Comments Thread For: Peter Nelson Named Executive Vice President, HBO Sports

[OnePunch]

ward has an HBO deal, so to say they are not his promoter/manager of record but surely function in that way to a degree since he is signed to them. Roc is also paying Ward directly, as they did cotto, hoping to get the money back

You do get it. Haymon is doing with Lara, huge up front payment to help secure a TV deal and bigger money later.

If Al is thinking that a guy like Lara is going to drive ratings up enough for him to be able to sell his content to a network, then maybe he's not as smart as I give him credit for.......lol


But I get what you're saying, as to the overall strategy. I would argue though that it would serve Als interests better to pay Lara 400k and put the other 600k towards advertising. He'd get a MUCH better return lol

[bigdunny1]

Hershman's contract expires at the end of 2015 and HBO did not offer him a new one. His exit was not voluntary.

Or Hershman didn't want a new contract. He couldn't leave to another job until this expired. By all accounts he left them not the other way around. I have yet to see anyone report that he wanted to stay but was not offered a new contract. Unlike the man who he replaced years ago, ross greenburg. He was pushed out and forced to resign. The narrative and how it's been reported all screams a man who has been extremely successful was having a banner year and is moving on to something better....not a man who is being pushed out the door. Also the person who is taking over also backs this up. If they pushed him out why are they promoting his apprentice who Hershman trained and will likely follow the same philosophy as Hershman? If he was doing a bad job and was pushed out you want to bring in a new voice to do something different not promote his "mini-me" who likely will follow his same path. When Greenburg was forced out of HBO what did they do? Hired a Maverick from outside the company to replace him. They did not promote a Greenburg clone from within.

[about.thousands]

Comparing Kovalev to Lara is foolish look at Kovalev's HBO ratings. He's getting about 1mil or so over every time out in viewers. He is now one of the bigger stars on HBO. Lara just fought on ESPN primetime and flopped with 480K viewers.

HBO pays the promoter for the right to broadcast/license the fight. The promoter makes a profit from the licensing fee, live gate, and other streams of revenue. Once HBO pays that licensing fee the only way they can make their money back is by subscribers. HBO isn't in the ratings business they're in the subscribers business.

Not all PBC productions are time-buys and the networks pay for some of the production cost. The Lara fight may have only gotten 480k but some of that money can be recouped from selling advertising. While people are talking about the ratings going down I've noticed an increase in the quantity and quality of advertisers. How does HBO recoup their money after they pay the licensing fee? That's why you see them cutting the boxing budget and bringing on people like Jon Stewart and Bill Simmons.They can produce weekly, bi-weekly shows that increase and retain subscribers.

[The Big Dunn]

If Al is thinking that a guy like Lara is going to drive ratings up enough for him to be able to sell his content to a network, then maybe he's not as smart as I give him credit for.......lol


But I get what you're saying, as to the overall strategy. I would argue though that it would serve Als interests better to pay Lara 400k and put the other 600k towards advertising. He'd get a MUCH better return lol

I agree. The marketing, promotion and communication needs to be VASTLY improved.

But his strategy has helped him secure a number of big fighters, especially in the lower weights.

[The Big Dunn]

HBO pays the promoter for the right to broadcast/license the fight. The promoter makes a profit from the licensing fee, live gate, and other streams of revenue. Once HBO pays that licensing fee the only way they can make their money back is by subscribers. HBO isn't in the ratings business they're in the subscribers business.

Not all PBC productions are time-buys and the networks pay for some of the production cost. The Lara fight may have only gotten 480k but some of that money can be recouped from selling advertising. While people are talking about the ratings going down I've noticed an increase in the quantity and quality of advertisers. How does HBO recoup their money after they pay the licensing fee? That's why you see them cutting the boxing budget and bringing on people like Jon Stewart and Bill Simmons.They can produce weekly, bi-weekly shows that increase and retain subscribers.

ALso those shows work well on the HBO GO platform which has increased subscribers while the HBO channel on cable/satellite has seen reductions since subscriptions to cable/satellite are dropping.

I know posters like bigdunny1 do not want to hear it but things are changing.

[bigdunny1]

HBO pays the promoter for the right to broadcast/license the fight. The promoter makes a profit from the licensing fee, live gate, and other streams of revenue. Once HBO pays that licensing fee the only way they can make their money back is by subscribers. HBO isn't in the ratings business they're in the subscribers business.

Not all PBC productions are time-buys and the networks pay for some of the production cost. The Lara fight may have only gotten 480k but some of that money can be recouped from selling advertising. While people are talking about the ratings going down I've noticed an increase in the quantity and quality of advertisers. How does HBO recoup their money after they pay the licensing fee? That's why you see them cutting the boxing budget and bringing on people like Jon Stewart and Bill Simmons.They can produce weekly, bi-weekly shows that increase and retain subscribers.

So you are telling me that despite the fact that PBC debuted with mediocre at best on NBC back in March and have seen nothing but a complete decline in ratings since. Not just on NBC but across all PBC networks the ratings are trending downwards. So despite this fact you somehow think PBC is making more money from advertisers? Advertiser dollars are linked to ratings on network TV. Whatever money they are getting is insignificant to the money they are throwing out the window. Otherwise you wouldn't see PBC try to slash their costs by making fighters take a paycut and taking their A list fighters off PBC and back to Showtime.

HBO you are correct is different it's based on subscriptions I only compared the 2 ratings to show you how terrible Lara's fight have performed. The mere fact that these fights are on ESPN and Spike 2 networks that are in more homes then HBO should guarantee that you pull more then 400K viewers. There are tons of programming on basic cable that do not cost the millions to produce that PBC does and still get far more viewers and because of that generate more money in add revenue and turn a profit. Unlike of course these 2 Lara fights that lost countless millions in time buy and fight purses yet get putrid ratings. Spin it however you want Lara lost millions for PBC investors and no promoter network would ever bid against themselves and say let's play Lara 1 mil to fight. That's just bad business.

The only logical reason to overpay Lara and is to try and steal away other fighters from rival promoters hoping for the same paydays for easy fights. But I think the main purpose from day one was to try and hurt HBO by increasing the market value for fights thinking HBO would have to do the same to compete. But that backfired because HBO has refused to follow Haymon down the rabbit hole and pay fighters based on the laughable purses he is flushing down the toilet on PBC.

[bigdunny1]

ALso those shows work well on the HBO GO platform which has increased subscribers while the HBO channel on cable/satellite has seen reductions since subscriptions to cable/satellite are dropping.

I know posters like bigdunny1 do not want to hear it but things are changing.

HBO's main competition is Netflix no doubt about it. That's the only thing that can take HBO down long term is people making a massive change from cable to cutting the cord going directly to their channels for content and streaming without owning a cable box. HBO is spending a ton of resources on HBO Go to compete with Netflix and streaming services of the future that have no reliance on cable providers. Netflix might take HBO down in the future if HBO isn't careful and up on the changes in the industry. But PBC won't take down HBO. And so far PBC has not even put a dent in HBO. HBO had one of it's best years while they sit back and watch Haymon flush all his investors money down the toilet with PBC.

My point is simple under just about any measurement you want to use PBC has failed in year 1. They are not yet knocked out by any means but unless we see a huge shift it's only a matter of time till the money is gone and they fold. And I just don't see the innovative change on the horizon to turn things around for PBC. Things are not getting better they are getting worse casual fans either don't care about PBC or flat out don't like the product. How does Haymon drastically change that perception?

[about.thousands]

So you are telling me that despite the fact that PBC debuted with mediocre at best on NBC back in March and have seen nothing but a complete decline in ratings since. Not just on NBC but across all PBC networks the ratings are trending downwards. So despite this fact you somehow think PBC is making more money from advertisers? Advertiser dollars are linked to ratings on network TV. Whatever money they are getting is insignificant to the money they are throwing out the window. Otherwise you wouldn't see PBC try to slash their costs by making fighters take a paycut and taking their A list fighters off PBC and back to Showtime.

HBO you are correct is different it's based on subscriptions I only compared the 2 ratings to show you how terrible Lara's fight have performed. The mere fact that these fights are on ESPN and Spike 2 networks that are in more homes then HBO should guarantee that you pull more then 400K viewers. There are tons of programming on basic cable that do not cost the millions to produce that PBC does and still get far more viewers and because of that generate more money in add revenue and turn a profit. Unlike of course these 2 Lara fights that lost countless millions in time buy and fight purses yet get putrid ratings. Spin it however you want Lara lost millions for PBC investors and no promoter network would ever bid against themselves and say let's play Lara 1 mil to fight. That's just bad business.

The only logical reason to overpay Lara and is to try and steal away other fighters from rival promoters hoping for the same paydays for easy fights. But I think the main purpose from day one was to try and hurt HBO by increasing the market value for fights thinking HBO would have to do the same to compete. But that backfired because HBO has refused to follow Haymon down the rabbit hole and pay fighters based on the laughable purses he is flushing down the toilet on PBC.

It's simple. Go look at PBC's first couple of shows and you can count the advertisers on one hand. I think Corona was their only advertiser the first couple of shows. I just checked my DVR from the Alcine/Charlo fight a cpl weeks ago. I saw fanduel, michelin tires, assassians creed, corona, ball park frank, progressive insurance, a local supermarket, and a credit counseling service. That was just on the Dusty Harrison undercard fight. Those commercials aren't running for free.

[Eff Pandas]

There is a long term plan involved but in simplest terms if you're paying more for a product than it brings in, it's overvalued.

Like the Bradley/Arum example that ultimately made sense for Arum if you look at the potential end game you'd realize Lara would be worth $1M along with all these other cats. The PBC end game is a NFL, NBA, UFC type league of boxing which would generate idk $500M?, $1B?, maybe more a year in revenue idek?

[about.thousands]

ALso those shows work well on the HBO GO platform which has increased subscribers while the HBO channel on cable/satellite has seen reductions since subscriptions to cable/satellite are dropping.

I know posters like bigdunny1 do not want to hear it but things are changing.

I'm a supervisor for a local cable contracting company. I see how HBO, SHO, MAX, STARZ are given to customers for free for the first 3 or 6 months when they first sign up. When I have an upset customer and I offer them Sho, Starz, HBO for three months free or a $20 credit on their bill they take the $20 credit the majority of the time. I also see a lot of the younger customers getting internet only and using an antannae, roku, chromcast, netflix, or some other type of streaming device. The traditional way of delivering content thru set top box is dying. That's why you see Comcast coming out with their smart set top box that has apps built into it. The feature most customers want to know about is how to stream their DVR shows to their phones or how to set up the live tv app for their phone.