Jay Z business plan: Buy old and boring boxing. They don't fight or win=Profit

[Scipio2009]

Jay Z has Rigo, Cotto and Ward in his stable. Ward and Rigo are usually like watching paint dry and Cotto is now washed up at the highest level.

Absolutely awful sojourn into boxing.

I suppose he may be thinking that he only has to wait a couple of years before PBC goes bust and all those fighters become available.

What do you think about Roc Nation's decisions and their potential in boxing?

Ward-Smith, Ward-Rodriguez, and Ward-Dawson were all actually really fun fights to watch (would add Ward-Froch to that list, but most folks here don't really like infighting anyway), so what are you even talking about.

Jay-Z is betting on Andre Ward being the star to carry his company going forward; **** on the bet if you want.

Ward as the chief support on a show that draws 1m PPV buys (Cotto-Alvarez), Ward netting himself a solid role in a feature film that does big business ("Creed"), Ward gets active again on HBO, and Andre Ward takes down at least one good-sized scalp (K2 didn't want the work, so Ward is going after Kovalev); depending on how things play out, Kovalev/Stevenson-Ward could end up being a bout for all of the belts at 175.

Ward comes through that fight with a good W, gets the feature role opposite Michael B Jordan in "Creed 2" (the second movie basically wrote itself; star fighter at Creed's father's old gym, coached by the only other person with relative ties back to his father, "Stuntman" Wheeler being the #2 fighter on the planet as the #1 fighter is heading to jail, Adonis showing that he may actually be special, etc), and RocNation Sports launches, likely by 2017, with the sport's best fighter and a budding superstar, possibly crossover star.

If Ward launches, Roc Nation has a handful of solid prospects to develop under him to build the company (Dusty Harrison-Hernandez, Luis "Cuba" Arias, likely Murat Gassiev, whatever's left of Guillermo Rigondeaux) while also heading into the 2016 post-Olympics period with a history of being willing to open up the wallet in looking for prospects to sign (Haymon is the obvious lead-dog, in terms of getting the top American amateur talent, but having a former Olympic gold medalist as the face of your company won't make things easy, and TR/GB/ME won't really be able to scoop up talent on the cheap any longer.

[Eff Pandas]

Damn brother you went in on RN.

They burned bridges with Gary Shaw.

I remember people saying this was destined to fail at the jump so this just seemed like a bad move or not a well thought out move to me more than a burned bridge or I'm not recalling something about this situation cuz seemed like it was setup & than over in like 7-14 days so there wasn't much bridge to burn to begin with.

They burned bridges with PBC/Haymon.

This is a weird situation idk what to make of still, but this bridge if it is burnt seemed to have been lit on fire in the music industry not the boxing industry from most of the things I've heard.

They burned bridges with Banner Promotions, Star Boxing, & Andrade.

This is another one where idk wtf to make of this situation. Andrade seems like a knucklehead & the whole story doesn't ring true to me, but who knows. Weirder things have happened in boxing. There does start to be a where there's smoke theres fire angle to all these awkward & weird relationship issues I can't disagree with that much.

They burned bridges with the WBC.

This seemed like a Cotto thing. Cotto didn't wanna pay the $300k sanctioning fee. RN didn't have much hand in this.

They burned bridges with Golden Boy.

What happened here? I'm not even recalling a GBP/RN issue.

With Ward and Rigo as their featured fighters I don't see them being in the business to long.

Ward gots 4-5yrs I feel. Rigo is obviously on the way out. Possible we've seen Cotto's last fight although personally I believe he'll give it one more go cuz he had a 3 fight deal with RN from my understanding & part of his deal including Miguel Cotto Promotions + music **** iirc so he's gonna wanna fulfill that deal just to insure his outside of boxing money is intact & flowing I bet.

Mainly I think RN was trying to get name brand fighters & they got them. They succeeded already on some level & if they lose $20M on all this advertising & potential assistance in getting more big name guys in the future by getting talked about as much as they have due to signing these big names its all been worth it.

And honestly I can't recall anyone in boxing coming into the business & signing 3 elite level guys in their first 6(?) months like RN did so the feat in & of itself is impressive to me regardless of the ending balance sheet (assuming it isn't a situation where you go outta business signing mfers, but RN gots a solid bankroll I'd assume so thats probably not an issue for them).

Dusty Harrison's fight got sc****d the week of the fight because his opponent had visa issues. Seems like that's something you would figure out when you announce the fight.

This is nothing. This has happened to bigger fights & HBO type fights a few times I believe. This stuff is bound to happen in boxing with its worldwide roster & guys coming & going. In particular with all the nutty ********* airport security safety type **** going down these days. This is just bad luck.

Jay Z did nothing to promote the fight in interviews or on his social media accounts. I don't understand why he didn't send out tweets and instagram posts at least once a week promoting the fight? It seems so simple. Heard HBO took notice and weren't to happy.

This was a ball drop for sure. I think mistakes are bound to happen even dumb lil mistakes doe too. You live & you learn. And lets see if they are tweeting & hyping the next fight.

[Scipio2009]

I think Roc Nation out here doing bad business. They burned bridges with Gary Shaw. They burned bridges with PBC/Haymon. They burned bridges with Banner Promotions, Star Boxing, & Andrade. They burned bridges with the WBC. They burned bridges with Golden Boy. With Ward and Rigo as their featured fighters I don't see them being in the business to long. Dusty Harrison's fight got sc****d the week of the fight because his opponent had visa issues. Seems like that's something you would figure out when you announce the fight. Oscar/Golden Boy were doing all the promotion for the lead up to Cotto/Canelo and they weren't the lead promoter. The fight did 900k but I remember Oscar and Roc Nation predicting 1.5 million a couple of weeks before the fight. Jay Z did nothing to promote the fight in interviews or on his social media accounts. I don't understand why he didn't send out tweets and instagram posts at least once a week promoting the fight? It seems so simple. Heard HBO took notice and weren't to happy. Cotto has probably one or two fights left. Rigo doesn't sell and doesn't really have any decent opponents on the horizon. Ward is marketable but we have to sit through two more tune-ups before he fights Kovalev.

RocNation didn't burn Gary Shaw; Shaw assumed that RocNation would pay a premium for his boxing business, bring him on board also, and then let HIM run THEIR boxing business. gtfoh

And, onto the GB/RocNation situation, no one knows what agreement Oscar had to accept, especially after RocNation had to leave $3m-$5m on the table because Golden Boy didn't want the fight in New York. Maybe Golden Boy handling the roadwork was part of the cost of moving the fight to the 12k Mandalay Bay.

Beyond that, though Jay-Z's company is Roc Nation, Jay-Z isn't running the boxing business; he's hired David Iskowitz to do that. Jay-Z's not going to shill a fight, just to shill a fight.

Roc Nation is basically "betting the farm" on Andre Ward breaking through.

[Dr Rumack]

I agree with Panda about him taking on guys thatll bring him into the promoting game. The problem I see is, Jay Zs business plan was to appeal to the African American Urban East Coast crowd but PBC has that demographic on lock. Had Jay Z come in before PBC was ever thought of, with the names he has under his banner, he wouldve been successful.

PBC just did less than 300k for Jacobs-Quillin at the Barclays Centre. They don't have a lock on anything.

[M Bison]

Jay Z is an avid fanatic of weed and *******, that right there should explain everything.

The Son of Fraud would really want to be associated with that?

[The Problem Child]

The Son of Fraud would really want to be associated with that?

Andre Ward is a fake christian. A Christian is not greedy like Ward. Andre Ward killed Goosen because of his greed, don't you think all the stress Ward's greediness taking him to court contributed to the deterioration of his health?

ALSO, Ward is a certified liar as well.

I'm telling you, this guy is as fake as they come. He is a coward, and by Christianity's standards (I am not a christian myself btw), he is a sinner son of Satan.

[El-blanco]

Ward-Smith, Ward-Rodriguez, and Ward-Dawson were all actually really fun fights to watch (would add Ward-Froch to that list, but most folks here don't really like infighting anyway), so what are you even talking about.

Jay-Z is betting on Andre Ward being the star to carry his company going forward; **** on the bet if you want.

Ward as the chief support on a show that draws 1m PPV buys (Cotto-Alvarez), Ward netting himself a solid role in a feature film that does big business ("Creed"), Ward gets active again on HBO, and Andre Ward takes down at least one good-sized scalp (K2 didn't want the work, so Ward is going after Kovalev); depending on how things play out, Kovalev/Stevenson-Ward could end up being a bout for all of the belts at 175.

Ward comes through that fight with a good W, gets the feature role opposite Michael B Jordan in "Creed 2" (the second movie basically wrote itself; star fighter at Creed's father's old gym, coached by the only other person with relative ties back to his father, "Stuntman" Wheeler being the #2 fighter on the planet as the #1 fighter is heading to jail, Adonis showing that he may actually be special, etc), and RocNation Sports launches, likely by 2017, with the sport's best fighter and a budding superstar, possibly crossover star.

If Ward launches, Roc Nation has a handful of solid prospects to develop under him to build the company (Dusty Harrison-Hernandez, Luis "Cuba" Arias, likely Murat Gassiev, whatever's left of Guillermo Rigondeaux) while also heading into the 2016 post-Olympics period with a history of being willing to open up the wallet in looking for prospects to sign (Haymon is the obvious lead-dog, in terms of getting the top American amateur talent, but having a former Olympic gold medalist as the face of your company won't make things easy, and TR/GB/ME won't really be able to scoop up talent on the cheap any longer.

Lol man stfu already with your ****** editorials.

[FrankieBruno]

Jay-z fan's and some African American's are delusional, RN is looking like a disaster.

[-Antonio-]

Unlike PBC, Arum, GB, etc. Roc Nation is a sports and entertainment talent agency. They don't need to have a lot of boxers. I don't expect them to have a large stable of fighters.

[about.thousands]

Damn brother you went in on RN.
I remember people saying this was destined to fail at the jump so this just seemed like a bad move or not a well thought out move to me more than a burned bridge or I'm not recalling something about this situation cuz seemed like it was setup & than over in like 7-14 days so there wasn't much bridge to burn to begin with.

I think it was more to the story than was being reported. The reason I say that is because right before Shaw left Ron Scott Stevens left before their first show. I also don't think they've worked together on a card since then. I'm not certain though.

This is a weird situation idk what to make of still, but this bridge if it is burnt seemed to have been lit on fire in the music industry not the boxing industry from most of the things I've heard.

It didn't come from the music industry. It came from Roc Nation trying to poach his fighters without going through him.

This is another one where idk wtf to make of this situation. Andrade seems like a knucklehead & the whole story doesn't ring true to me, but who knows. Weirder things have happened in boxing. There does start to be a where there's smoke theres fire angle to all these awkward & weird relationship issues I can't disagree with that much.

Supposedly they offered Andrade half a million and spots on HBO to turn down the Charlo fight. I can't see any reason Andrade would turn down that fight he wanted and he was going to get his highest payday. One thing we know for sure is that there was a meeting and emails confirming that Roc Nation was interested in promoting Andrade. Banner and Star co-promote Andrade.

This seemed like a Cotto thing. Cotto didn't wanna pay the $300k sanctioning fee. RN didn't have much hand in this.

What happened here? I'm not even recalling a GBP/RN issue.

The issue was the sanctioning fee and promotion of the fight. Golden Boy did all the heavy lifting promoting the fight in the media even though they weren't the lead promoter. I think they felt like RNS should've paid the fee since they negotiated on the terms that they would be fighting Cotto for the WBC belt. In reality they fought Cotto for a vacant belt. There's a 50/50 split for vacant belts.