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

[Eff Pandas]

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.

Wasn't Loma vs Russell on HBO (or HBO PPV anyway)? You seem to be implying that didn't happen or happen on HBO.

And the Quillin thing was weird, but Quillin is a weird mfer so idk what to make of that situation to this day. People speculate on the Roc Nation angle, but idk.

The Kovalev vs Stevenson situation was a money situation pure & simple & HBO clearly dropped the ball with that one to get the ball rolling to wherever its currently rolled to. I have doubts that Haymon was a decision maker in any of those fights not happening.

I think Haymon is opening to dealing with more people & en****** in the business than he's given credit for. And I think HBO just wants big competitive fights & Haymon has some fighters & fights that would be good for HBO to show. Maybe thats a simple way of looking at it I guess, but I see HBO needing fighters to make competitive fights & a new head of boxing who values competitive fights & I see Haymon needing money so seems logically they would work together. Time will tell I guess.

[NEETzsche]

The Kovalev vs Stevenson situation was a money situation pure & simple & HBO clearly dropped the ball with that one to get the ball rolling to wherever its currently rolled to. I have doubts that Haymon was a decision maker in any of those fights not happening.

how about kovalev-beterbiev? it seemed to be a go and then all of a sudden michel back tracks and decides to try and get kovalev stripped rather than fight him. seemed like a clear case of haymon reining him in

[bigdunny1]

Lara's ratings on ESPN were higher than Willie Monroe's when he won their Boxcino tournament. The ratings argument is a poor one. What PBC is doing now is playing a game of attrition. GGG, Lomanchenko, Kovalev, & Canelo are their biggest stars. PBC has all the top fighters from their divisions. Except Canelo, I'm not sure what division he's fighting. Kovalev is so starved for opponents they have Ward a contract on the promise he'll fight Kovalev & we're seeing an unnecessary rematch with Pascal. Canelo won't give GGG a shot so he's stuck fighting Johnson for his mandatory. Meanwhile PBC has Quillin, Jacobs, Jermall & Lara are about to move up to MW too. They're talking about a Canelo/Bradley fight because they're both starved for opponents. Lomanchenko is gonna have to make a move up, a move he doesn't want to do, in order to get good fights. Showtime just bought the Lee/Saunders fight. If they got options on the winner GGG is screwed. Crawford is gonna have trouble finding opponents when he makes the move to WW soon. HBO has the best fighters but nobody to fight against. They're gonna have to pay out the ass to get a Haymon fighter.

The ratings are relevant because PBC is on network TV where if you don't have ratings you don't have advertisements and when the time buy is over no networks will ever pay for a programming that losses millions of dollars and is not viable. So far PBC has seen their ratings plummet across all networks to the point that Haymon has made a huge shift pulling all his top fighters off PBC and back to showtime because he can't afford to pay them. If we do not see a huge change in the ratings it's not a matter of if PBC will fold the only debate is when will it fold. If PBC folds Haymon will have a tremendous amount of egg on his face and will lose a significant amount of leverage in boxing that he has. He has already lost some of that leverage with Mayweather retiring. That's how he was able to get the power he received in the last few years with Showtime.

Meanwhile HBO has all the top fighters and top stars and has proven they can develop stars something Haymon has not proven. What big name fighter does Haymon have that he created? He has either gotten big name fighters from other promoters who built them up before he signed them. You can make the argument that most of the big names he got he has ruined. Look at Chavez, Stevenson and Khan. Are either bigger stars then before he signed them? No, it's actually opposite. Both were bigger stars under previous promoters and when they were fighting on HBO. All have regressed since signing with Haymon

[Eastcoast]

Wasn't Loma vs Russell on HBO (or HBO PPV anyway)? You seem to be implying that didn't happen or happen on HBO.

And the Quillin thing was weird, but Quillin is a weird mfer so idk what to make of that situation to this day. People speculate on the Roc Nation angle, but idk.

The Kovalev vs Stevenson situation was a money situation pure & simple & HBO clearly dropped the ball with that one to get the ball rolling to wherever its currently rolled to. I have doubts that Haymon was a decision maker in any of those fights not happening.

I think Haymon is opening to dealing with more people & en****** in the business than he's given credit for. And I think HBO just wants big competitive fights & Haymon has some fighters & fights that would be good for HBO to show. Maybe thats a simple way of looking at it I guess, but I see HBO needing fighters to make competitive fights & a new head of boxing who values competitive fights & I see Haymon needing money so seems logically they would work together. Time will tell I guess.

Russell/Lomo was undercard on Showtime for Guerrero/Kamegai. TR said Haymon wouldn't even negotiate for the fight (like Korobov/Quillin), and it went to purse bid. Most recent was when Bermane Stieverne agreed to fight Luis Ortiz on the Golovkin/Lemieux ppv, his manager agreed, but King/Haymon killed it.

[NEETzsche]

there is absolutely no reason for haymon to let his fighters go on HBO and possibly lose to someone with no affiliation to his brand. his position is too strong right now without cooperating. he's exactly the same as bob arum (perhaps even less flexible): in-house or nothing

[bigdunny1]

Haymon has the tv dates and remaining budgets to wait out HBO for another 3-4 years. By then Golovkin and Kovalev will be at the ends of their careers. Haymon's already shown for the last two years he doesn't care about quality or ratings. Outside of HBO, boxing has always just been a niche sport and I think he's fine with leaving it that way. He match-makes like Don King, subpar fights are fine by him.

Someone mentioned Haymon sees this as a war of attrition, I don't think he even looks at it like that. I think in his world, HBO fighters don't even exist. It'll be on HBO to come up with an innovative approach to solving this - if they want to.

The problem is after less then 6 months he had to yank the production costs for his PBC fights signifcantly and take all his big names off PBC and back to Showtime. There is no way he can wait this out 3-4 years. I'm not even sure by Dec 2016 PBC is still around. At this rate he will run out of money. It's clear what his strategy was flood the market with fights overpay for fights to drive the market up and hurt HBO and try and steal more fighters in hopes of getting big paydays for mismatches like PBC fighters are getting. He was ok operating at a loss initially if it hurt his competition. The problem is HBO did not bite the cheese and are not overpaying fighters to keep up with Haymon. Instead they had a banner year put on competitive and meaningful fights at prices they saw fit not based on what Haymon pays. Their ratings went up and fans are seeing PBC for what it is. I cheap looking knockoff with less fans showing up for PBC. Haymon clearly thought by putting his top name fighters on network tv regardless of the competition fans would show up and the ratings would be better then they are. Unless PBC changes how they pay and matchup their fighters I just don't see these ratings turning around. We have by now a pretty large sample size and all the trends are pointing down for PBC not up. HBO had something to worry about when Haymon launched PBC. But as we turn to 2016 and we see how PBC is limping to the finish line I don't think HBO is worried at all. It's now opposite it's HBO who has the ability to wait out PBC. Who is more likely to be gone from HBO in 1-2 years time? HBO or PBC?

[Eff Pandas]

Haymon don't talk so we can never go by what he says. All we have is to go on his actions. And it's clear he refuses to let any of his fighters fight on HBO. Even examples where fighters and their camp say they want the fight and the promoters work it out and they pay top dollar for the fight it still doesn't happen because Haymon has to green light. Perfect example Kovalev vs Beterbeiv. Beterbeiv been asking for the fight and was offered a payday worth 3X his career payday and a direct title shot for all the belts. Instead he turned it down to fight a title elimnator fight on an undercard for a fraction of the pay. What adviser would ever tell their fighter to turn down a title shot and payday for the fight him and his camp been asking for over a year? We know damn well the fight being on HBO and his feud with HBO is the reason he made his fighter turn that down.

See you get all worked up about that, but that seems to me easily like it could be a be careful what you ask for you just might get it situation. It seems at very least arguable, I think you'd admit, Beterbiev, while super established for a guy with 9 fights, could use a fight or two seasoning vs top ten caliber opposition before taking on the best guy in the division (idc who is/was the ring champion, Kovalev is #1 guy, just like GGG is the #1 guy @ MW in my eyes) & maybe once that offer got made that reason prevailed. Instead of that its that f#cker Haymon's fault. And granted maybe Haymon said "bruh maybe we need to get you a lil more experience before throwing you in with Kovalev" & Beterbiev agreed at some point in that discussion, but even doe I wanted to see that fight now I can't deny its better for Beterbiev's long term success & career & bank account to get a fight or two before that fight happens.

[Eastcoast]

there is absolutely no reason for haymon to let his fighters go on HBO and possibly lose to someone with no affiliation to his brand. his position is too strong right now without cooperating. he's exactly the same as bob arum (perhaps even less flexible): in-house or nothing

I have to agree, which is why I think HBO needs to take a new approach and allow their guys to have some one-off fights on the PBC. Kinda like a crusade.

[about.thousands]

how about kovalev-beterbiev? it seemed to be a go and then all of a sudden michel back tracks and decides to try and get kovalev stripped rather than fight him. seemed like a clear case of haymon reining him in

How is he trying to get him stripped? Beterbiev will be Kovalev's mandatory if he wins his next fight. When Kovalev fought for the IBF title he agreed to defend the belt. And he won that title before he signed his current deal with HBO. If you aren't gonna defend against the mando's don't fight for the belt.

[NEETzsche]

I have to agree, which is why I think HBO needs to take a new approach and allow their guys to have some one-off fights on the PBC. Kinda like a crusade.

haymon would want options on them. it's simply an impasse. one of them will have to fail for us to have a unified(-ish) sport again