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

[BennyBlanco]

Boxing was at it's most popular when it aired for free on live TV. PPV is what made it a niche sport. Nobody follows it except for hardcore fans. Even PBC was talking free TV when they started. Now every show is a PPV. Sorry, greedy promoters did this.

This is a comically bad take.

Greedy promoters didn't make network TV abandoned boxing. Network TV abandoned boxing when a fighter DIED ON NATIONAL TV (Kim Duk-koo). Network TV did not want to be associated with that, and neither did advertisers.

So boxing went where advertisers were less important - i.e., cable - and where advertisers were irrelevant - i.e., HBO and Showtime. That wasn't because promoters were greedy. IT WAS BECAUSE NETWORK TV AND ITS ADVERTISERS DID NOT WANT BOXING ANYMORE BECAUSE IT'S BAD FOR BUSINESS WHEN A FIGHTERS DOES ON LIVE NETWORK TV.

And now people are still arguing that putting boxing behind a pay wall makes it smaller. AS IF THE BIGGEST AND MOST POPULAR SHOWS AVAILABLE AREN'T BEHIND PAY WALLS.

Pay wall didn't stop Game of Thrones from becoming huge.
Pay wall doesn't stop Netflix from being the most profitable media company in the world.
Pay wall doesn't stop Prime Video and Hulu from having some of the most popular shows around.

it's time to stop with the ****** narrative that having to pay for content makes it less popular. Have you seen the ratings on free TV lately? Not good.

[BennyBlanco]

I suspected since last year that PBC was done because they were hardly putting on any shows. And then 2023 rolls around and practically EVERYTHING is a PPV show. I was ignorant, though, that the money that dried up was Showtime money apparently. And PPV was the only way for them to work it for a little longer.

Showtime has done like 20 shows this year. Four have been PPV.

So how is "EVERYTHING" a PPV show now??????

[BennyBlanco]

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).

This is perhaps the ******est post I've ever read on this forum.

Showtime has been doing more fights in each of the last few years than they ever have. Espinoza says it at every press conference.

There are interviews out there in which he says 2021 was their biggest budget year and 2022 would be even bigger.

And then you start saying B.S. like blaming Showtime for Ruiz-Arreola PPV. THAT WASN'T EVEN A SHOWTIME PPV, IT WAS ON FOX. So how is that a Showtime budget issue?

[BennyBlanco]

As said, boxing killed itself when the top fighters and upcoming fighters went to HBO and Showtime and then the biggest fights were on PPV. HBO and Showtime doesn't have the reach of prime time networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox. Imagine if the NFL went off regular network and on only HBO and Showtime and then have their playoff games and Superbowl on PPV. The audience won't decline right away, but over the years? It will. Not to mentioned boxing is not a HS or college sport to replenish its participants like the other sports. It was suicidal to go to premium cable channels and limiting your audience.

BOXING DIDN'T CHOOSE GO TO CABLE. Network TV stopped being interest in boxing when Mancini killed a fighter in the ring on live TV. That's what networks and their advertisers stopped being involved in boxing. Cable was the only choice left for boxing to survive.

[Pigeons]

Showtime has done like 20 shows this year. Four have been PPV.

So how is "EVERYTHING" a PPV show now??????

The fights on regular Showtime feature matchups no one asked or called for.

[wrecksracer]

This is a comically bad take.

Greedy promoters didn't make network TV abandoned boxing. Network TV abandoned boxing when a fighter DIED ON NATIONAL TV (Kim Duk-koo). Network TV did not want to be associated with that, and neither did advertisers.

So boxing went where advertisers were less important - i.e., cable - and where advertisers were irrelevant - i.e., HBO and Showtime. That wasn't because promoters were greedy. IT WAS BECAUSE NETWORK TV AND ITS ADVERTISERS DID NOT WANT BOXING ANYMORE BECAUSE IT'S BAD FOR BUSINESS WHEN A FIGHTERS DOES ON LIVE NETWORK TV.

And now people are still arguing that putting boxing behind a pay wall makes it smaller. AS IF THE BIGGEST AND MOST POPULAR SHOWS AVAILABLE AREN'T BEHIND PAY WALLS.

Pay wall didn't stop Game of Thrones from becoming huge.
Pay wall doesn't stop Netflix from being the most profitable media company in the world.
Pay wall doesn't stop Prime Video and Hulu from having some of the most popular shows around.

it's time to stop with the ****** narrative that having to pay for content makes it less popular. Have you seen the ratings on free TV lately? Not good.

Your clown take is hilarious. Nobody is paying $80 per episode for Game of Thrones. That's what ran boxing from a popular attraction into what it is now.

[paulf]

The things you guys are talking about in this thread come down to the fact that boxing is not a unified sport - its a series of independent leagues that choose to copromote when it suits them.

NBA, NFL, FIFA etc call the shots when it comes to something like a reports credentials being revoked. Boxing is the Wild West - each league does what it wants and answers to no one.

People complaining about PBC fighters not fighting Top Rank fighters or vice versa.... it's always exhausted me. It's like calling for the UFC and Bellator champs to fight one another. Could it happen, legally? Yes. Will it? In there any mechanism to force it to happen? Fuck no. Top Rank and PBC have two great fighters and dont want to let their guys go to rival networks? There are four belts to choose from, and if they both want the same belt the sanctioning bodies will just make up two belts in that weight class.

It's a joke. Boxing in the United States is in a bad way because it's a poor product. HBO being gone effectively moved all the midsized promoters Dibella and Duva off TV entirely, and the major promoters get blank checks from promoters in exchange for exclusive agreements.

The UFC has 12 fights almost every weekend - 4 fights in the main card, 4 fights in the prelim, and 4 more in the free early prelims. Those 4 early prelims each weekend are always more competitive and exciting than any boxing PPV main card I've seen the past decade. Unless that changes..... boxing will continue to disappear from mainstream America.

[Tag, You're Hit]

Showtime has done like 20 shows this year. Four have been PPV.

So how is "EVERYTHING" a PPV show now??????

Well, "everything" wasn't meant to be literal. Most of the fights that weren't PPV were basically C or B level shows (no big names). They picked up the Tszyu fights, which was good.

[Southpawology]

This is sad. No more showtime production, al bernstein commentating, jimmy lennon jr introductions, all access.

Into the graveyard of boxing nostalgia with HBO.

Truly sad.

[dan-b]

Your clown take is hilarious.

He may have had some reasonable points, but he has that annoying habit forumites have of trying too hard and playing to a gallery. "Comically bad", "******est take", etc. He just means he disagrees but that sounds less dramatic.