything and have it run by him before it’s produced. That’s not how it works.

[champion4ever]

False.....Crawford walked out because of the transparency issue,not because of the zero gaurantee and the ridiculously short end of a split,at 35%. That he already agreed to which is unheard of. Did you want him to supply Haymon with the jar Vaseline as well?!?

Not Crawfords fault Haymon/PBC is broke and or Haymon has skeletons to hide.Crawford got tired of being walked/lead on for months and walked right on over to someone willing to pay him a gaurantee for a fight without a ridiculously structured offer. Simple stuff here. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.....

Well that's exactly why he won't be getting the Errol Spence fight because he only wants it on his own terms but lacks both the backing and leverage in order to get it. Besides, the PBC doesn't owe Terence Bud Duckford anything nor do they need his services.

It's not like he is going get them any more money by bringing in new fans or by putting more meat in the seats. You can see how no other major promotional company has made him any offers since leaving Top rank and becoming a free agent because he has failed to build and establish his brand.

Moreover, you contradicted yourself. First you said the fight didn't happen because Bud wanted financial transparency.
Then you said quote: "Crawford got tired of being walked/lead on for months and walked right on over to someone willing to pay him aguarantee for a fight without a ridiculously structured offer. Simple stuff here. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush....."

So which is it sunshine? What was the reason for Bud Duckford walking away from the negotiations? Was it do to a lack of financial transparency or was due to a lack of guaranteed money?

[OnePunch]

I agree that you cannot give approval over every line item in a promotion to the co-promoter, but there was an EASY way to fix this if PBC actually wanted to.


"Transparency" on its own is useless, if you cant say no to certain things. If Haymon were to fully disclose that he overpaid the undercard (all PBC fighters) by $1 million, there is nothing Bud could do about it. So the way to fix it would have been to agree on a budget up front, and then any OVERAGES need mutual approval. Thats the best way to run a co-promotion when it is a straight revenue split.

So in the beginning you get together and you say "ok, we are spending $1.5 million on the undercard, the press tour will cost about $300k, another $600k or so in TV spots, radio, and print media", etc etc, and you agree to fully disclose ALL incoming revenue. Everyone signs off on that. And then if anything is potentially going to go OVER budget, you have a meeting or a phone call and get mutual agreement.


Its not that difficult.......