The HBO Budget Crisis and What it Means

[b00g13man]

Haven't read through the thread, but has anyone blamed Haymon yet?

[bballchump11]

Haven't read through the thread, but has anyone blamed Haymon yet?

lol how'd you know?

Haymon killed the sport by overpaying his fighters for fighting cab drivers. Everyone wants the same money and fight cab drivers. It's become extremely expensive to make meaningful fights.

Showtime is down. HBO is next.

[b00g13man]

lol how'd you know?

There are too many posters here with predictable agendas.

[original zero]

This means that HBO has fewer subscribers every year.

100% false. They had 81 million at the end of 2010, 93 million at the end of 2011, 114 million at the end of 2012, 127 million at the end of 2013 and 138 million at the end of 2014.

PBC can't draw flies

100% false. 4.2 million watched Thurman-Guerrero on NBC. 3.5 million watched Garcia-Guerrero on FOX. 3.4 million watched Garcia-Peterson on NBC. 3.2 million watched Broner-Porter on NBC. 3 million watched Wilder-Duhaupas on NBC.

[PACnPBFsuck]

Hope they get their shyt together.

[-PBP-]

Nobody seems to want to mention the most obvious problem when it comes to ANYTHING on tv these days. People are cutting off their cable at an alarming rate. They are going to the pirate internet/cable boxes so they can watch everything free.

This means that HBO has fewer subscribers every year. If they are making less money they will cut their budget accordingly. Simple math. But todays generation wants everything for free and then they wonder why HBO won't pay for more boxing or why is their budget being cut.

It's not just HBO, it's rating across the board for everything. PBC can't draw flies, Showtime ratings aren't any good either. People are complaining all their getting is mismatches. It's because the networks can't afford the good fights because there just aren't enough viewers to watch them and make sense for the networks to put them on. Hell, Haymon has gone into a deep money losing strategy to try and corner the market. He may end up pulling it off but even if he does there will be no money left to pay anyone and no network willing to pay to show the fights.

The only way I see the sport staying relevant is ticket sales. Gate driven profit is the only way to go, and maybe independant PPV's done on the cheap, $15 or $20. Top Rank has the ability to do their own PPV's, they've done it in the past.

But it all goes back to exposure. The fights have to be televised. If they fail to get that done they won't sell tickets either. TV is very important for boxing and the biggest surprise to me is that the promoters have abused the networks with mismatches and terrible fights. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, people cut off their cable and get everything free through the internet. I don't see boxing making legit inroads on tv anytime in the near future. Quite the opposite. It's going into the toilet and it lies squarely on the fault of the promoters and the networks for allowing it.

I believe it's too late. Mayweather-Pac was the swan song for boxing. It literally signified the end of the superfight in this sport. There is nothing BIG to look forward to. There always used to be something just around the corner.

There's always hope but I don't see much of that around these days.

HBO subscriber and revenue growth is increasing. The only thing is less money is being allocated to the boxing budget because other programs pull stronger viewership.

[Dr Rumack]

I think you make some salient point but the one thing I can't understand, in despite of everything you are saying boxing is going gangbusters in other parts of the world. Why can it be that Britain is exploding, viewership is surging and they face the same problems as America. Didn't Joshua/Whyte do a shedload of PPV sales?

Perhaps the more interesting question is, is boxing dying in America? We could well see the power base for the sport move over to Europe in the next 10 years, which for me, even as non-Yank would be sad as America is definitely the mecca of the sport.

The UK, and maybe Europe generally, is different in two important ways. Firstly the sports market isn't nearly as crowded. Soccer is at the centre of everything but there is room around the edges for novelties like boxing. Hard for boxing to be heard above the noise of football, basketball, and baseball in the US. Second thing is that the US Olympic team doesn't seem to get much love any more. In the UK the medallists are temporary celebrities and for the likes of Joshua it's a major launchpad for their pro career.

I don't see boxing dying in the US but premium networks stepping out would be the end of an era for sure.

[The Big Dunn]

I've been reading a lot lately and it seems this HBO budget issue is becoming serious. I'm not a business expert but the main issue is Time Warner made some budget cuts and HBO sports took a significant hit.

This is coming up in a lot of articles:

1. HBO has no interest in Cotto's next fight unless it's PPV

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...lanning-stages

2. Per Bob Arum, they are not interested in pushing Lomachenko or Postol. This is somewhat confirmed here:

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...o-walters-card

So now, they will likely pass on one of the best cards of the year: Walters/Lomachenko and Postol/Granados. It's become the network of mismatches and the upcoming schedule is full of them. Rumor is Showtime might be picking that card up.

Why should we care?

They have nearly the entire top 10 p4p list to exclusive network deals but can't afford to bring in top competition for them. Then you have PBC across the street paying big bucks so would want to fight on HBO anyways.

Are they just going to continue to shove Kovalev, Golovkin and Crawford down our throats in these one sided mismatches?

So basically, it's not looking good. What are your thoughts?

Homie, I 've been posting about this for months now. I think it is a very serious problem.

There is no reward for winning. You are better off being a Gabe Rosado or Hank Lundy-name, no chance to win, will bleed or get ko'd, then you are being a serious contender that wins fights.

I agree with original zero that if this makes everyone fall under the same umbrella it could be good for the sport.

[gee73]

Come on people, HBO does not have a budget problem. Don't you get what their 'problem' is?
Just look back at the last years. The matchups with 'mismatches' and big purses has increased. The interest has been decreasing. So at the end you have fights which don't really move the needle but the fighters getting high purses. At the end the problem is that the people at HBO who are responsible for boxing have to make the point to other people at HBO why they should have fightcard where the license fee is 2-4 million $ but only a million people are watching. That's just about one percent of the HBO viewers. Other shows/procustions might be more "cost efficient", that's the problem of HBO. A Cotto-Geale fight only appeared on HBO because part of the deal was that Cotto would be facing Canelo on PPV. PPV will always bring money to HBO, fights on regular HBO will always cost money. If you read the latest news, you will see that Vargas-Salido was discussed for June on HBO. Two fighters who will bring an exciting fight for a relatively low purse. Ortiz-Thompson & Ali-Vargas card: Relatively low purses for "two" championship fights and probably decent ratings. If you bring the right fights to HBO, they will buy it. Cotto vs. low level opponent is too expensive. Lomachenko-Walters & Postol too expensive and Walters & Postol killed two of HBO's fighters with good ratings in Donaire and Matthysse.

BTW: Don't blame Al Haymon. DLH went to HBO and wanted 4 million for Canelo to face Clottey and would have gotten that if Canelo hadn't been injured...

[OnePunch]

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.......