Comments Thread For: Paramount Global To Shut Down Showtime Sports; Network Will No Longer Broadcast Boxing

[OnePunch]

Floyd made the blueprint , boxers don't need promoters. What does the promoter really do anyway ? Nothing that the fighters and networks can't hire someone to do for them.

Floyd made the blueprint that ONCE A PROMOTER HAS BUILT A FIGHTER TO A CERTAIN LEVEL, then that fighter no longer needs a promoter.

[PNUT901]

Showtime might have ended up my favorite platform for boxing, as much as I loved HBO. I wasn't old enough to be watching in the 80s, I came around in Tyson/JCC Jr,/Tito/Don King which was a classic time in boxing programming. Over the years, they had experiments by organizing tournaments, covered big overseas fights, weight divisions that HBO didn't really cover like CW; they had that little era with Castillo/Corrales/Casamayor/Freitas, Rafael Marquez/Vazquez trilogy, and plenty of others. During that time in the mid-2000s I think their motto was "no rights, just fights".

They did a lot to develop fighters with SHOBox - at least a dozen champions came out of there. It was my favorite thing for a stretch of years - between ESPN FNF, Telefutura Friday and Shobox there were some good years of watching guys rise up the ranks, SHObox was thetop for me though.

The end of that lineage will be with Jaron Ennis and a couple others. It seems like it's in good hands with Ennis - and as I write this, I think I just became a fan of his and want him to continue/end the great tradition. There's probably more to say, I've watched tons of fights on replay over the years, I often live inside a 90-2000s Showtime or HBO broadcast - the good thing is they leave behind tons of great fights - they're never truly gone,

but still..****!


Dr. Pacheco is incredulous somewhere.

Good post except for you left out BAD , Boxing After Dark. The first fight on the series if memory serves me was Marco Antonio Barrera versus Kennedy Mc Kinnedy , or maybe it was Poison Junior Jones....damn , what a war !! Barrera fought them both on BAD and all of the fights were incredible. A lot of awesome fights and fighters came off of Boxing After Dark.

[md40022]

So, there's a lot to unpack with this....

First off, the paydays that boxers have been receiving have been going up while the TV numbers have been going down. It's been like that for a while and obviously that was a problem waiting to happen. The problem is though, it's a tough cycle to break. Of course the fighters are going to go where the most money is. You can't fault them for that. So if one or two individual promoters start to offer less money, they are screwed. But at the same time, if all the promoters keep putting out these gigantic paydays while the TV numbers just aren't there then eventually the networks are going to pull away.

HBO is an incredibly well run company and they saw where this was heading years ago. Regarding Showtime, it is widely known that the Wilder vs. Breazeale fight was their death. If you recall, that was around the time that DAZN was supposedly offering insane money to Wilder for a fight with Joshua. Showtime (Espinoza) stepped up and went wayyyyy deep into their pockets to pay Wilder for that fight. If you remember, that fight was not a PPV and frankly there wasn't much interest in it. The rumor is that Showtime took a major loss and immediately after that Espinoza's bosses cut his budget big time. If you look at the before and after of the date for Wilder / Breazeale, Showtime only did a small fraction of the fights that they normally do from that point forward. You also saw quite a few PBC fighters fight less and less. Showtime execs weren't giving Espinoza the budget anymore from that point forward. It's also why some really ridiculous fights ended up on PPV (ex: Ruiz / Arreola).

So who is at fault here? Espinoza was ****** for ponying up insane money for a Wilder fight that nobody cared about, but at the same time what are you supposed to do when DAZN is backing a truck full of money into Wilder's driveway? And since then, DAZN's no pay per view policy has went out the window and their monthly subscription fee seems very hard to justify given their lack of quality fights (and now their big fights ARE going to PPV).

Boxing fans loved to dump on Dana White for not paying his fighters, but when the purse money for a major boxing event totals $30-$40 million and the purse money for a major UFC event totals $5 million and on top of that the UFC event is doing just as good if not better TV and gate numbers? That's why UFC is thriving and boxing can't hold down spot on a network.

One very basic piece of business advise that I've heard before is this.... Never start your business with a model that you cannot sustain. And what is meant by that is if you start your business with the best prices and the best deals thinking that it will attract customers (DAZN with their no PPV) you are going to alienate those exact same customers when you realize that you aren't making any money and you have to raise prices. Also, if you start your business spending like a mad-man thinking you will essentially buy customers (PBC with signing every fighter on the planet AND paying for major network TV slots) if you don't hit a grand slam homerun then you are going to be in major financial trouble. Virtually all promoters broke that very basic rule with how they entered the game and/or how their platforms entered the game.... It was recipe for disaster....... Again, fighter purses have been going up and promoters had to keep matching that $$ to stay competitive with competing promoters, meanwhile TV numbers have been going down. This was a recipe for disaster. Just a matter of time.

As for "what's next".... I'm not overly optimistic. Somebody earlier in this thread mentioned NBC. Put yourself in NBC's shoes. WHY would you possibly do that? You went down that path with PBC once before and then pulled the plug because it wasn't profitable. What changed on PBCs end or in boxing that would make you think trying that again would be any different? One thing about Showtime, whether you love them or hate them, they worked hard to stage a good event. It was a top notch production as far as the broadcast itself is concerned. Putting in A+ level production like they did, is an investment. And when the investment isn't worth the return anymore, you pull the plug. So could PBC link up with Amazon? Umm yeah, I guess. But I'm assuming that Amazon is going to want to take a look at PBC's business model because at the end of the day, Amazon is going to want it to be profitable for them. What in PBC's existing business model is going to make Amazon say, "oh yeah, we NEED this." Maybe Amazon gives them a test run for a year or two, but long term? I don't see how this would be anymore appealing to Amazon than it would be to all the other networks and platforms that are pulling the plug on boxing. I could see a scenario where maybe Amazon says here's a short term 2 year contract or here's a 10 fight contract or something and then they reevaluate from there, but barring some ridiculous changes made in the entire sport of boxing I don't see any long term ability to sustain that. Someone in an earlier thread said PBC is "having a great year." Umm, no they aren't. Yeah, they gave us some good fights but that is VERY different than success from a network's standpoint. Spence / Crawford = great fight for the fans. But when that fight is $50,000,000 in purses plus whatever money was invested in promoting the fight, plus whatever money was invested in staging and producing the event the network at the end of the day may not feel PBC is having as "great" of a year as fans thing LOL. As I said before, UFC stages the same type of event for 10% of the purse money.

The real solution here is all of the promoters getting together and saying we are cutting purses in half. That gives you a lot more money for the suit & tie wearing execs to see as profit and that's what keeps you on TV. All promoters would need to be on board with it though, because otherwise if one rogue promoter is still paying outrageous purses, it will sink the ship of those trying to cut down.... Truthfully, I don't like that solution because the fighters deserve the money more so than the corporate dorks but the reality is that the corporate dorks are the ones with the keys to the car.

PBC will probably get a short term "test run" with Amazon or maybe they'll link up with DAZN or some other platform and maybe that stops the bleeding for a little bit, but none of this is good. No individual promoter or company is responsible for this. Boxing did this to itself and all of the parties that be in boxing were either too ****** to realize it or they were just operating with the philosophy of, "all is okay right now, we'll deal with the impending problems when they happen." Boxing is dying a slow death as much as we don't want to say so. What's going to happen is one or two more of these platforms are going to pull the plug in the coming years and boxing is going to end up on some small time platform with very little money to invest. Production value will go in the toilet and the overall money will decrease. To take that a step farther, young fighters will go more towards MMA as boxing dwindles more and more. I don't think this is the actual death of boxing, but it is yet another IV tube that we have to hook up to the sport that's already on life support.

[PNUT901]

Floyd made the blueprint that ONCE A PROMOTER HAS BUILT A FIGHTER TO A CERTAIN LEVEL, then that fighter no longer needs a promoter.

You're right , they have to have some money in their pocket.

[DClefthook]

When PBC first started they bought a bunch of TV time from ESPN in exchange for ESPN killing the Friday Night Fights series. PBC then put fights on different ESPN platforms but the shows were pretty bad and drew horrid numbers. ESPN didnt really care, because PBC bought the airtime and basically gave ESPN the content for free, but ESPN never considered renewing that deal.

At the time, PBC had a bunch of hedge fund money and thought they could run everyone else out of business. The ESPN Friday Night Fights was a platform that pretty much ANY promoter could get a date on, if you offered them an interesting enough fight. I did 3 or 4 of those shows myself. By killing that platform, PBC was able to marginalize some of the mid level promoters, like Main Events, Deguardia, Goosen, Dibella, etc, but it didnt really affect their ACTUAL competitors such as Golden Boy, Top Rank. Matchroom, etc......

You know what I forgot all about that. Sure does suck getting old!

[TreD]

No!!!!

[OnePunch]

So, there's a lot to unpack with this....

First off, the paydays that boxers have been receiving have been going up while the TV numbers have been going down. It's been like that for a while and obviously that was a problem waiting to happen. The problem is though, it's a tough cycle to break. Of course the fighters are going to go where the most money is. You can't fault them for that. So if one or two individual promoters start to offer less money, they are screwed. But at the same time, if all the promoters keep putting out these gigantic paydays while the TV numbers just aren't there then eventually the networks are going to pull away.

HBO is an incredibly well run company and they saw where this was heading years ago. Regarding Showtime, it is widely known that the Wilder vs. Breazeale fight was their death. If you recall, that was around the time that DAZN was supposedly offering insane money to Wilder for a fight with Joshua. Showtime (Espinoza) stepped up and went wayyyyy deep into their pockets to pay Wilder for that fight. If you remember, that fight was not a PPV and frankly there wasn't much interest in it. The rumor is that Showtime took a major loss and immediately after that Espinoza's bosses cut his budget big time. If you look at the before and after of the date for Wilder / Breazeale, Showtime only did a small fraction of the fights that they normally do from that point forward. You also saw quite a few PBC fighters fight less and less. Showtime execs weren't giving Espinoza the budget anymore from that point forward. It's also why some really ridiculous fights ended up on PPV (ex: Ruiz / Arreola).

So who is at fault here? Espinoza was ****** for ponying up insane money for a Wilder fight that nobody cared about, but at the same time what are you supposed to do when DAZN is backing a truck full of money into Wilder's driveway? And since then, DAZN's no pay per view policy has went out the window and their monthly subscription fee seems very hard to justify given their lack of quality fights (and now their big fights ARE going to PPV).

Boxing fans loved to dump on Dana White for not paying his fighters, but when the purse money for a major boxing event totals $30-$40 million and the purse money for a major UFC event totals $5 million and on top of that the UFC event is doing just as good if not better TV and gate numbers? That's why UFC is thriving and boxing can't hold down spot on a network.

One very basic piece of business advise that I've heard before is this.... Never start your business with a model that you cannot sustain. And what is meant by that is if you start your business with the best prices and the best deals thinking that it will attract customers (DAZN with their no PPV) you are going to alienate those exact same customers when you realize that you aren't making any money and you have to raise prices. Also, if you start your business spending like a mad-man thinking you will essentially buy customers (PBC with signing every fighter on the planet AND paying for major network TV slots) if you don't hit a grand slam homerun then you are going to be in major financial trouble. Virtually all promoters broke that very basic rule with how they entered the game and/or how their platforms entered the game.... It was recipe for disaster....... Again, fighter purses have been going up and promoters had to keep matching that $$ to stay competitive with competing promoters, meanwhile TV numbers have been going down. This was a recipe for disaster. Just a matter of time.

As for "what's next".... I'm not overly optimistic. Somebody earlier in this thread mentioned NBC. Put yourself in NBC's shoes. WHY would you possibly do that? You went down that path with PBC once before and then pulled the plug because it wasn't profitable. What changed on PBCs end or in boxing that would make you think trying that again would be any different? One thing about Showtime, whether you love them or hate them, they worked hard to stage a good event. It was a top notch production as far as the broadcast itself is concerned. Putting in A+ level production like they did, is an investment. And when the investment isn't worth the return anymore, you pull the plug. So could PBC link up with Amazon? Umm yeah, I guess. But I'm assuming that Amazon is going to want to take a look at PBC's business model because at the end of the day, Amazon is going to want it to be profitable for them. What in PBC's existing business model is going to make Amazon say, "oh yeah, we NEED this." Maybe Amazon gives them a test run for a year or two, but long term? I don't see how this would be anymore appealing to Amazon than it would be to all the other networks and platforms that are pulling the plug on boxing. I could see a scenario where maybe Amazon says here's a short term 2 year contract or here's a 10 fight contract or something and then they reevaluate from there, but barring some ridiculous changes made in the entire sport of boxing I don't see any long term ability to sustain that. Someone in an earlier thread said PBC is "having a great year." Umm, no they aren't. Yeah, they gave us some good fights but that is VERY different than success from a network's standpoint. Spence / Crawford = great fight for the fans. But when that fight is $50,000,000 in purses plus whatever money was invested in promoting the fight, plus whatever money was invested in staging and producing the event the network at the end of the day may not feel PBC is having as "great" of a year as fans thing LOL. As I said before, UFC stages the same type of event for 10% of the purse money.

The real solution here is all of the promoters getting together and saying we are cutting purses in half. That gives you a lot more money for the suit & tie wearing execs to see as profit and that's what keeps you on TV. All promoters would need to be on board with it though, because otherwise if one rogue promoter is still paying outrageous purses, it will sink the ship of those trying to cut down.... Truthfully, I don't like that solution because the fighters deserve the money more so than the corporate dorks but the reality is that the corporate dorks are the ones with the keys to the car.

PBC will probably get a short term "test run" with Amazon or maybe they'll link up with DAZN or some other platform and maybe that stops the bleeding for a little bit, but none of this is good. No individual promoter or company is responsible for this. Boxing did this to itself and all of the parties that be in boxing were either too ****** to realize it or they were just operating with the philosophy of, "all is okay right now, we'll deal with the impending problems when they happen." Boxing is dying a slow death as much as we don't want to say so. What's going to happen is one or two more of these platforms are going to pull the plug in the coming years and boxing is going to end up on some small time platform with very little money to invest. Production value will go in the toilet and the overall money will decrease. To take that a step farther, young fighters will go more towards MMA as boxing dwindles more and more. I don't think this is the actual death of boxing, but it is yet another IV tube that we have to hook up to the sport that's already on life support.

Pretty solid take.

I personally dont see why Amazon would enter this space. The hardcores just arent a big enough group to move the needle anymore, and if there is a big big fight it will go PPV anyways.


I could see PBC doing a "ProBox" type play maybe and selling subs direct to consumer. It wont be enough money for their top 20 guys to fight on the platform, but they could keep the other 230 guys busy, and just keep putting their top 20 on PPV.

[Oldskoolg]

WTF? The N-word why the hell would I say that? Clown B!cth I don't give two ****s about race

Just be a man and say what you mean kid, dispense with the 4chan dog whistles. Racists are ****** low rent people but even racists get more respect when they are honest

[Brother Mouzone]

Damn RIP ...............I grew up on HBO & Showtime boxing

*****.gif?cid=ecf05e47k9h17vb1r6wp2o5asjgatx4inswa7iq43rl288em&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=*****.gif&ct=g.gif

[Sid-Knee]

been watching boxing since the 80s. HBO, Showtime, ESPN tuesday night fights, USA boxing, ABC wide world of sports, NBC, Spike, BounceTv. Now I guess Amazon prime. Its a new day so it is what it is. Good thing about it is PBC aint going nowhere. They've had three 100 million dollar fights this year so someone is going to pick them up. I know everyone is saying they're going to Prime but my dream scenario would be Espn. PBC and TR with no more sides of the street on the world leader in sports. Damn I hope that happens.

All that talk about Eddie and Matchroom being finished you came out with for years only for me to tell you it's Al and his lot who are finished. You wouldn't listen though. Like i promised you, i'm here to laugh at you.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Deal with these frauds and you'll see how to destroy a sport. If Prime get involved with these idiots, they'll regret it like everyone else who had to deal with them. But then again, ******ity and insanity is the order of the day when it comes to you lot. No wonder the sport has been crippled. It needs to be taken out of the hands of North America for it to survive. If you continue to have any control, the sport will be dead in a few years, tops.