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

[j.razor]

None of those fights were on espn though
Typical. I expected your reading comprehension to be bad jason

Who needs espn's corruption? Oh right, arum does....

[Butch.McRae]

Conor McGregor did something like 4 million PPV buys for his last three fights (Diaz, Diaz 2, Alvarez), Jon Jones is still a decent draw in his own right (500k-700k PPV buys), and there's still at least 1 GSP fight to leverage on PPV (with enough lesser PPV shows under that to tick things over).

Beyond that, the UFC has built their audience to the point that folks will travel with the UFC (if the day came where all of the UFC content was available on HBO/TNT/TruTV, there'd be a sizable audience picking up HBO to watch the UFC).

$450m is definitely an aggressive price (and a price that I doubt anyone pays for), but $280m is already an aggressive price as a floor, and HBO is one of the only platforms ready to help monetize that.

4-6 PPVs (residual kicks back to HBO), monthly cards on HBO (most of the UFC cards do less than $3m on US PPV and HBO can sustain that per show), at least quarterly shows on TNT, and then the smaller shows/show content used explicitly to get folks to tune into TruTV/Bleacher Report.

(With the way content is going, UFC would also give HBO another chit to push their streaming options into the public, beyond their original series', which already draw a ton of money).

Fair points but as of now the UFC doesn't share it's PPV revenue, and it was reported that PPV revenue is not being offered as a part of the deal. Now if UFC bucked on that then what you're saying is possible, but I think they'd be hesitant to limit their quarterly fights to an HBO audience that is much smaller than what they currently have with FOX.

[-Antonio-]

Arum is right. I listen to ESPN radio every now and then and they had promos for the Pac/Horn fight almost every hour. I'm sure First Take promoted it too. And I saw promos online. That's 3 platforms and all that advertisement.

[j.razor]

who is Daniel Jacobs fighting, though? Watched the same episode of the breakfast club that you did, and all Hopkins did was not talk bad about Danny (Brooklyn fighter, for an interview on NY radio, Hopkins isn't dumb) and hint at some announcement that was coming.

Fight is basically 10 weeks away at this point, and things still haven't progressed beyond that.

Unless Jacobs is already quietly in camp, or he's being set to face a complete bum, 8 weeks for a fight is likely about as short you can cut things and still be in top shape.

Its okay tho cuz lil g fought 35 bums in a row fought a welterweight then lost to Jacobs so what's your point?

[-Antonio-]

LMAO. Arum's an idiot. His whole justification and acknowledgement for branding success off premium channels is the concept of PBC on mainstream as well, to help promote a brand as he says "UFC" or boxing on Fox....

Way to go Bobdilla. Seems like you and Haymon are hitting it off well now!

It took PBC over 2 years to give us a big time fight (Garcia/Thurman)

Arum used Pac as the first fight to garner more attention. He delivered. The only problem I have with ESPN is their production was horrendous. They need to step their game up.

[-Antonio-]

Fair points but as of now the UFC doesn't share it's PPV revenue, and it was reported that PPV revenue is not being offered as a part of the deal. Now if UFC bucked on that then what you're saying is possible, but I think they'd be hesitant to limit their quarterly fights to an HBO audience that is much smaller than what they currently have with FOX.

I'm with you.

The UFC will always have the same problem though. They can't promote stars for long because they have short reigns. If Conor gets beat down by Floyd and comes back and loses in UFC they are in trouble. Their only stars left are Jones and GSP. One is not reliable and the other doesn't really wanna fight.

UFC ppvs that dont have Conor usually only sell 150-400k.

There is a huge opportunity for boxing to really rise above MMA over these next 6 months. It starts with Floyd having to embarrass Conor and then GGG/Canelo putting on a show.

[j.razor]

Arum is a beast!

At lies....

[j.razor]

Arum is the boxing savior.

Only for the bias tards that "Don't Know **** Bout Boxing"

[j.razor]

Simply assuming that Daniel Jacobs is going to fight on the undercard, without any announcement or even a fighter in Golden Boy's fold for him to target (Lemieux is likely being set up for Cotto), takes a good amount of faith.

Daniel Jacobs vs Andy Lee, in Brooklyn, is a matchup that can reasonably be made (could also end up as one of the Fox shows, if not on Showtime).

What can Golden Boy offer that'd be better than that.

There is only three fighters that should be against Jacobs right after the nelo vs lil g fight & that is nelo, lil g or bily joe Saunders period.!

[j.razor]

It took PBC over 2 years to give us a big time fight (Garcia/Thurman)

Arum used Pac as the first fight to garner more attention. He delivered. The only problem I have with ESPN is their production was horrendous. They need to step their game up.

Lol...& that was arum's full arsenal....PBC kept good quality throughout.