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

[Eastcoast]

Taffert got screwed over bad, they hired a former writer who wrote articles about boxing for different websites over him. Nelson is inexperienced but hbo seems to have faith in him.

Inexperienced, but a young & special talent. It's pretty common to see this. I've seen people like my old boss who was CS major in college become Marketing VP's in just a few years due to their exceptional intelligence, crazy dedication, and ability to adapt.


Guys like Taffert can be good, but maybe have a ceiling preventing them from great leaders.

[about.thousands]

Hershman wasn't pushed out. HBO had a great year under him. My guess is he is bouncing to do something else something bigger and his stock was at a alltime high so he chose to leave. Taffert left because once Hershman was announced he wanted to be promoted up to take his job. Once he found out he was being passed over AGAIN (he wanted Herschman's job the last time there was an opening) he knew it wasn't in the cards and HBO would never promote him so he left.

Ross Greenburg the man before Herschman was pushed out and it was nasty and very public. We haven't heard anything from either side to suggest this was forced.

Let me change my phrasing. Eased out. Taffert has been with HBO since the 80's and had been thru numerous regime changes and never left. The reason I say Hershman was eased out is because of who hired him, Mike Lombardo, and his fast rise through the ranks. From director of programming to President of HBO sports in five years despite having no experience and being a journalist at the time of his hiring. This was his position from the time he was hired, regardless of what Hershman wanted to do

[bigdunny1]

Taffert got screwed over bad, they hired a former writer who wrote articles about boxing for different websites over him. Nelson is inexperienced but hbo seems to have faith in him.

Taffert is the old man who stayed with one company long enough where he gets pigeon holed for one role and is never really seen or thought of for promotions or other roles. Company rather go with younger guys who they feel have more potential. Taffert great PPV knowledge but HBO never saw him as more then that and was never going to hand him the keys to the car.

[Eff Pandas]

This means that al haymon will probably be back on hbo, hopefully we get wilder vs fury, that fight will do at least 1 million buys.

Agree. I suspect a unofficial PBC card (like Showtime has had a few of) or a big name Haymon fighter will be on HBO within 6-12mos. Maybe Stevenson even knows something already with his oddly suggested June date last weekend.

Haymon needed TV time for his fighters previously. Now he just needs those HUGE money TV fights like HBO & Showtime can pay & like he probably don't wanna pay himself via PBC with NBC or Fox after he's already purchased the TV time. Its one thing to pay Wilder, Quillin & Thurman ~$1M for fights vs marginal to fringe contenders, but when Wilder vs Povetkin is on the table $1M to either guy isn't gonna get that fight made under Haymon's preferred options. Now Haymon can get Showtime & HBO bidding on his biggest fights.

As for Nelson he doesn't seem to give a f#ck about anything except big fights & competitive fights which is why Bob Arum doesn't like him. Think there is a 10 min video on youtube where Arum is talking **** about him the whole time due to some fight he wanted one of TR's prospects to take that Bob eventually said ok to & Bob regretted. Haymon doesn't got enough names to be huge by himself right now, but he's got plenty of names that HBO fighters would do well to fight those guys (GGG vs Quillin/Jacobs winner, Kovalev vs Stevenson or Beterbiev, Canelo vs Charlo bros or Julian Williams, hell maybe Cotto vs Lara or something) & HBO would surely love to show.

[about.thousands]

I highly doubt they'll let Haymon back on their network. PBC is now their competition. There is no way they'll allow a PBC fighter on their network especially if he has a legit chance to beat one of their stars. Imagine Lata beating GGG or Stevenson beating Kovalev & saying the rematch has to be on PBC. HBO isn't trying to help legitimize their competition

[bigdunny1]

I highly doubt they'll let Haymon back on their network. PBC is now their competition. There is no way they'll allow a PBC fighter on their network especially if he has a legit chance to beat one of their stars. Imagine Lata beating GGG or Stevenson beating Kovalev & saying the rematch has to be on PBC. HBO isn't trying to help legitimize their competition

No shot you see Lara on HBO. The TV Ratings came out last night and his PBC fight bombed. Primetime on ESPN with ESPN running the 30 for 30 on Tyson right before it basically as a favor to try and help the PBC ratings. It did a 480K rating. Lara has no fanbase and still carries the stink from his fight with Canelo. If a fighter is going to break the HBO/Haymon feud it won't be Lara.

[paulf]

First they've ever had that isn't. I didn't believe it was possible. But his bosses are.

That's incredible!

Lou DiBella's gotta be annoyed.

[PK3434]

As far as I know, Nelson knows boxing, and wants competitive and exciting fights, and isn't afraid to stand up to Arum, which is a good thing.

Haymon would want even more control than Arum. Anything Haymon touches, he seeks 100% control over. I think it is ok to allow some Haymon fighters on HBO has long as Haymon doesn't have any control (look at how he destroyed showtime).

I think Nelson is the right guy in this regard.

[bigdunny1]

Agree. I suspect a unofficial PBC card (like Showtime has had a few of) or a big name Haymon fighter will be on HBO within 6-12mos. Maybe Stevenson even knows something already with his oddly suggested June date last weekend.

Haymon needed TV time for his fighters previously. Now he just needs those HUGE money TV fights like HBO & Showtime can pay & like he probably don't wanna pay himself via PBC with NBC or Fox after he's already purchased the TV time. Its one thing to pay Wilder, Quillin & Thurman ~$1M for fights vs marginal to fringe contenders, but when Wilder vs Povetkin is on the table $1M to either guy isn't gonna get that fight made under Haymon's preferred options. Now Haymon can get Showtime & HBO bidding on his biggest fights.

As for Nelson he doesn't seem to give a f#ck about anything except big fights & competitive fights which is why Bob Arum doesn't like him. Think there is a 10 min video on youtube where Arum is talking **** about him the whole time due to some fight he wanted one of TR's prospects to take that Bob eventually said ok to & Bob regretted. Haymon doesn't got enough names to be huge by himself right now, but he's got plenty of names that HBO fighters would do well to fight those guys (GGG vs Quillin/Jacobs winner, Kovalev vs Stevenson or Beterbiev, Canelo vs Charlo bros or Julian Williams, hell maybe Cotto vs Lara or something) & HBO would surely love to show.

HBO banned Haymon because they were not going to get into bidding wars or held hostage by Haymon forcing overpaid mismatches on their network. HBO is positioned well where they own all the top talent in boxing and Haymon has his own outlet to air fights on PBC and Showtime. Again if HBO hired externally then you might see a big shake up philosophy. But they just hired the apprentice of Hershman so I wouldn't hold my breathe on any major changes on HBO.

But you are right that PBC is losing big money with these cards that continue to tank in the ratings. That's why you saw a huge shift the second half of this year where all Haymon's big name fighters who were fighting on PBC the first half of the year are all now running back to Showtime. That's because Haymon can't accord to have his PBC investors pay his top fighters purses on cards that losing millions each time out. Lara just got a purse significantly less then his previous PBC fight. Instead of guys like Thurman, Broner, Wilder leading the main events for NBC we are seeing names like Figueroa. Instead of names like Khan on Spike we are seeing names like Barthelemy. PBC will have to force fighters to take major paycuts or continue to ship Haymon's best fighters to fight on Showtime and fill PBC with his B and C class fighters to try and limit the losses PBC is absorbing. Otherwise PBC will run out of money in no time and fold.

[Eastcoast]

Agree. I suspect a unofficial PBC card (like Showtime has had a few of) or a big name Haymon fighter will be on HBO within 6-12mos. Maybe Stevenson even knows something already with his oddly suggested June date last weekend.

Haymon needed TV time for his fighters previously. Now he just needs those HUGE money TV fights like HBO & Showtime can pay & like he probably don't wanna pay himself via PBC with NBC or Fox after he's already purchased the TV time. Its one thing to pay Wilder, Quillin & Thurman ~$1M for fights vs marginal to fringe contenders, but when Wilder vs Povetkin is on the table $1M to either guy isn't gonna get that fight made under Haymon's preferred options. Now Haymon can get Showtime & HBO bidding on his biggest fights.

As for Nelson he doesn't seem to give a f#ck about anything except big fights & competitive fights which is why Bob Arum doesn't like him. Think there is a 10 min video on youtube where Arum is talking **** about him the whole time due to some fight he wanted one of TR's prospects to take that Bob eventually said ok to & Bob regretted. Haymon doesn't got enough names to be huge by himself right now, but he's got plenty of names that HBO fighters would do well to fight those guys (GGG vs Quillin/Jacobs winner, Kovalev vs Stevenson or Beterbiev, Canelo vs Charlo bros or Julian Williams, hell maybe Cotto vs Lara or something) & HBO would surely love to show.

Lol, Arum wanted a puff fight for Rameriz and Nelson pushed Vlasov. Bob was pissed because he knew Rameriz wouldn't look great vs Vlasov. Thing is Rameriz hasn't looked great in a lot of his fights.


Even under Hershman, HBO had agreed to buy fights involving Haymon fighters. They were ready to take Quillin/Korobov and Russell/Lomochenko off the top of my head. They've stated they want Kovalev/Stevenson as well. Thus far it's been Haymon's side not looking to work with HBO.

Al spent alot of money buying multiple networks to squeeze out the competition in order to push his brand. Will he allow his fighters to go on the one network that's providing his competitors their sole source of tv revenue, essentially helping them out? Especially when most of his fighters would be considered the underdogs in those fights.


I think it's going to have to be a give/take scenario. Doug Fischer brought up an old story of Pernell Whitaker having an HBO deal and getting permission to go fight on Showtime (Jake Rodriguez). Letting Golovkin & Kovalev take a fight on NBC/ESPN would be a gamble, but if they won they'd come back to HBO with more clout.