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

[Alan Smithee]

Boxing has always had it's ups and downs. The sport will bounce back like it has many times in the past. Wake up calls are a part of life and these current promoters and fighters will have to adjust. The PPV model needs to go back to it's origins of mega fights only. Fighters need to be more active and more reasonable. Obviously the most money with the least risk makes sense in business but this is the fight game. Dudes like Haymon need to realize this. We don't just want to see the best fighters but we want the best fights. Period!

[JLC]

Pirated streams are killing the sport

Surprised no one has said this yet but it’s true. No way on Gods green earth at less than another 700k people MINIMUM streamed Spence v Crawford. The piracy is getting easier to do, and the video quality is improving while freeze ups are reducing.

boxing has a LOT of problems, but this dip in PPV revenue is a big one. Of course boxers are also very much overpaid for the revenue they bring in. The guys at the top of the food chain anyway.

I love the sport. If it goes to Amazon I’ll watch. DAZN probably would be a better option though since there’s already a couple of promoters there. That should help making fights a bit easier.

[DClefthook]

They already worked with Haymon before and it was a disaster.

Forgive me for my ignorance but when did Pbc work with Espn?

[SUBZER0ED]

You’re right! And I cancelled my DAZN subscription. But if they absorb Showtime boxers, promoters, and producers, I’ll be right there again.

If DAZN gets those resources, The subscription price will be sky-high.

[Tag, You're Hit]

Is it? What about the Saudi money?

The Saudi's have only had a handful of cards. And they couldn't get Wilder vs Joshua over the line, though I know it's two different outfits over there. Now that they see what's happening with Showtime they probably won't be shelling out as much going forward.

[SUBZER0ED]

I don't think "hardcore fans" make up the majority of PPV buys. Casuals buy a fight they like the sound of and don't think too much about it, "hardcores" make a lot of angry noise and then stream it.

Really? Do you think casuals drop $85.99 and up to watch a boxing match between fighters they've barely heard of?

[Southpaw16]

In boxing, the best need to consistently fighting the best, or there will be more of the same. Here’s a game everyone can play:

Name your best matchups for next year, nothing crazy keep to best weight classes, and see how many happen. Here’s mine:

- Fury-Usyk
- Wilder-Joshua
- Crawford-Ennis
- Tszyu-Charlo
- Bivol-Beterbiev
- Davis-Stevenson
- Canelo-Benavidez

In a year’s time, how many of those above fights will I see? Probably none besides Fury-Usyk. Haney just ran for his life away from Stevenson and Canelo fought a light middleweight. This has become par for the course to the point where as boxing fans we’ve been programmed to accept it. It’s garbage and we shouldn’t have to accept it. Sorry, but you don’t deserve 80-100 dollars of my money I work my butt off to earn for anything less than these fights. Maybe I shouldn’t be illegally streaming, but goodbye I’ll go watch MMA until this business model is fixed.

[LA_2_Vegas]

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.

[Roadblock]

The almighty dollar strikes again.

[chepboxingking]

Who should be on the last card that can be made? Id like for it to be Tsyzu vs Lil Charlo maybe Plant vs Morrell, Andy Ruiz vs Zhang

Rumors are both Thurman and DSG in separate bouts and a Floyd exhibition. Again, those are rumors.