Comments Thread For: Arum Explains Why Ditching HBO For ESPN Was The Right Move

[Lester Tutor]

i remember when top rank put on that horrible card on TRU TV dan was live tweeting from arums mansion! he bashes pbc but was praising horrible tru tv on twitter! that shows the level of these peoples honesty and ethics

THats not the problem. The problem is Fat Dan stealing Burger King's WiFi to write his articles. His average viewership at Burger King Monday - Friday is 3hours. Even when he's traveling he arranges his #2 & 6 (super size for 25 center more & 12... oh and I almost forgot #11 x 47) so that he can feel like a warrior in the real world.

[Butch.McRae]

PBC on the cusp of getting a pay deal with Fox/FS1 (6-10 Fox dates and 30 dates on FS1, per year) for Phase 2 of the venture).

We still have no idea if ESPN is cutting a check here, or if Bob Arum went into his pocket (or someone else's pocket) to set the stage for a Top Rank Boxing platform.

I'm still waiting to hear details on financing. Without a significant war chest, the fights will inevitably either be mismatches or ****y cards. They haven't said a word about it. I find it hard to believe that ESPN would be financing cards while they are bleeding subscribers, viewers, and laying off staff. So I'm assuming Bob is co-financing these cards with some unidentified investors (probably are PE firm).

I still don't see how this is a financially viable move. Manny can't fight on every card.

[Scipio2009]

Good deal. Im happy with anybody that puts on boxing events. Hopefully he pulls it of on espn. I believe the problem pbc has (other than a lot of bs fights with ppl i didnt want) is it should have had a few big cards on regular fox and the rest on espn. Instead of putting cards on 15 diferent channels. And maybe used same broadcasters we could get used to. And not that joe rogan wannabe mfr. I do dig bryan kinney a lot and wards trainer and also dig atlas and tessitore. Either way i hope they all come out strong for the selfishness of myself and the sport of boxing

Haymon had to find out if boxing would truly work on terrestrial TV, so he almost had to spread things around to see what does/doesn't work. And he's found out a lot; folks will tune in for fights, audiences grow throughout the card (just like on premium cable), competing head-on with football isn't the best way to go, Friday/Saturday work as strong nights for fights, Tuesday works as well, and there are opportunities to cross-promote boxing with other stuff.

With the information gathered, and a TV partner interested TV partner in Fox/FS1, now you can focus in the resources (8 Fox dates [working to place shows in the holes that come up during football season, with freer reign in the summer], almost weekly fights on Tuesdays on FS1, an FS1 program to help hype the coming fights, Custer/Virgil/fighter guest as the team, etc).

Rather than simply betting on one thing that might work, you now enter an environment where you're pretty sure that the setup will work.

Top Rank has a chance to do something interesting on ESPN; Joe/Teddy/Tim seem to be a really good team, Stephen A works as "ESPN personality interested in boxing", and ESPN is still the sports leader.

Main risk is that, in looking to keep the good matchups for Top Rank PPV, Arum goes to his instincts and starts putting only **** and mismatches on ESPN.

[Scipio2009]

Smart move by Arum. HBO wasn't given as many dates or money as he wanted and ESPN seems to be fully invested in boxing with Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank.

Hopefully he does business with other promotional companies and doesn't shut business down with HBO like how Oscar did with Showtime.

ESPN has a time-buy deal with Golden Boy, and I'm pretty sure that it's likely the same type of deal with Top Rank too.

Hopefully he does have an open shop, because ESPN isn't going to protect his company like HBO did; Stephen A. Smith and Teddy Atlas see the whole boxing world and have no issue talking up the Broner-Garcia winner or Omar Figueroa Jr as the only fights that anyone wants to see for Terrence Crawford, or naming the PBC welterweights as the only names that anyone wants to see Pacquiao in with, among other fights.

[p4ptbe]

thats not the problem. The problem is fat dan stealing burger king's wifi to write his articles. His average viewership at burger king monday - friday is 3hours. Even when he's traveling he arranges his #2 & 6 (super size for 25 center more & 12... Oh and i almost forgot #11 x 47) so that he can feel like a warrior in the real world.

he was actually sitting in arums living room and tweeting pictures of kovalev sitting on the couch with a blanket lmfao! This might sound like a joke but its not

[Thetruthiserrol]

Haymon had to find out if boxing would truly work on terrestrial TV, so he almost had to spread things around to see what does/doesn't work. And he's found out a lot; folks will tune in for fights, audiences grow throughout the card (just like on premium cable), competing head-on with football isn't the best way to go, Friday/Saturday work as strong nights for fights, Tuesday works as well, and there are opportunities to cross-promote boxing with other stuff.

With the information gathered, and a TV partner interested TV partner in Fox/FS1, now you can focus in the resources (8 Fox dates [working to place shows in the holes that come up during football season, with freer reign in the summer], almost weekly fights on Tuesdays on FS1, an FS1 program to help hype the coming fights, Custer/Virgil/fighter guest as the team, etc).

Rather than simply betting on one thing that might work, you now enter an environment where you're pretty sure that the setup will work.

Top Rank has a chance to do something interesting on ESPN; Joe/Teddy/Tim seem to be a really good team, Stephen A works as "ESPN personality interested in boxing", and ESPN is still the sports leader.

Main risk is that, in looking to keep the good matchups for Top Rank PPV, Arum goes to his instincts and starts putting only **** and mismatches on ESPN.

Where are you finding this information about this FOX PBC deal? I've searched on Google and can't seem to find anything.

[Scipio2009]

I enjoyed the PBC card last night. However if you can't see the absolute failure PBC is, then there is no hope for you. They had $400M invested, what do they have to show for it? 3 lost deals (ESPN, NBC and Spike), only 2 deals left (FOX and Bounce). They still have no stars as part of their stable, this is because of inactivity. Do you think exciting guys in their primes like Charlo bros should be fighting 1-2 a year?

I hope PBC sticks with FOX and the occasional showtime card and tries to build from there, but there is no doubt that Haymon's initial plan of bringing boxing back to the masses via free TV has not been successful.

SpikeTV is still a buyer of fights (though their focus is obviously on Bellator), and the network deals were always going to shake out to one company (Fox/FS1 and ESPN/ABC seem to be the broadcasters that liked what they got; BounceTV likely sticks to the quarterly shows).

Beyond that, Keith Thurman and Errol Spence Jr are emerging as stars and there are a host of young talents that are starting to bust through as well (David Benevidez, Erickson Lubin, Jarrett Hurd and Deloach to lesser extent, etc); Showtime/CBS still has first dibs on talents like Deontay Wilder, Danny Garcia, Adonis Stevenson, Leo Santa Cruz/Abner Mares/Carl Frampton/Lee Selby, GRJ, etc, but those talents could spill into the primetime terrestrial TV shows too.

PBC is a longterm bet that's still likely to pay off, imo.

[Steven Mccowan]

Haymon had to find out if boxing would truly work on terrestrial TV, so he almost had to spread things around to see what does/doesn't work. And he's found out a lot; folks will tune in for fights, audiences grow throughout the card (just like on premium cable), competing head-on with football isn't the best way to go, Friday/Saturday work as strong nights for fights, Tuesday works as well, and there are opportunities to cross-promote boxing with other stuff.

With the information gathered, and a TV partner interested TV partner in Fox/FS1, now you can focus in the resources (8 Fox dates [working to place shows in the holes that come up during football season, with freer reign in the summer], almost weekly fights on Tuesdays on FS1, an FS1 program to help hype the coming fights, Custer/Virgil/fighter guest as the team, etc).

Rather than simply betting on one thing that might work, you now enter an environment where you're pretty sure that the setup will work.

Top Rank has a chance to do something interesting on ESPN; Joe/Teddy/Tim seem to be a really good team, Stephen A works as "ESPN personality interested in boxing", and ESPN is still the sports leader.

Main risk is that, in looking to keep the good matchups for Top Rank PPV, Arum goes to his instincts and starts putting only **** and mismatches on ESPN.

Very good post man. And i agree with it all except i dont think espn will allow bob to put up a ton of **** fights. And i think in their deal espn does have some say in it. Only time will tell though. Appreciate you and peace out

[Scipio2009]

the matchups were terrible. all you care about is knockouts? werent the pbc fans the ones complaining about fans only wanting to see knockouts and people not appreciating slick boxing now they are content with knockouts even if the matchups are complete sh-it.

Rich to hear someone who's been creaming themselves over Golovkin flattening cans talking ****, lol.

And what was terrible about the three matchups? Browne-Monaghan was a fight between prospects on the way up (with Browne simply being better), Szpilka-Kownacki was a step-up fight for a NY heavyweight prospect against a guy who'd just had a good fight with the heavyweight champion, and Figueroa-Guerrero was a matchup between a rugged welterweight gatekeeper against an undefeated lightweight titlist coming back again two years off.

No idea what the bookees said about the fight, but doubt that any of the matchups were worse than 5:1 on the night of the fight.

[Shadoww702]

the matchups were terrible. all you care about is knockouts? werent the pbc fans the ones complaining about fans only wanting to see knockouts and people not appreciating slick boxing now they are content with knockouts even if the matchups are complete sh-it.

???? Isn't that what your GOD GGG is all about??? The KO King of Tomato Cans!!!! And when he FINALLY fought someone worth a damn he lost to a lot of ppl. Canelo will finish what Jacobs started.