Al Haymon's Venture ship has started to sink

[Nic-NC]

Is someone paying people to go around and complain about free boxing on network television? It's free, absolutely free, as in you don't even need a cable subscription, boxing events. As a boxing fan, why are you complaining about free events? Do you want to watch less of the sport you enjoy? Is not paying for something upsetting to you? Can anyone, using basic logic explain why so many people have an issue with Haymon and the current PBC model? Because as far as I can tell, the PBC shows have exceeded expectations, which means in the future they will formulate a fiscally successful model, and we'll continue to get these events; and I honestly can't see a downside to that.

[RSBonos]

I don't agree with all the negativity, but the lack of advertisers stood out to me too.

[MRCHOKEaMF]

nah, after pac gets destroyed, you guys can have it....Screw these idiots and their senseless racism. You can have it, you just get less fans for a sport you claim to like. lol reverse racism lol, you guys spout **** that you dont hold your favorite boxers to. I will just catch a few matches to keep up and screw you dumbasses....you just kill the sport and think youre helping it, too many other things to do + plus if you take away the top earner and the guy who puts the asses in the seats, what do you have...a bunch of guys crying about boxing being dead. you racist guys are doing it to yourself and the sport you claim to love...but ill be back 5-2 to laugh at you losers and your jimmy swaggart boxer getting beat down, but truthfully **** this sport cause you have the dumbest fans of any sport. Thats why a certain someone will barely break even after he pays his taxes...

[pesticid]

This entire situation puts fans of the sport in a bad spot. I think everyone here likes watching boxing, that is a given. The deal is that in order for this thing to take off, you need money which he has from investors. Also, you need a viable product which only happens if you sell it to the public.

Now, I'm not sure what kind of research had been done prior to all of this but they need to make the sport appealing to potential fans since the idea is to break into a new market. One way to do this is by billing certain fighters as the premier guys of the sport and making sure that they win all their fights in convincing fashion, preferably by KO. This is obviously great but in order to ensure that, you have to match good fighters up with not so good fighters or something along those lines. This puts the "hardcore" fans in a situation where we are forced to watch mismatches but it may be needed to build up fighters for the masses.

Also, as others have mentioned, you might want to have high end production to show the casual observer that this is a quality product, something with backing that is worth taking the time to watch. This feeds into the boxer problem. In order for Haymon to secure talent, he needed to promise them tons of money and they do seem to be getting paid a lot of money to fight for him. The drawback is that paying fighters exorbitant fees means less money for production and commentary which means less appeal for the fans which means potentially lower viewership. So we have an expected lower quality presentation and lower quality of fight already right off the jump that we, as fans of the sport, can look forward to. However, these are just consequences of essentially starting up a new business which as many people probably know are expected to take a loss for the first few years anyways.

But taking a loss in the first few years leads to another issue, investor confidence. Haymon has a guarantee on certain networks for a year or two but what then? What if they don't get the views that they need, are the investors going to loan out additional money? I doubt that is going to happen. What happens when they want their return on investment? What about all the fighters locked into contracts if things don't take off like people hope?

I personally like the "idea" of it all but so far it seems staged to me but it may need to be in order for it to succeed at this point, I don't really know. It doesn't have the same hyped up feeling that fight night on typical Showtime and HBO cards do, I certainly can draw a conclusion there but maybe it will get to that point once money starts coming in. My concern is if it doesn't all work out and then there ends up only being one network to watch boxing and suppose there is a web of legal battles surrounding fighters locked into contracts who can't fight for several years....what happens to boxing then?

excellent post!

[Barcham]

Is someone paying people to go around and complain about free boxing on network television? It's free, absolutely free, as in you don't even need a cable subscription, boxing events. As a boxing fan, why are you complaining about free events? Do you want to watch less of the sport you enjoy? Is not paying for something upsetting to you? Can anyone, using basic logic explain why so many people have an issue with Haymon and the current PBC model? Because as far as I can tell, the PBC shows have exceeded expectations, which means in the future they will formulate a fiscally successful model, and we'll continue to get these events; and I honestly can't see a downside to that.

And that means we cannot give criticism about how it can be made better?

And for these shows to exceed my expectations, they would have to feature fights of equal quality to what we see on HBO and boxers from all promoters, not only those connected to Al Haymon. When this happens, they will have my support. I will not support a boxing 'league' that limits itself to the control of one man and his stable of fighters.

[Barcham]

nah, after pac gets destroyed, you guys can have it....Screw these idiots and their senseless racism. You can have it, you just get less fans for a sport you claim to like. lol reverse racism lol, you guys spout **** that you dont hold your favorite boxers to. I will just catch a few matches to keep up and screw you dumbasses....you just kill the sport and think youre helping it, too many other things to do + plus if you take away the top earner and the guy who puts the asses in the seats, what do you have...a bunch of guys crying about boxing being dead. you racist guys are doing it to yourself and the sport you claim to love...but ill be back 5-2 to laugh at you losers and your jimmy swaggart boxer getting beat down, but truthfully **** this sport cause you have the dumbest fans of any sport. Thats why a certain someone will barely break even after he pays his taxes...

I hold all fighters and all promoters to the same standards. Very few are able to meet those standards, however. Champions should fight the best ranked fighters available, no matter what promotion they are associated with. All champions should defend their title a minimum of twice per year against a top contender. If PBC is the best that boxing fans can expect, if this is what the sport must become to survive, then perhaps it is time to put the sport out to pasture and say goodbye.

[joseph5620]

And that means we cannot give criticism about how it can be made better?

And for these shows to exceed my expectations, they would have to feature fights of equal quality to what we see on HBO and boxers from all promoters, not only those connected to Al Haymon. When this happens, they will have my support. I will not support a boxing 'league' that limits itself to the control of one man and his stable of fighters.

Yeah I'm sure Haymon and his investors are sitting around worried about your advice and approval. Delusional.

[Nic-NC]

And that means we cannot give criticism about how it can be made better?

And for these shows to exceed my expectations, they would have to feature fights of equal quality to what we see on HBO and boxers from all promoters, not only those connected to Al Haymon. When this happens, they will have my support. I will not support a boxing 'league' that limits itself to the control of one man and his stable of fighters.

If you refuse to support one promotion that predominately limits itself to it's own stable of fighters, I hope you carry the same criticism for TR and Golden Boy as well. Because it's not like their TV events feature fighters from other promoters.

My complaint is people are expecting PPV quality fights on free TV. That's ludicrous. And are some of the fights mismatched? Uh-yeah. Welcome to boxing. It's how men amass undefeated records that stretch into the 20s and 30s before facing legit competition. Sit back and enjoy the show - every sport has tune up shows before the big ticket items over championships. Don't start complaining about the integrity of this system in 2015 because someone new came along and beat the top promoters at their own game.

[ShoulderRoll]

And that means we cannot give criticism about how it can be made better?

And for these shows to exceed my expectations, they would have to feature fights of equal quality to what we see on HBO and boxers from all promoters, not only those connected to Al Haymon. When this happens, they will have my support. I will not support a boxing 'league' that limits itself to the control of one man and his stable of fighters.

But why aren't you criticizing others for doing the exact same thing, or in some cases even if worse? What is it about Al Haymon that makes you apply standards to him that you don't apply to anyone else?

For now he's giving you fights on regular TV that are decent matchups with the only one that is having to come out of pocket is him. Why so much hate for that?

[pesticid]

The fights have been mostly dull, the atmosphere, what atmosphere?!? Seriously what atmosphere?!? Like somebody here mentioned, it seems soulless.

No music entrance, no announcer, no ring girls, no shots of the crowd, it's hard to hear the sound from the crowd ( I think they mute it down); the color commentators (Ray Leonard and Virgil Hunter are as bad as they can get).

The play by play commentators speak as much as Lennox Lewis used to when he served as a colour commentator for HBO, they are just terrible.

No translators, the camera angles seem bad like it was filmed by amateurs without the proper equipment. No belts, no mention of division rankings, no real questions.

The match ups - now I understand Al's philosophy is minimizing risk but this is not all there it is to match making; you can have a mismatch but an exciting mismatch. When has Sakio Bika been in an exciting fight and it was a total mismatch. Should have never fought for the lineal championship, that in itself is a joke.

I am not a fan of UFC but just compare their production to that of Al Haymon's mom and pops operation. It's a joke, it feels lifeless. It seems off, everything about it gives me an off-sensation.

I liked the Thurman vs Guerrero fight, now imagine this fight with better tv production, better hype, better atmosphere.