How viable is the PBC model?

[Eff Pandas]

Im laughing at all the fighters who jumped ship to Haymon and now can't get a fight to save their lives and most likely will be free agents pretty freaking soon.

Some of you cats don't grasp some basic **** or at least can't see further down the line past a failure...assuming PBC is a failure at some point.

I'd speculate should PBC go out of business Showtime's roster just got improved greatly (hell they have been throwing Haymon guys on Showtime cards since 1 month from Thurman breaking PBC's cherry) & the not ready for Showtime caliber guys will get thrown on Slick Ricky's undercards to be groomed for bigger things down the line if they pan out. I expect few if any Haymon guys will end up free agents & certainly few if any notable guys of the title holder, top contender or top prospect variety.

[Eastcoast]

Im laughing at all the fighters who jumped ship to Haymon and now can't get a fight to save their lives and most likely will be free agents pretty freaking soon.

PBC dissolving is irrelevant. Everyone except Beterbiev signed a 9 year deal with Haymon.

[al-Xander]

Im laughing at all the fighters who jumped ship to Haymon and now can't get a fight to save their lives and most likely will be free agents pretty freaking soon.

There are plenty of fights available. It's just that they can't accept anything less than $1 mil per fight.

[.!WAR MIKEY!.]

One negative is that PBC took ESPN Friday Night Fights away from us and failed to replace it with steady, regular programming.

That was destination viewing for the hardcore fans and we always knew when and where to tune in.

It's been hell to keep up with when PBC fights are scheduled. Too many shows on random dates on random networks.

piece of shit haymon, just did it to do it to, his weak ass business plan would have failed just the same without espn, I blame affirmative action to be honest ....

[al-Xander]

It's a model in which its top fighters don't want anything to do with each other. It's like you fight your own fights and I'll fight mine. It's like they're in different worlds. Garcia is fighting Molina next. Forget about Thurman, Broner, Berto, Alexander, etc. Lara is probably fighting Harrison next. Forget about the Charlos, Williams, Andrade, etc. It's a ****d up model. There should never be anything like it ever again in the sport.

[Scipio2009]

Why would a network pay big money for the PBC? Their infrastructure is a joke and they have a bunch of overpaid fighters who don't fight often and balk about any tough match-ups.


If a network wants to get into boxing, stay independent and just buy good fights....

Because signing with a company with the scale of PBC helps provide far more regular content than simply shopping for fights, on a show by show basis.

Haymon works with over 250 fighters; if Broadcaster X wanted to commit their channel to a "Thursday Night Throwdown" boxing season of 30 shows, a card every Thursday, before going on hiatus for the year, Haymon can not only deliver that deal, his roster is deep enough with fighters to mix/match things (in the inevitable event that injuries end up happening).

12 primetime fight broadcasts (featuring known/name fighters), and a regular boxing program that can be run for most of the year (featuring prospects/veterans looking to re-establish/etc).

Terrestrial TV doesn't really work one-off events; even with the coming World Series, after a 162-game season and playoff baseball, the viewer knows that they'll see at least 4 games.

Hosting a show in January, and then in February, and then not coming back until May (a potential in a card by card situation) is the quickest way to kill the effort before things even get started. PBC brings consistency.

[brettWall]

It's a model in which its top fighters don't want anything to do with each other. It's like you fight your own fights and I'll fight mine. It's like they're in different worlds. Garcia is fighting Molina next. Forget about Thurman, Broner, Berto, Alexander, etc. Lara is probably fighting Harrison next. Forget about the Charlos, Williams, Andrade, etc. It's a ****d up model. There should never be anything like it ever again in the sport.

Lara is fighting Yuri Foreman next. Some say he's fighting Cintron. Makes me puke.

[Scipio2009]

In general, sports are a pretty poor investment with negligible ROI

Obviously, there are exceptions but nothing I have seen from PBC suggests that this will be one of them and I reckon that the only ones to stand to benefit are Haymon himself and a couple of random fighters that were grossly overpaid for a bout or 2

From a fan's perspective, PBC has given us some good fights but there are some worrying signs e.g. Haymon didnt even bid on Wilder-Povetkin (and look where that has gotten us!), Jacobs is refusing to enforce his mandatory, stable fighters arent being matched with the best opponents whilst others are incredibly inactive.

Jury is still out but signs arent good

Live sports is the only thing that is largely driving advertiser budgets consistently; you look at the deals to lock up NBA, Premier League, UFC, NCAAF, college sports, etc and the correlation is clear.

If Haymon, over the 2-3 years of his effort, can prove that the audience is there (particularly the 18-54 demo coveted by advertisers), the broadcasters will come looking to make a deal.

The UFC got a 7-year, $700m deal to take their fights to Fox/FS1 (while still keeping their biggest events/stars to themselves on PPV); if the audience is there, what's barring Haymon from expecting $150m per year in a deal (any broadcaster likely only ends up losing 2-5 fight cards to PPV)?

[Scipio2009]

It's a model in which its top fighters don't want anything to do with each other. It's like you fight your own fights and I'll fight mine. It's like they're in different worlds. Garcia is fighting Molina next. Forget about Thurman, Broner, Berto, Alexander, etc. Lara is probably fighting Harrison next. Forget about the Charlos, Williams, Andrade, etc. It's a ****d up model. There should never be anything like it ever again in the sport.

... Danny Garcia versus Keith Thurman, for the WBC and WBA 147lb title, is being eyed for early Spring 2017. Charlo-Williams is also set for the end of the year.

patience