HBO Boxing... on the rise or falling hard? Calzaghe-Kessler vs Bradley-Rios

[champion4ever]

Calzaghe-Kessler took place in Wales in 2007 and cost HBO $3 million. The event telecast brought in an average of 1.591 million viewers and was considered the lowest ratings ever for a HBO World Championship Boxing telecast.

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Jo...Mikkel_Kessler

Bradley-Rios took place in the US in 2015 and cost HBO $3 million. The event telecast brought in an average of 747,000 viewers.

So 8 years after the lowest WCB card on HBO, another WCB event generates less than HALF of the lowest event 8 years prior.

How healthy is HBO's boxing program?

HBO has been downsizing it's Boxing program since the decline of the American heavyweight. Moreover, it's not free television. Unlike the Super Bowl, it's a premium channel network, that is reliant on subscribers, rather than Nielsen ratings, in order to sell advertisements to make money. In other words, HBO has an inelastic business model. As long as they don't lose any subscribers, then HBO's boxing program should be just fine. So it doesn't matter how many viewers tune in to watch a boxing event, it won't hurt their overall revenues because they are selling a prepaid subscription service.

[therealpugilist]

HBO boxing is going bye bye sooner than later. I don't really care though, as long as they give Max, Roy and Hopkins jobs at PBC doing some type of commentating work. Those guys are great.

feel you on that one

[Tony Trick-Pony]

HBO (nor Showtime or PBC for that matter) has anything to do with the titles mess. It would be great if some of them went away.

I like the HBO crew. I don't really like them enough to get into a big argument about it, so to each their own. But the only other crew I really like other then them is the Spike crew, but I'll watch a good fight called by anybody. I do also really like Al Bernstein, and I really liked seeing Brian Kenny back involved with boxing on Fox.

Free TV is fine, though I do hate commercials. I am so used to watching big boxing on premium cable or PPV, that the commercials really annoy me. But I can live with it. I still prefer watching on HBO.

Well, enjoy it while you can.

Haha.