Comments Thread For: Spike's TV Deal With Premier Boxing Champions Has Ended

[daggum]

where will i get my fix of stevenson bum fights now?

[bigdunny1]

It's a market substitute: combat sports. It's competing content

I watched some of these spike PBC cards because I'm a boxing fan. I have never seen a bellator fight. They are different audiences different sports. If PBC were cheaper and pulling the same ratings Spike would easily keep PBC around. It has nothing to do with viacom.

[Beercules]

LOL who the hell knew a channel called "bounce" existed.

Yeah man I had no clue

[Eff Pandas]

This isn't surprising at this point. I thought this was gonna come out sooner cuz I was hearing rumblings about Spike making this announcement a couple weeks back. And it makes a ton of since cuz Bellator is at a critical point with competing with the UFC. They got their first PPV in forever coming up. And they are getting a bunch of UFC free agents to increase the caliber of their product. So fair play to Viacom focusing on making Spike more Bellator-friendly & probably hyping them up more with shoulder programming.

As far as PBC goes I've never been a fan of the multi-channel approach although I was cool with them attempting it to see what stuck to the wall or didn't. It seems like the only things that have stuck for PBC thus far is Fox Sports 1 T2T Tuesdays & the bigger name fights on NBC/FOX & the bigger networks. So they should keep grinding away with those options. This should allow for stronger cards on the bigger networks & allow for moving forward with a fighter narrative if they will only keep some better structure & without shuffling the deck so much. Hopefully they will add some streaming app option for the undercards &/or streaming live on FB/twitter or whatever.

[Butch.McRae]

I watched some of these spike PBC cards because I'm a boxing fan. I have never seen a bellator fight. They are different audiences different sports. If PBC were cheaper and pulling the same ratings Spike would easily keep PBC around. It has nothing to do with viacom.

You're not the whole world dude. I watch MMA and boxing (UFC and Bellator) There's a significant portion of the market that does. Especially in places like NYC, where lots of guys box and train muay thai. (Especially the long Island sort. Think Chris Algeri)

[Butch.McRae]

This isn't surprising at this point. I thought this was gonna come out sooner cuz I was hearing rumblings about Spike making this announcement a couple weeks back. And it makes a ton of since cuz Bellator is at a critical point with competing with the UFC. They got their first PPV in forever coming up. And they are getting a bunch of UFC free agents to increase the caliber of their product. So fair play to Viacom focusing on making Spike more Bellator-friendly & probably hyping them up more with shoulder programming.

As far as PBC goes I've never been a fan of the multi-channel approach although I was cool with them attempting it to see what stuck to the wall or didn't. It seems like the only things that have stuck for PBC thus far is Fox Sports 1 T2T Tuesdays & the bigger name fights on NBC/FOX & the bigger networks. So they should keep grinding away with those options. This should allow for stronger cards on the bigger networks & allow for moving forward with a fighter narrative if they will only keep some better structure & without shuffling the deck so much. Hopefully they will add some streaming app option for the undercards &/or streaming live on FB/twitter or whatever.

Great breakdown. It's tough to find quality in a thread like this

[bigdunny1]

You're not the whole world dude. I watch MMA and boxing (UFC and Bellator) There's a significant portion of the market that does. Especially in places like NYC, where lots of guys box and train muay thai. (Especially the long Island sort. Think Chris Algeri)

And there are some people who watch baseball and basketball but MLB and NBA are different sports and different audiences and doesn't stop TNT/TBS from having deals with both. Most people who watch Bellator have no clue what is going on in PBC.

[True-Boxing-Fan]

Nobody said Haymon was going to change the sport, but he has contributed to it. It's only casual fans who approach it scratching their heads and say "well what did he do?" To downplay anything Haymon has accomplished is realistically ******.

Who is going to tell other non boxing fans "hey man if you want to watch boxing you gotta order HBO or Showtime!" That sounds a bit *****ish imo. God forbid the traditional boxing broadcasts should have other platforms..

Nobody said Haymon was going to change the sport? Are you ***ing kidding me. Every Haymon fanboy was going on and on for the last two years about how Haymon is going to change things up and bring boxing back to the mainstream. Free boxing DOE.

Dude I loved the concepts when it first came out. But after seeing him buying channel after channel and seeing how he was putting his best guys in mismatches more often than not and paying them over market value and broadcasting a lot of BS fights. I knew he was just fleecing those investors out of all that money and could care less for the consumer.

But hey we got two years of mostly mismatch fights for free.

[Teetotaler]

Spike was the main network getting good ratings. Why stop?

[HarvardBlue]

I know a lot of you are a happy because it's bad news for the "opposing side." This is bad news for boxing. Ratings for all of boxing is on the decline. HBO is scaling back on the amount of events they broadcast and I'm sure SHO will too. No wonder, when you have people celebrating less boxing on TV because they don't like the person putting on the show. You will never hear MMA fans complaining about the UFC because they only root for Bellatore.