Comments Thread For: Top TV Execs on Al Haymon's PBC Business Plan

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

A private media session recently took place with Mark Lazarus, Sean McManus, John Skipper, and Eric Shanks, the Heads of Sports from CBS, ESPN, Fox, and NBC, discuss the future of broadcast sports in a session moderated by Richard Deitsch, Senior Editor, Sports Illustrated.

During the session, the executives were asked about Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions series which CBS/Showtime, NBC/NBC Sports, Spike TV and ESPN/ABC have time-buy agreements with.

RICHARD SANDOMIR - New York Times

For those of you who do and those of you who don’t associate with Al Haymon on the PBC, how do you think that strategy is going to play out in terms of building interest for boxing?
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[North Star]

Interesting comments. At least they acknowledge the commonality with the UFC model. They also point out that the success will hinge upon increasing demo ratings and luring in advertisers. I also appreciated the honesty that advertisers have been generally weak on boxing on network TV, so at least they aren't kidding themselves and trying to avoid that line of questioning.

[Tom Cruise]

What is the comment from ESPN referring too? seemed to come out of no where

[bigjavi973]

The more ratings pbc gets the more companies would want commercials on those time slots. Throw in some sponsors while you're at it.

[North Star]

What is the comment from ESPN referring too? seemed to come out of no where

I took it as, it's not in the right quadrant for success at the moment. They do say Haymon has a short window of opportunity with this. I wonder what exactly that window is, since he's footing the bill anyway?

[Nightfall]

its not hurting to try

[jjsmyth87]

I think its great haymon is trying to get boxing back on free t.v., however he is not doing himself or boxing itself any favors by continuing to put on cards that aren't that great. Dont get me wrong they have been better than the crap that was on ShowTime last year, however HBO is doing it right by making all these great cards. HBO is having massive success with their cards so far this year, you would think haymon would see that and try to do the same, but I don't think its meant to be that haymon will be the one to make boxing real popular again. He has enough fighters that he could blow out the competition, but lets face it hes not as smart as he gets credit for.

[jjsmyth87]

I took it as, it's not in the right quadrant for success at the moment. They do say Haymon has a short window of opportunity with this. I wonder what exactly that window is, since he's footing the bill anyway?

Hes not in the right quadrant because hes still not putting on the most enticing fights that he could if he wanted to. I'm sure hes only going to get one crack at doing this the right way and so far hes failing. If top rank was doing this it would work for sure.

[pensum]

What is the comment from ESPN referring too? seemed to come out of no where

In tv testing the audience is divided by an XY axis (a vertical and a horizontal line representing age and gender respectively) resulting in four quadrants: males under 25, males over 25, females under 25, females over 25. I would assume that the majority of the boxing audience is males over 25, but that the "right quadrant" for sports broadcasts would be males under 25 as that is the demographic of the primary advertisers (beer, Nike, Axe deodorant, power drinks, etc.).

TV executives, especially for network tv, look at any tv show or broadcast merely as an advertising delivery mechanism as that is how they make their profits. So they are really only interested in audience numbers and demographics, as that is what entices advertisers to purchase air time for their ads.

[SkillspayBills]

I took it as, it's not in the right quadrant for success at the moment. They do say Haymon has a short window of opportunity with this. I wonder what exactly that window is, since he's footing the bill anyway?

2 years. That's when the majority of these deals expire. He has to establish PBC and show that it is a viable brand.