The HBO Budget Crisis and What it Means

[Mitchell Kane]

So PBC can't develop that same shoulder programming? 'PBC Unleashed', if you will? methinks not.

They can develop it, but who's going to pay for it and what's the audience for it?

[Mitchell Kane]

-Deontay Wilder has an 18k-seat building in Alabama that he can call home, in addition to 14k people coming out to see Wilder-Szpilka at the Barclays Center (Szpilka deserving credit for that as well); he's not Mayweather yet, but he's most definitely a draw.

The attendance for Wilder-Szpilka was good but the SHO ratings were awful....it averaged 500k with a peak of 623k.

Wilder-Molina wasn't great, either, averaging 678k.

Those are not good numbers.

His fight with Duhaupas had rather modest ratings for a PBC show with somethign like 2.365 million average.

Wilder can do crowds in Alabama, just like Terence Crawford can do crowds in Omaha...but those aren't big markets with premium ticket prices and it doesn't get the same exposure as a fight in a market like NY or LA.

Wilder did get a good crowd, so we'll see if he can build on the attendance he did against Szpilka...but let's also see how he does against Povetkin.

-Garcia, flirting with defeat, also adds another angle to his arc. Personally, I think Garcia's longterm prospects are better than you think.

Getting questionable decisions against Herrera and Peterson doesn't adds an angle to his arc, it just means he's vulnerable. I don't think prospects at 147 are all that great, but you do...that's fine.

-Will simply have to agree to disagree about Erroll Spence Jr

Fair enough.

[BlackSoul]

these ****** ass biased fans are STILL Blaming the black guy Al Haymon for the troubles of hbo
you cant make this **** up

[bballchump11]

The attendance for Wilder-Szpilka was good but the SHO ratings were awful....it averaged 500k with a peak of 623k.

Wilder-Molina wasn't great, either, averaging 678k.

Those are not good numbers.

His fight with Duhaupas had rather modest ratings for a PBC show with somethign like 2.365 million average.

I don't think it's wise to blame Showtime's ratings on Wilder since all of their fights are down right now. Comparing any Showtime fight right now to HBO or even Showtime ratings from 2 years ago won't give an accurate reading.

And the Duhaupas fight didn't produce great ratings on NBC, but who the hell is Duhaupas? That was seen as a mismatch against an unknown foreigner going into it. There are UFC on FOX cards that do close to those ratings that are loaded.

Example being UFC on Fox 16 did 2.29 million viewers (T.J. Dillashaw vs. Ranan Barao).
UFC on Fox 17 did 2.28 million viewers (Rafael dos Anjos vs Donald Cerrone). The final number was 2.8, but that 2.365 million number for Wilder/Duhaupas was a preliminary number also

[Mitchell Kane]

Comparing any Showtime fight right now to HBO or even Showtime ratings from 2 years ago won't give an accurate reading.

What isn't accurate about listing the actual SHO ratings?

[original zero]

And the Duhaupas fight didn't produce great ratings on NBC, but who the hell is Duhaupas? That was seen as a mismatch against an unknown foreigner going into it. There are UFC on FOX cards that do close to those ratings that are loaded.

duhaupas was an unknown foreigner and 3 million people still tuned in.

people can say whatever they want about pay TV vs free TV, but it doesn't change the fact that PBC's fighters are being seen by a lot more people and therefore will be considered the next generation of stars by the general public.

[bballchump11]

What isn't accurate about listing the actual SHO ratings?

You know what I mean. It's not an accurate reading on Wilder's drawing power. Not even Canelo could go on Showtime right now and draw more than 1 million viewers.

[Scipio2009]

They can develop it, but who's going to pay for it and what's the audience for it?

I'd assume the same type of audience that tunes infor UFC Unleashed, a program that I doubt is blowing anything away in the ratings.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

boxing is dead in America... People just don't realize it becaise the corpse is still warm..

By 2020 american fighters will be going to Canada, UK, Japan, Russia,mGermany.. Those will be the hotspots for big money fights.. American boxing is going to become a lot like what happened to Japanese mma

[Scipio2009]

The attendance for Wilder-Szpilka was good but the SHO ratings were awful....it averaged 500k with a peak of 623k.

Wilder-Molina wasn't great, either, averaging 678k.

Those are not good numbers.

His fight with Duhaupas had rather modest ratings for a PBC show with somethign like 2.365 million average.

Wilder can do crowds in Alabama, just like Terence Crawford can do crowds in Omaha...but those aren't big markets with premium ticket prices and it doesn't get the same exposure as a fight in a market like NY or LA.

Wilder did get a good crowd, so we'll see if he can build on the attendance he did against Szpilka...but let's also see how he does against Povetkin.



Getting questionable decisions against Herrera and Peterson doesn't adds an angle to his arc, it just means he's vulnerable. I don't think prospects at 147 are all that great, but you do...that's fine.



Fair enough.

The SHO rating for Wilder-Szpilka doesn't reflect the full impact of the fight; Showtime did livestream the fight on Youtube, with the fight having over 500k views by the time I saw it (was travelling, so didn't see it live; not sure how long after I saw it, Showtime took the fight down), and the two main moments of the fight (Szpilka KO and the Wilder-Fury confrontation) being seen over 6m times.

The Molina number was down (Molina wasn't given much of a chance, though actually ending up in a good fight), but Stiverne-Wilder did end up averaging 1.25m viewers (a great number). My guess is Wilder-Povetkin (a bout seen by most logical parties as being a legit even fight) will have a number far closer to Stiverne-Wilder than Wilder-Molina.

With the New York metro area having the highest concentration of Russian/Russian-speaking people in the US, I have no doubt that Wilder-Povetkin at the Barclays Center does massive business.

Lastly, I think people are overselling the "questionable decisions" point; Peterson gave up the first 7 rounds of their fight, and all Herrera did was try to spoil behind his jab. Danny Garcia's prospects at 147, imo, are just fine (the only fighter I don't have him beating right now are Kell Brook, with the possibility of Tim Bradley[let's see how he looks against Pacquiao] and Erroll Spence Jr[depending on how he develops] joining that list)