Comments Thread For: PBC on ESPN Averages 799K Viewers, Peaks at 1.1 Million

[Cinci Champ]

these numbers will raise over time but i dont care what anyone says the mma just had the biggest ppv in their history saturday and it had to have an effect

[Weebler I]

Tell us what boxing entity has always done this?

When the other en****** do not give you the fights you want, you say OK, I will wait until the next fight Or, you enjoy what you get.

Why would you behave differently with this entity?

No boxing entity has had this kind of financial war chest and number of boxers.

The amount of money they're forking out could have been put towards making great fights fans wanted, but it's just being squandered along with the opportunity to create new fans.

Ratings are sliding, I don't think it had to be that way.

[Cinci Champ]

The problem with people comparing this to UFC and how UFC sold to Fox for their TV deal is UFC is just a much cheaper product. The fighters make peanuts compared to what boxers make. And that's exaggerated now that PBC is grossly overpaying and outbidding themselves with ridiculous fight purses most of which for mismatched fights. That's just bad business and makes PBC too expensive a product to produce. For example most UFC cards the fighters combined don't make as much as PBC just paid Keith Thurman to fight Collazo no less. A fighter he had no business fighting at this stage. And what **** for their buck did that get them? Thurman has to defend the fact that he is fighting Collazo all last week and it got crappy TV ratings and only 4K showed up for the fight. Either PBC slashes the purses and scales down how much money they are spending for these fights or they will bleed through money at a rate that forces the investors to bail out. HBO/Showtime put on a better product with half the budget PBC is spending. It's basically like paying double the price for a knockoff Rolex.

no the reason u are wrong is the money is there on both ends its just in the ufc the promoter and manager keep the lions share where as in the pbc the fighters get the lion share

[bigdunny1]

Biggest problem with PBC: They call themselves "Premier Boxing Champions" but all the premier fighters are with other promoters/networks.

Yeah if you do a break down of all the divisions and list how many fighters who are considered the best in that division are fighting under PBC? You got Mayweather who is without a doubt considered the best in his division but he doesn't fight on PBC. Fact is all the guys you name who are considered the best are not with Haymon and he doesn't allow his best fighters to fight those top guys from other promoters. And rarely is putting his own best fighters up against each other. Instead we get Thurman vs Collazo. That doesn't interest fans and you watering down your own product by having so many cards on so many networks when about 80% of these fights are gross mismatches with fighters who are NOT considered the best in their division and they are not fighting the guys who are. The casual fans who showed up when PBC debuted to see what this is didn't like the product and have not come back this is evident by the drop from month to month in TV ratings.

[Scipio2009]

I'd be all for that if I felt that the person in charge would put the best guys against each other.

Can you hand on heart say you believe that is going to happen under PBC? I'm just looking at the match-ups and see little indication of it.

I mean, what is this?

@steveucnlive August 15,PBC in Montréal on NBC Sports.Lucian Bute vs Andrea Di Luisa and Eleider Alvarez vs Isidro Ranoni Prieto

— Carl Mitton Marchand (@cmm30) July 14, 2015

Bute hasn't fought in almost two years, and this fight is on NBCSN.

what were you honestly expecting? Bute gets to put his face back on people's TVs, knock off some rust, and then start to position himself for meaningful fights against the other PBC-affiliated 168lbers.

[El-blanco]

People need to consider the budget of these shows when talking about the ratings they're pulling in. Cops and teen mom get better ratings than these shows for a fraction of the budget. These numbers are terrible.

[wlliam]

Disappointed in the #s. PBC is gonna keep falling short with the casual audience, especially showcasing guys with their newly adopted "conservative" styles. Haymon has a solid, respectable vision, but i question if he knows what hes doing when it comes to matchmaking. The casual audience wants to see all-action fights, they dont wanna see Lara stinkn the joint out or RunTime or Khan clinchin for dear life. Dont get me wrong, i actually appreciate the technical aspect of boxing(not Satursdays Thurman or Khan). The casuals dont wanna see that ****, the hardcores arent getn their fights either, Whats freakn wrong with making the fights we actually want to see?? Whats wrong with actually putn ur best guys against each other??? I wanna see PBC succeed, im just not liking the product. The irritating part is that Haymon very well can bcuz hes got alot of the names

[The Big Dunn]

No boxing entity has had this kind of financial war chest and number of boxers.

The amount of money they're forking out could have been put towards making great fights fans wanted, but it's just being squandered along with the opportunity to create new fans.

Ratings are sliding, I don't think it had to be that way.

No boxing entity was determined to be a failure after 6 months.

They appear to be using the money to attract already established fighters and put them in fights down the road.

We do not know if better fights would get better ratings, especially when casual fans like "stars" more than competitive fights.

I would think you and others would give another entity time to develop.

[bigdunny1]

no the reason u are wrong is the money is there on both ends its just in the ufc the promoter and manager keep the lions share where as in the pbc the fighters get the lion share

Exactly the promoters in UFC keep the money that gets generated and don't have to pay nearly as much back to the fighters. A lot easier to put on events when you are paying 1/10th the fight purses that boxing is doing. PBC paying fighters too much to make a profit. Even worse when you overpaying the market value just so they can fight mismatches. UFC forces top fighters to fight each other and pays them both far less then PBC pays Thurman to fight a mismatch Collazo. And the fans are happy they got what they wanted to see meanwhile in PBC fans feel cheated when they get fights like Collazo.

[bigdunny1]

these numbers will raise over time but i dont care what anyone says the mma just had the biggest ppv in their history saturday and it had to have an effect

The problem is this is not an isolated incident. There have been multiple PBC fights that did not go head to head with UFC and yet still produced bad TV Ratings. And the ratings have trended down each month since PBC launched. A few fights ago people were blaming the low ratings on Golf airing the same day. Before that blaming the NBA, Hockey, baseball, tennis. News flash other sports air all year long too. Can't wait to hear the excuses when College Football comes back in the fall. This is more about PBC then it is about other sports. Casual fans don't care about the product PBC is putting out.