Tweet
So is a Tulip Worth More than a Berto?
By Steve Kim
As of right now, it’s not clear when we’ll see Andre Berto in the upcoming months. Berto, the current WBC welterweight champion, began 2010 with an appointment to face Shane Mosley but those plans were scuttled when he dropped out of that fight citing his need to go to Haiti, which had just suffered a catastrophic earthquake (which had an impact on his relatives). He eventually faced Carlos Quintana in April, stopping the Puerto Rican in eight.
For that fight, he garnered a license fee of around $1.5-1.6 million for HBO according to industry sources, which has televised his last seven bouts. That fight took place at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida and was billed as “The Fight for Haiti,” a fundraiser to help those who were affected by the tragic events in January.
Less than 1,000 tickets were sold.
So why is Berto worth seven figures to any network? (Some would say that being part of the other “HBO”- the (Al) Haymon Boxing Organization”- has a lot to do with it) There used to be a time when fighters’ market value was determined by how many asses they put in seats and what their gate receipts were. Now, it just seems to be the whim of network executives who certainly tend to play favorites with particular en******. There seems to be no real correlation between fighters’ actual worth and what is being handed to them by the networks.
"Absolutely, it’s totally arbitrary," said veteran promoter Bob Arum, a couple of weeks ago. "It’s based completely on how the representatives for the fighter can bull**** the network. Because, I mean, you get a kid like Andre Berto and Lou DiBella called me up and he said, ’How much do you think HBO would pay for a [Miguel] Cotto-Berto fight?’ I said, ’How much do you think?’ He said, ’About three million.’ I said, ’What does your guy want to do the fight?’ He said, ’About $1.8 million.’
"I said, ’Are you f**kin’ nuts?! Your guy can’t sell a ticket,’ Arum recalled. “It’s a totally artificial market. This reminds me of the tulips. Do you remember the tulips? Where they were selling tulips for unbelievable money; there was a market being made in tulips and suddenly, one day people said, ’What, are we crazy? They’re tulip bulbs!’ and the market collapsed overnight."
Cotto is a star, a true, bona fide ticket seller with a pay-per-view pedigree that was masterfully developed by Arum. Berto, well, he’s a guy that’s gotten paid a lot of money by Home Box Office to face the likes of Juan Urango, Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Steve Forbes, among others, in front of sparse crowds. But can you blame Berto for believing he should receive more money to face Cotto than he did these other hand-picked foes?
But it happens more than you think. Overpay a fighter for a string of softies and, invariably, you’ll see that boxers are asked to take cuts for much tougher, highly anticipated fights.
Ass backwards don’t you think? And it’s part of a system- which has turned many promoters into nothing more than television packagers- which is fractured and mangled.
Lou DiBella, who promotes Berto (at least on paper), and once ran HBO’s boxing franchise in another lifetime says, "The systems broken in many, many ways. I don’t think you can just point to that and say the system is broken. I also think there is an expectation that’s always been on the part of every fighter and it goes back generations. I mean, I’m in this business over a generation; 21 years and a fighter always expects- if he keeps winning- to be compensated at a higher number for fighting a greater risk. That’s always been the case. The problem now is the economics simply don’t work. That the television ratings are not through the roof; the boxing shows are not generating the same audiences they once did. The demographics, which is more interesting to an advertiser, but it also affects a television network because HBO and Showtime are looking for new subscribers and we’re not attracting young people.
Added DiBella, "Boxing’s demo among many young people needs to improve. I think there’s a lot of factors. I think the system’s broken, in general."
So what should constitute a fighter’s worth?
"It’s the ability to sell tickets or even the ability to get ratings. These guys can’t get ratings," said Arum.
Another barometer is pay-per-view sales. En****** like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have long ago proven their value on this platform (which is the main reason they will never appear back on premium cable). "There are only certain pay-per-view fighters that a promoter will put up money for. See, that’s what people forget when I do a pay-per-view," Arum continued, "HBO isn’t putting up a dime; nobody’s putting up a dime except me. So I’m going to make the best business deal possible and, therefore, it’s like a movie producer. Y’ know, if I’m producing a movie, I want to get Julia Roberts because I know she sells tickets. So I get my investment back.
"So when I do a fight on pay-per-view, I want to go with a fighter that has a track record on pay-per-view. Now, it happens that most of the fighters who have track records on pay-per-view are promoted by us because we do pay-per-view shows. Antonio Margarito (who faces Pacquiao in November) has a pay-per-view record coming off the fight with Cotto; it did 500,000 homes. You look at the other fighters, other than Mayweather; who has a pay-per-view record? Well, you can make a case for Shane Mosley, right? The Oscar fights and so forth. You can make a case for Juan Manuel Marquez because he’s been on pay-per-view. How many others can you make a case for?" Arum asked.
Certainly not guys like Berto and Paul Williams, two fighters who have made highly lucrative paydays which were subsidized by HBO. Which is why Arum, outside of any reasons from a purely boxing standpoint, is unwilling to throw those guys in there with his two pay-per-view stal*****, Cotto and Pacquiao. They might be good enough to leverage their relationship with Al Haymon into lucrative deals but they really don’t bring much to the table.
Arum says flatly, "So if I’m going to put up money, I’m basing it on having a guy who has a track record of selling pay-per-views and selling seats."
Back in the heyday of Oscar De La Hoya’s run with Top Rank, Arum eventually made anticipated fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Ike Quartey. The reasons was very simple, Trinidad was built into an attraction by Don King and brought his Puerto Rican constituency. Quartey, who was handled by Main Events, while not a blockbuster ticket seller, became a well-known quantity after regular appearances on HBO, during an era when their ratings for boxing were much higher than they are today.
But using Arum’s standards, both Berto and Williams fail miserably. According to my colleague at www.theBoxingtruth.com, John Chavez (who has always provided accurate and detailed Nielsen ratings), Berto-Quintana had an average of around 998,000 live viewers on HBO, which has approximately 40 million subscribers (http://www.timewarner.com/corp/busin...hbo/index.html) and- according to this story: http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/65987- sold 972 tickets, generating $105,759 in revenue. From the Home Depot Center in Carson, California in May, Williams-Cintron had approximately 1.116 million live viewers and did a paid attendance of 2,422 that generated $135,640. According to this pre-fight article on InsideFights.com by Paul Magno
(http://insidefights.com/2010/05/06/s...snt-it-happen/), Williams got a purse of $944,000, which was undoubtedly financed by the network. Other sources say that Williams received in upwards of $1.5 million from HBO for that assignment.
(To many, if not all in the industry, it’s not just a coincidence that they are “advised” by Haymon who- in a pugilistic case of the tail wagging the dog- has an incredible amount of sway with HBO for whatever reason.)
But again, why is HBO underwriting these events in such an exorbitant manner?
"It’s completely subjective and I think it’s become more and more subjective. I think it’s very hard to figure out," admitted DiBella, who has benefited from this arrangement as it relates to Berto and Jermain Taylor, before him. "I think it’s very hard to figure out. Look, it was always subjective but y’ know, in the old days, there were less alternatives of programming and boxing had a bigger following than it has right now. The ratings were bigger and more quantifiable. In other words, you knew if a guy did an 8-rating or a 5-rating or whatever. Now, the ratings are much different than they were; boxing still has an audience but it’s compressed and the difference between audiences is hard to determine who’s valued where. It’s also somewhat self-perpetuating; if the network spends more money marketing it, the fight does better."
This current system has benefited a handful of promoters (like Golden Boy, which has an exclusive output deal with HBO), fighters and advisers but it has come at the expense of the overall sport. Boxers have, for the most part, become part-time practitioners and now, potential fights are often bogged down in laborious negotiations. And in the era of social networking, which is utilized more and more by boxers who aren’t shy to put their feelings or their business out on the street, they are now the targets of derision from the very fans they depend on to support them.
Fans want gladiators, not boxers with a sense of entitlement who act like trust fund babies.
By Steve Kim
As of right now, it’s not clear when we’ll see Andre Berto in the upcoming months. Berto, the current WBC welterweight champion, began 2010 with an appointment to face Shane Mosley but those plans were scuttled when he dropped out of that fight citing his need to go to Haiti, which had just suffered a catastrophic earthquake (which had an impact on his relatives). He eventually faced Carlos Quintana in April, stopping the Puerto Rican in eight.
For that fight, he garnered a license fee of around $1.5-1.6 million for HBO according to industry sources, which has televised his last seven bouts. That fight took place at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida and was billed as “The Fight for Haiti,” a fundraiser to help those who were affected by the tragic events in January.
Less than 1,000 tickets were sold.
So why is Berto worth seven figures to any network? (Some would say that being part of the other “HBO”- the (Al) Haymon Boxing Organization”- has a lot to do with it) There used to be a time when fighters’ market value was determined by how many asses they put in seats and what their gate receipts were. Now, it just seems to be the whim of network executives who certainly tend to play favorites with particular en******. There seems to be no real correlation between fighters’ actual worth and what is being handed to them by the networks.
"Absolutely, it’s totally arbitrary," said veteran promoter Bob Arum, a couple of weeks ago. "It’s based completely on how the representatives for the fighter can bull**** the network. Because, I mean, you get a kid like Andre Berto and Lou DiBella called me up and he said, ’How much do you think HBO would pay for a [Miguel] Cotto-Berto fight?’ I said, ’How much do you think?’ He said, ’About three million.’ I said, ’What does your guy want to do the fight?’ He said, ’About $1.8 million.’
"I said, ’Are you f**kin’ nuts?! Your guy can’t sell a ticket,’ Arum recalled. “It’s a totally artificial market. This reminds me of the tulips. Do you remember the tulips? Where they were selling tulips for unbelievable money; there was a market being made in tulips and suddenly, one day people said, ’What, are we crazy? They’re tulip bulbs!’ and the market collapsed overnight."
Cotto is a star, a true, bona fide ticket seller with a pay-per-view pedigree that was masterfully developed by Arum. Berto, well, he’s a guy that’s gotten paid a lot of money by Home Box Office to face the likes of Juan Urango, Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Steve Forbes, among others, in front of sparse crowds. But can you blame Berto for believing he should receive more money to face Cotto than he did these other hand-picked foes?
But it happens more than you think. Overpay a fighter for a string of softies and, invariably, you’ll see that boxers are asked to take cuts for much tougher, highly anticipated fights.
Ass backwards don’t you think? And it’s part of a system- which has turned many promoters into nothing more than television packagers- which is fractured and mangled.
Lou DiBella, who promotes Berto (at least on paper), and once ran HBO’s boxing franchise in another lifetime says, "The systems broken in many, many ways. I don’t think you can just point to that and say the system is broken. I also think there is an expectation that’s always been on the part of every fighter and it goes back generations. I mean, I’m in this business over a generation; 21 years and a fighter always expects- if he keeps winning- to be compensated at a higher number for fighting a greater risk. That’s always been the case. The problem now is the economics simply don’t work. That the television ratings are not through the roof; the boxing shows are not generating the same audiences they once did. The demographics, which is more interesting to an advertiser, but it also affects a television network because HBO and Showtime are looking for new subscribers and we’re not attracting young people.
Added DiBella, "Boxing’s demo among many young people needs to improve. I think there’s a lot of factors. I think the system’s broken, in general."
So what should constitute a fighter’s worth?
"It’s the ability to sell tickets or even the ability to get ratings. These guys can’t get ratings," said Arum.
Another barometer is pay-per-view sales. En****** like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have long ago proven their value on this platform (which is the main reason they will never appear back on premium cable). "There are only certain pay-per-view fighters that a promoter will put up money for. See, that’s what people forget when I do a pay-per-view," Arum continued, "HBO isn’t putting up a dime; nobody’s putting up a dime except me. So I’m going to make the best business deal possible and, therefore, it’s like a movie producer. Y’ know, if I’m producing a movie, I want to get Julia Roberts because I know she sells tickets. So I get my investment back.
"So when I do a fight on pay-per-view, I want to go with a fighter that has a track record on pay-per-view. Now, it happens that most of the fighters who have track records on pay-per-view are promoted by us because we do pay-per-view shows. Antonio Margarito (who faces Pacquiao in November) has a pay-per-view record coming off the fight with Cotto; it did 500,000 homes. You look at the other fighters, other than Mayweather; who has a pay-per-view record? Well, you can make a case for Shane Mosley, right? The Oscar fights and so forth. You can make a case for Juan Manuel Marquez because he’s been on pay-per-view. How many others can you make a case for?" Arum asked.
Certainly not guys like Berto and Paul Williams, two fighters who have made highly lucrative paydays which were subsidized by HBO. Which is why Arum, outside of any reasons from a purely boxing standpoint, is unwilling to throw those guys in there with his two pay-per-view stal*****, Cotto and Pacquiao. They might be good enough to leverage their relationship with Al Haymon into lucrative deals but they really don’t bring much to the table.
Arum says flatly, "So if I’m going to put up money, I’m basing it on having a guy who has a track record of selling pay-per-views and selling seats."
Back in the heyday of Oscar De La Hoya’s run with Top Rank, Arum eventually made anticipated fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Ike Quartey. The reasons was very simple, Trinidad was built into an attraction by Don King and brought his Puerto Rican constituency. Quartey, who was handled by Main Events, while not a blockbuster ticket seller, became a well-known quantity after regular appearances on HBO, during an era when their ratings for boxing were much higher than they are today.
But using Arum’s standards, both Berto and Williams fail miserably. According to my colleague at www.theBoxingtruth.com, John Chavez (who has always provided accurate and detailed Nielsen ratings), Berto-Quintana had an average of around 998,000 live viewers on HBO, which has approximately 40 million subscribers (http://www.timewarner.com/corp/busin...hbo/index.html) and- according to this story: http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/65987- sold 972 tickets, generating $105,759 in revenue. From the Home Depot Center in Carson, California in May, Williams-Cintron had approximately 1.116 million live viewers and did a paid attendance of 2,422 that generated $135,640. According to this pre-fight article on InsideFights.com by Paul Magno
(http://insidefights.com/2010/05/06/s...snt-it-happen/), Williams got a purse of $944,000, which was undoubtedly financed by the network. Other sources say that Williams received in upwards of $1.5 million from HBO for that assignment.
(To many, if not all in the industry, it’s not just a coincidence that they are “advised” by Haymon who- in a pugilistic case of the tail wagging the dog- has an incredible amount of sway with HBO for whatever reason.)
But again, why is HBO underwriting these events in such an exorbitant manner?
"It’s completely subjective and I think it’s become more and more subjective. I think it’s very hard to figure out," admitted DiBella, who has benefited from this arrangement as it relates to Berto and Jermain Taylor, before him. "I think it’s very hard to figure out. Look, it was always subjective but y’ know, in the old days, there were less alternatives of programming and boxing had a bigger following than it has right now. The ratings were bigger and more quantifiable. In other words, you knew if a guy did an 8-rating or a 5-rating or whatever. Now, the ratings are much different than they were; boxing still has an audience but it’s compressed and the difference between audiences is hard to determine who’s valued where. It’s also somewhat self-perpetuating; if the network spends more money marketing it, the fight does better."
This current system has benefited a handful of promoters (like Golden Boy, which has an exclusive output deal with HBO), fighters and advisers but it has come at the expense of the overall sport. Boxers have, for the most part, become part-time practitioners and now, potential fights are often bogged down in laborious negotiations. And in the era of social networking, which is utilized more and more by boxers who aren’t shy to put their feelings or their business out on the street, they are now the targets of derision from the very fans they depend on to support them.
Fans want gladiators, not boxers with a sense of entitlement who act like trust fund babies.
Continued...
Comment