Comments Thread For: Nelson Says HBO Will Have Open Door To All Promoters

[OnePunch]

Big Dunny -

PBC is simply the name of a TV series. The day may come when Showtime Championship Boxing is replaced by PBC, but we're not at that point yet and if/until we are, the brands are going to be kept separate. So yes, PBC has nothing to do with Showtime Championship Boxing in the sense that they are different television series, but seeing as how both are getting their fighters from the same source (Haymon), it's a little silly to say they have nothing to do with each other.

Haymon doesn't do interviews, so you have no idea whether the plan is to eliminate premium cable. It does seem the plan is to eliminate PPV and the plan is definitely to eliminate HBO, but if Viacom ultimately wins the bidding war for exclusive PBC rights, who's to say there won't be some fights on Showtime along with CBS, Spike and other Viacom properties?

In that scenario, with Viacom having exclusive rights to the only major boxing property and HBO being pushed out of the sphere, how does that NOT benefit Showtime?

You're position doesn't make any sense. Showtime works with Haymon because he screwed them over? If Haymon screwed Viacom over, why did they add Haymon Boxing to MORE of their channels? Think about that one for a second.

It was publicly stated from day one that the fighters would be returning to Showtime at the end of the year. It was never going to make economic sense for ALL of Haymon's top fighters, in EVERY one of their fights, to fight on free TV. If Showtime is dishing out $25 million a year for fights, why would Haymon want non-Haymon promoters to get that money when he can use that money to continue to build his empire?

The situation is clear. HBO vs Haymon. That's a much better proposition for Haymon than HBO & Showtime vs Haymon.

You continue to make false assumptions. PBC and Showtime don't cross promote because it's too early to say whether Viacom ultimately ends up being the partner Haymon signs with long term. Haymon is creating multiple suitors. If you're Viacom, what do you have to be upset about? Showtime is still getting fights and the fighters they've getting are more well known now because they just fought on free TV in front of millions of people.

Meanwhile, Viacom is getting paid guaranteed money for CBS & Spike slots. What exactly is there for Viacom to be upset about here? Not having boxing on Showtime for a few months? Why would that upset them when the reason they weren't paying for boxing for a few months is because they were being paid for boxing for a few years guaranteed?

Haymon is in business with Disney, Viacom, NBC Universal and Fox. In a few years, he needs just one of those four to buy in. Considering the insane competition for sports TV rights, I'd say it's a safe bet one of them will bite.

wow, now THATS really a leap of GIGANTIC proportions, especially when considering recent ratings. You should apply for a job as PBCs publicist. Even Fred Sternberg wouldnt spit some nonsense like that........

[IMDAZED]

What does anything else have to do with what we were talking about? You are trying to say showtime is a part of PBC. And it's not. And nothing you posted changes the fact that PBC has hurt showtime and it's not in showtime best interest for PBC to succeed. And there has been zero promotion of PBC fights on showtime boxing and PBC refuses to acknowledge any haymon fighters on showtime boxing. They are operating as separate en******. CBS owns showtime so the best you could hope for is those 2 helping each other but that's not the same as showtime being a part of PBC. They could care less if ESPN, NBC or any other network succeeds with PBC. And if we are honest they hope they fail so more fights come back to showtime. If haymons ultimate plan is reached and he creates his own UFC on network tv there is no more fights on showtime. Premium cable is fazed out by PBC if haymon has his way.

No, I'm not trying to say PBC is a part of Showtime or vice versa. Did you read the quotes? Ok, try these from umm...CBS:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/02/17/cbs-sports-agrees-to-multi-year-boxing-venture/

The statement also said that each event on both networks will be complemented by a “significant marketing budget (,,,) dedicated to promoting each of the live CBS broadcasts and each major SHOWTIME telecast,” in addition to “short- and long-form shoulder programming that will air across multiple platforms.”

Again: The new Premier Boxing Champions series will air in conjunction with SHOWTIME Championship Boxing events “as a part of a partnership that will cross-promote the live programs across multiple platforms,” according to the press release.

SHOWTIME Sports’ executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza discussed the importance of this deal in the release as well, saying, “The Premier Boxing Champions series on CBS will help usher in a new era in the storied history of boxing. With the support of our parent company, we are uniquely positioned for a three-tiered approach that includes live boxing broadcasts on America’s No. 1 network, the cable reach of CBS Sports Network and, of course, the premium television leader in boxing, SHOWTIME.”

[bigdunny1]

If the grand plan is for PBC to ultimately go to Viacom then why air on competitors networks and try to create a bidding war? You are doing nothing but guessing. At this point there is nothing to suggest haymon wants anything long term for showtime or that they are in anyway associated with PBC. Haymon and Showtime work together out of necessity right now and there is no link to PBC. And the presence of PBC has done nothing but damaged showtime standing in boxing. Again fact ratings are down since PBC debuted and less boxing programming to the point that half the year there was nothing and the future going forward nobody at showtime knows what fights they will get and what will go to network tv. Which speaks to how haymon is telling them as they go along. And haymon only came back to showtime after the pbc ratings tanked. How is PBC beneficial to showtime? Haymon will use showtime as long as he needs them and showtime knows it but has no other options so they go along with a man who is trying to faze them out of boxing with PBC lol

[IMDAZED]

If the grand plan is for PBC to ultimately go to Viacom then why air on competitors networks and try to create a bidding war? You are doing nothing but guessing. At this point there is nothing to suggest haymon wants anything long term for showtime or that they are in anyway associated with PBC. Haymon and Showtime work together out of necessity right now and there is no link to PBC. And the presence of PBC has done nothing but damaged showtime standing in boxing. Again fact ratings are down since PBC debuted and less boxing programming to the point that half the year there was nothing and the future going forward nobody at showtime knows what fights they will get and what will go to network tv. Which speaks to how haymon is telling them as they go along. And haymon only came back to showtime after the pbc ratings tanked. How is PBC beneficial to showtime? Haymon will use showtime as long as he needs them and showtime knows it but has no other options so they go along with a man who is trying to faze them out of boxing with PBC lol

No one knows what he will do long term. What we do know is that he's married to CBS/Showtime for at least a couple more years. It is what it is.

[OnePunch]

i think if you familiarize yourself more with the kind of ratings the NHL does and how much NBC pays for the NHL, you'll realize PBC's ratings will attract suitors.

right now PBC is flooding the market to monopolize TV deals and keep fighters busy. when they want to pull a big rating, they just have to put on a big fight and millions will watch.

if & when the time comes to land a paid TV deal for PBC, which is at least a couple years away, they won't be running as many shows as they're running now. they're having to run all of these random shows to lock up these TV deals. if PBC didn't get the spike deal, someone else would have. if they didn't get the FS1 deal, someone else would have. if they didn't get the ESPN deal, others would still be on ESPN. etc etc.

it's not ideal for ratings to have to run so many shows, but they need to in the short term to keep others locked out.

but let's not forget that thurman vs guerrero peaked with 4.2 million viewers. garcia vs peterson peaked with 3.4 million viewers. go check out what regular season MLB, NHL & NBA games do and you'll realize the bar isn't as high as you think it is.

I willingly admit Im no expert in pro-sports franchise tv compacts, but no matter what boxing does, trying to tie it to traditional "time clock" and regional fanbase models is a fools errand. Thurman vs Porter could end in 30 seconds. I just dont see how traditional "commercial spot" based revenue models would work for boxing, on THIS big a scale. Sure, it works for ESPN Friday Night Fights level shows. but large, multi-million dollar events? Im just skeptical, as MANY people have been pitching broadcast networks for decades to buy content, and other than the sporadic ABC or NBC deals here and there, nobody has been able to get a network interested on a big scale. And nothing so far about Haymons product suggests its dramatically different than what has been pitched over and over again. Maybe he can pull it off. Who knows. I certainly am in no position to say he cant. I just find it unlikely........

[OnePunch]

i think if you familiarize yourself more with the kind of ratings the NHL does and how much NBC pays for the NHL, you'll realize PBC's ratings will attract suitors.

right now PBC is flooding the market to monopolize TV deals and keep fighters busy. when they want to pull a big rating, they just have to put on a big fight and millions will watch.

if & when the time comes to land a paid TV deal for PBC, which is at least a couple years away, they won't be running as many shows as they're running now. they're having to run all of these random shows to lock up these TV deals. if PBC didn't get the spike deal, someone else would have. if they didn't get the FS1 deal, someone else would have. if they didn't get the ESPN deal, others would still be on ESPN. etc etc.

it's not ideal for ratings to have to run so many shows, but they need to in the short term to keep others locked out.

but let's not forget that thurman vs guerrero peaked with 4.2 million viewers. garcia vs peterson peaked with 3.4 million viewers. go check out what regular season MLB, NHL & NBA games do and you'll realize the bar isn't as high as you think it is.

and not to change subjects, but isnt this basically what Top Rank is alleging in their lawsuit?

[bigdunny1]

So let me get this straight the ratings have been tanking and declining steady across all networks since PBC debuted but you think if PBC wants big ratings it will be easy despite the fact they haven't proven they can do it all year? Look at the ratings UFC got on network tv when they debuted to get their tv deal with fox which blows PBC out the water. Instead weAK ratings to debut and horrible decline in ratings since to the point they losing so much money haymon is running his top fighters back to showtime and filling his PBC cards with his B and C class fighters no longer his A class fighters because he can't afford to keep PBC paying out of pocket for fights that are losing millions and gaining little to no ratings. PBC on ESPN just did 480k ratings. The foxsports ratings are the same golden boy was getting on foxsports1 except golden boy was being paid by the network and operating on a 50k budget. PBC paying millions for the air time on foxsports1 and paying fighter purses so much higher. They paid trout to fight a mismatch and paid him alone more then golden boy paid all their fighters all last year. And got no improvement in the ratings. They putting world Champ caliber fighterd while golden boy was paying prospects a couple grand and getting the same ratings at the end of the day. That is a massive failure. You don't spend the money he is spending to get 480k viewers on ESPN prime time.

The problem isn't just how low the PBC ratings are it's the fact it's such an expensive product to produce and it's not sustainable unless you get really high ratings to cover those costs with high advertisement dollars. Which they havent come close to getting. No network is going to pay for a product that loses money and gets crappy ratings. Sure foxsports1 was in boxing before pbc but operating at such low costs again like 50k fight purse budget golden boy had. Look at the fight purses these guys getting we talking like 1mil for 1 fighter in some of these fights. I can't see how this is going to work, at this rate it's only a matter of time till haymon flushes the money down the toilet and PBC folds more then it's likely any network pays a dime for this unless there is a drastic change in the TV ratings.

[OnePunch]

So let me get this straight the ratings have been tanking and declining steady across all networks since PBC debuted but you think if PBC wants big ratings it will be easy despite the fact they haven't proven they can do it all year? Look at the ratings UFC got on network tv when they debuted to get their tv deal with fox which blows PBC out the water. Instead weAK ratings to debut and horrible decline in ratings since to the point they losing so much money haymon is running his top fighters back to showtime and filling his PBC cards with his B and C class fighters no longer his A class fighters because he can't afford to keep PBC paying out of pocket for fights that are losing millions and gaining little to no ratings. PBC on ESPN just did 480k ratings. The foxsports ratings are the same golden boy was getting on foxsports1 except golden boy was being paid by the network and operating on a 50k budget. PBC paying millions for the air time on foxsports1 and paying fighter purses so much higher. They paid trout to fight a mismatch and paid him alone more then golden boy paid all their fighters all last year. And got no improvement in the ratings. They putting world Champ caliber fighterd while golden boy was paying prospects a couple grand and getting the same ratings at the end of the day. That is a massive failure. You don't spend the money he is spending to get 480k viewers on ESPN prime time.

The problem isn't just how low the PBC ratings are it's the fact it's such an expensive product to produce and it's not sustainable unless you get really high ratings to cover those costs with high advertisement dollars. Which they havent come close to getting. No network is going to pay for a product that loses money and gets crappy ratings. Sure foxsports1 was in boxing before pbc but opening at such low costs again like 50k fight purse budget golden boy had. Look at the fight purses these guys getting we talking like 1mil for 1 fighter in some of these fights. I can't see how this is going to work, at this rate it's only a matter of time till haymon flushes the money down the toilet and PBC folds more then it's likely any network pays a dime for this.

Take a hint from me. When it comes to St Laurent and IMDAZED, you are wasting your time trying to have a respectful discussion with either of them. They both already know everything, about every topic, and every business on the planet. Quite remarkable, actually. IMDAZED is BScenes Warren Buffet, and St Laurent can be our resident Les Moonves.... lol

[bigdunny1]

Take a hint from me. When it comes to St Laurent and IMDAZED, you are wasting your time trying to have a respectful discussion with either of them. They both already know everything, about every business on the planet. Quite remarkable, actually. lol

I'm just baffled. If it's so easy and he can just snap his fingers and get big tv ratings if he wants then what the hell is he waiting for? LMAO. Look up the ratings they debuted mediocre/weak and have been a train wreck virtually decreasing across all networks each month since. The ratings are bad, terrible there is no debating thats a fact. Now I heard it all haymon is intentionally having bad ratings and just waiting to flip that switch when the time is right. Like its easy to get big ratings on network tv even though he has had a year and hasn't been able to do it lol

[OnePunch]

I'm just baffled. If it's so easy and he can just snap his fingers and get big tv ratings if he wants then what the hell is he waiting for? LMAO. Look up the ratings they debuted mediocre/weak and have been a train wreck virtually decreasing across all networks each month since. The ratings are bad, terrible there is no debating thats a fact. Now I heard it all haymon is intentionally having bad ratings and just waiting to flip that switch when the time is right. Like its easy to get big ratings on network tv even though he has had a year and hasn't been able to do it lol

but Haymon is smart doe. And St Laurent tells us that smart people never ever ever ever fail. Oh, wait, werent there some smart people at Lehman Brothers too? oops.....