The HBO Budget Crisis and What it Means

[deanrw]

I have been telling people for ages now, it is not just HBO, but the sport itself is dying!

Until the sport is willing to evolve away from gloves and into Freddie Krueger style gloves expect the trend to continue.

[Scipio2009]

It would be nice if Showtime could take this opportunity and rebuild, away from Haymon and be like the Showtime of old. That used to be the place for the more hardcore fan, as opposed to the hype job promotion they turned into, emulating the HBO of old. HBO now is like the worst of both worlds with their straight to video presentation, lackluster matchmaking and overall bored inclination of the current landscape. Even when something is handed to them on a plate, they aren't willing to take it - perhaps they just know the budget issue all too well and have low expectations.

Maybe it's me reading the tea leaves, but I see Showtime/CBS emerging as the new "home for boxing", largely driven by throwing their lot in with the PBC effort:

-CBS can always use more content, particularly live sports content
-Working around football season (SEC Football on most Saturdays), I think they can find 10 primetime Saturday dates for boxing, in addition to afternoon fight cards when football isn't on
-CBS Sports Network, no different that FS1, needs content to give folks a reason to tune in
-The CBS streaming service "All Access" could utilize the extra sports content
-Showtime is still an in-the-fold avenue to take advantage of whatever few PPV fights end up popping up (Wilder-Joshua being the biggest one at the moment that's still a bit away)
-ShoBox is still the fold to deliver content for the hardcore fight fan.

Makes too much sense, imo.

[bballchump11]

I disagree, for two key reasons:

-The actual payout for a PBC fight card isn't as inflated as folks here seem to believe (the Santa Cruz-Martinez two-fight card, paired with the airing of Quigg-Frampton, likely didn't even end up with $2m being paid out [counting the 4 fighters' purses and the cost to air Frampton-Quigg]).

-Haymon's model leaves the fighters with picking up most of the money, rather than the promoter/organization (details of the UFC-Fox deal aren't all-the-way clear, but the rough outline is that the UFC got $100m per year to deliver ~40 fight cards per year; ~$2.5m per fight card); the UFC could pay out far more money to the fighters, they just choose not to.

They want to talk about inflated.

https://twitter.com/danrafaelespn/st...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

Per Nevada commission, #BradleyRios purses: Bradley $1.9M, Rios $800k, Lomachenko $750k, Koasicha $35k #boxing

— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) November 6, 2015

[Scipio2009]

Prichard colon is still in a coma.

I know that Pritchard Colon is still in a coma; no one is trying to downplay that at all.

Colon had five fights in 2015, three of which, I believe, got him on TV, with PBC even slipping in a touch of marketing time for him; all under the advisement of Al Haymon.

Simply look at the slate of young fighters under Haymon, never having experienced owing fights to a promoter, and your point about talent development is laughable.

[PK3434]

There is a lot of misunderstandings in this thread:

1. HBO has a had a decreased budget for a while now. It is an issue, and that is the main reason why Peter Nelson has a very difficult job.

2. Overall, HBO has done a nice job in the last couple of years despite this disadvantage, when Showtime seemed to have a bigger budget. HBO has still dominated Showtime.

3. Boxing is not a popular sport at all. Most of these fighters earning 7 figures are really not worth that much. They simply aren't bringing in revenue...Many are extremely lucky to be earning so much and there is a good chance it won't last very long.

4. Despite the fact that PBC has been unimpressive and won't be able to survive in its current model, it has hurt what HBO and affiliated promoters can do. It is decreased the amount of quality opponents that could be in the ring with the stars/potential stars of HBO. It has taken up a lot of dates. It has every fighter believing they should be paid millions without being able to sell a ticket or get people to turn on their tv's and watch.

The boxing business is brutal.

[Scipio2009]

HBO cutting budgets and rejecting quality fights, Showtime has like 2 cards a year, PBC is losing half a billion a year. Boxing in general is not looking too good at all and it's because boxers are overpaid, promoters want to protect their investments, and egos are huge.

Showtime had a big card in January, a big night of fights in February, was supposed to have Thurman-Porter (though on CBS) in March, will likely have Jack-Chavez Jr and Anthony Joshua's US debut in April, and will likely air Wilder-Povetkin in May.

mudslinging isn't necessary, especially in the name of trying to push a "pox on all houses" false narrative.

[Scipio2009]

There are well over 10,000 active pro fighters in the world, and thats just the ones who have boxed in the past 12 months. Anyone thinking that "one umbrella" could manage that volume of fighters is just ******, not to mention the regional aspects like the Japanese market, European, etc that likely would not have worldwide appeal.......

"one umbrella" isn't trying to take over the world; the aim is simply for the takeover of the US market.

Mexico, Japan, the UK, Germany, Russia, Quebec, and other markets will have their own varying hierarchies, but the US market would end up with most of the fighters under one umbrella.

You limit things down to fighters that fight in the US, while also eliminating the stumblebums (a fighter who's lost 8 of 13 fights), and the number of fighters who get the look for TV drops way below 10,000 fighters.

[12TRIBEsRiSe]

Everybody focused on PBC Struggles but those people are not telling the full story...BOXING IN GENERAL especially here in the US is not doing very well. Ticket Sales are down all over and lets just say, PBC are not the only ones giving away tickets to fill up the place. HBO is going to take the budget down and give us what they want to give us and what they can afford and the Gullible Casuals will gladly accept it and defend in while in the same breath bash PBC every chance they get when in actuality the "HBO vs PBC" stuff is absolutely KILLING the sport of boxing right now

great post!!!!!!!!

[Mitchell Kane]

-CBS Sports Network, no different that FS1, needs content to give folks a reason to tune in

CBS Sports is a weak sports network that does very small ratings numbers....doubt they'd be able to offer much in the way of a budget.

-Showtime is still an in-the-fold avenue to take advantage of whatever few PPV fights end up popping up (Wilder-Joshua being the biggest one at the moment that's still a bit away)

SHO's boxing audience has been decimated and Haymon has almost no PPV fighters and very few PPV prospects.

It may be a long time before SHO PPV becomes viable.

[Scipio2009]

$100 million seems extremely optimistic given the current climate.

$50 million may even turn out to be optimistic.

The UFC got $100m, for 40 shows, yet still sell 12 PPVs every year; largely because they proved that they could deliver that 18-49 audience.

50 fight cards (with Haymon putting on 2 PPVs per year, if that) at $2m per card, gets you to $100m. Once you sit and look at it, the numbers aren't as extremely optimistic as one would figure at first blush.