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

[henrykk123456]

Promoters need to come together and create their own streaming service. Something that they would all have a financial interest in seeing succeed. None would make a dent on their own but combined it would pretty much be the ultimate destination for boxing. At that point there would be more reason to make all the big fights rather than keep fighters away from each other. Only recognize one sanctioning body. One champion. Do all that and you basically have a league. Problem solved.

[factsarenice]

Paramount also owns Boxingscene

[turnedup]

You can thank Al’s personal bank, Espinoza for this. Overpaid for so much crap.

[PunchyPotorff]

Typical corporate white shirts being corporate jerks.
It's why I left corporate life behind 35+ years ago and never looked back.
Between Showtime, HBO, early ESPN etc... going way back to 60s boxing on
network TV (brought to you by Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and Schick razor blades)...
lotta great memories of watching boxing history being made.

[Tinman]

Boxing hasn’t been the same since HBO stopped.

[OnePunch]

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.

I dont agree. Boxing thrived in the late 90s all the way through the early 2010s. HBO and Showtime had their "World Championship Boxing" telecasts, and HBO also had Boxing After Dark. The fighters that excelled in those platforms moved on to PPV stardom (DLH, Floyd, Pac, Lennox, etc). What killed it I believe was the ridiculous purse demands (which made the most compelling fights impossible to make), and the demise of ESPN Friday Night Fights. That series was HUGE for the development and exposure of fighters who ultimately went on to HBO and Showtime. Nowdays there is NO career development, no consistent career activity, as many fighters are only fighting once, or sometimes twice a year. Matchmakers like Trampler or Goodman are hardly able to develop fighters anymore, because their managers wont take the tough developmental fights that are necessary to refine skillsets.

I really dont know how this sport can rebound from the hole that it has dug for itself.

[MesicoFistology]

Stephen Espinoza owns everyone an apology then. He acted ****** saying he didn’t know what they were talking about l. Mongoloid weasel idiot.

[Theodore]

I dont agree. Boxing thrived in the late 90s all the way through the early 2010s. HBO and Showtime had their "World Championship Boxing" telecasts, and HBO also had Boxing After Dark. The fighters that excelled in those platforms moved on to PPV stardom (DLH, Floyd, Pac, Lennox, etc). What killed it I believe was the ridiculous purse demands (which made the most compelling fights impossible to make), and the demise of ESPN Friday Night Fights. That series was HUGE for the development and exposure of fighters who ultimately went on to HBO and Showtime. Nowdays there is NO career development, no consistent career activity, as many fighters are only fighting once, or sometimes twice a year. Matchmakers like Trampler or Goodman are hardly able to develop fighters anymore, because their managers wont take the tough developmental fights that are necessary to refine skillsets.

I really dont know how this sport can rebound from the hole that it has dug for itself.

Boxing thrived in the late 90s to early 2010s? It was already a niche sport by then. If you compare the era where you say it "thrived" to 80s and before that, it certainly fell from grace and wasn't a mainstream sport anymore.


This is the era that you said thrived? Boxing was a seriously niche sport at this period.



As far as purse demands. The biggest boxing stars have always had enormous purses dating back to the days of John L. Sulilvan. Look at the purses Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali made in their eras and compare it to baseball stars, basketball stars of that era. It blows it out of the water. Ali and Frazier in their first fight made $2.5 million each in 1971. Baseball stars, football stars, basketball stars were making around 100k. So purse demands isn't the reason.

[OnePunch]

Boxing thrived in the late 90s to early 2010s? It was already a niche sport by then. If you compare the era where you say it "thrived" to 80s and before that, it certainly fell from grace and wasn't a mainstream sport anymore.


This is the era that you said thrived? Boxing was a seriously niche sport at this period.



As far as purse demands. The biggest boxing stars have always had enormous purses dating back to the days of John L. Sulilvan. Look at the purses Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali made in their eras and compare it to baseball stars, basketball stars of that era. It blows it out of the water. Ali and Frazier in their first fight made $2.5 million each in 1971. Baseball stars, football stars, basketball stars were making around 100k. So purse demands isn't the reason.

I wasnt around when John L Sullivan boxed, so I cant attest to the business model back then. But before television, purses were solely dictated by what the live gate numbers were. It was certainly a much more accurate way to determine a fighters true "worth", at least for the top bouts on the show.


But yes, I do think boxing thrived in the 90s and 2000s. Its perfectly fine that you think otherwise. I never said it was the best time ever, as personally I preferred the 80s. But despite my personal preference, as a sport I believe boxing had a pretty good run during the 90s and 00s.

[dan-b]

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.

This is an excellent piece of writing. Do you write for any publications/websites?