Top Rank/ESPN To Announce Big New Deal

[Teetotaler]

Bob Arum saving boxing
Showing that boy haymon how its done

[Jsmooth9876]

why would they give top rank so much money when they have no fighters? especially with manny on his way out

They may have the best at 126(Vakdez) 130. (Loma) 140-147(Crawford) 168 (Zurdo) 175 if Ward deals with them. And they a part of Parker at HW... Stevenson and Conlan and other talent..

147-154 is mostly Haymon guys but why can't they work together if the money is there?

If I was ESPN I wouldn't pay a dime fir boxing because it's a niche sport that's not growing at all with the younger crowd but it can work if these dummies ever work together to make good fights.

[Scipio2009]

When compared to other sports it's really not a lot of money. The TV deals keep going up, if ESPN can lock down a 4-5 year tv partnership with exclusive rights it's actually very reasonable.

The dodger 1 MLB team have a 25 year deal worth $8.35 billion, that's $334 million a year.

Top Rank has a track record of building superstars, they could easily spin the DLH/Mayweather/Pac history recent history into "The next boxing superstar we make is going to be exclusive to ESPN".

Lomachenko is being pushed hard by Teddy Atlas as P4P #1 in the world with Crawford and Ward in the top 3. Basically they are selling ESPN the top 3 fighters in the world to fight exclusively on their network.

Of course, all the numbers I'm throwing out are speculation but I have a feeling they will be close when all the details come out.

The Dodgers play 162 baseball games, though; add they've got a national/international fanbase tuning in and paying $2m a game (no idea how many games they get, but let's keep the numbers round) ends up being an alright deal.

You don't get anywhere near that with Top Rank; Pacquiao is on his way out, Terence Crawford is still a handful of fights away from stardom
(Pacquiao, Alvarado, Broner, Khan is likely the next best few fights given the way that Top Rank does business), and the rest of the fighters are further away than Crawford is.

Bob Arum can likely deliver a handful of stellar fights (Pacquiao-Crawford, Loma-Rigo being the most present), but the vast bulk of what Arum has left would barely be good enough to headline Friday Night Fights when it was humming, nevermind stuff that you're actually looking to feature on the main ESPN channel. Teddy Atlas won't hold his tongue while being fed ****, even for his favorite fighter.

Just doesn't make sense to me

[Scipio2009]

ESPN, being owned by Disney have been a bunch of ******* cucks for a while. Look at what ESPN did to Curt Schilling for saying he didn't want to send his daughter into a restroom with grown men, or what ABC did to Tim Allen, pulled his show for his political beliefs yet didn't do anything to that Grey's Anatomy actor after his racist rant against whites and negative comments about police officers.

Disney and it's affiliates are nothing but a bunch of ******* cucks pushing the gay and PC agenda when it suits them.

Crying about ESPN, on a boxing forum, is a far more cuck act than anything that's come from Disney, lol

[Scipio2009]

Guess it depends in part on how much ESPN values Top Rank's fight library, and how ESPN would plan to distrbute it.

Content for ESPN Classic would be interesting, but I don't see Top Rank selling it's history, and I doubt that ESPN will have all that much interest in renting the library from them either.

[The Big Dunn]

The Dodgers play 162 baseball games, though; add they've got a national/international fanbase tuning in and paying $2m a game (no idea how many games they get, but let's keep the numbers round) ends up being an alright deal.

You don't get anywhere near that with Top Rank; Pacquiao is on his way out, Terence Crawford is still a handful of fights away from stardom
(Pacquiao, Alvarado, Broner, Khan is likely the next best few fights given the way that Top Rank does business), and the rest of the fighters are further away than Crawford is.

Bob Arum can likely deliver a handful of stellar fights (Pacquiao-Crawford, Loma-Rigo being the most present), but the vast bulk of what Arum has left would barely be good enough to headline Friday Night Fights when it was humming, nevermind stuff that you're actually looking to feature on the main ESPN channel. Teddy Atlas won't hold his tongue while being fed ****, even for his favorite fighter.

Just doesn't make sense to me

Espn may force a real end to the Cold War to make the best fight the best in order to maximize ratings. I'd hope they figured out with the Loma and Crawford cards that you need to put on more competitive fights.

[Mitchell Kane]

The Dodgers play 162 baseball games, though; add they've got a national/international fanbase tuning in and paying $2m a game (no idea how many games they get, but let's keep the numbers round) ends up being an alright deal.

You don't get anywhere near that with Top Rank; Pacquiao is on his way out, Terence Crawford is still a handful of fights away from stardom
(Pacquiao, Alvarado, Broner, Khan is likely the next best few fights given the way that Top Rank does business), and the rest of the fighters are further away than Crawford is.

Bob Arum can likely deliver a handful of stellar fights (Pacquiao-Crawford, Loma-Rigo being the most present), but the vast bulk of what Arum has left would barely be good enough to headline Friday Night Fights when it was humming, nevermind stuff that you're actually looking to feature on the main ESPN channel. Teddy Atlas won't hold his tongue while being fed ****, even for his favorite fighter.

Just doesn't make sense to me

That assumes that Top Rank isn't willing to work with fighters outside it's roster, and that it's roster won't expand at all.

Hauser said part of what the investor money was intened to do was to "provide financial assistance for the signing and development of fighters".

That may not just have been amateuir prospects like Stevenson and Conlan.

There's been rumors about Top Rank looking to work with Beterbiev beyond just his next fight, and there's the persistent Andre Ward speculation as well.

If the investor did pull out, maybe Top Rank has had to delay or scale back some of it's plans to bring in other fighters...but that doesn't mean they're off the table if Top Rank finds a different money source.

[Scipio2009]

There's also Andre Ward sitting out there, who is set to have a huge part in ESPN's Mayweather-McGregor coverage this week.

Ward is still with Roc Nation, but he is a network free agent, and looking at having another fight this year.

Is there a possibility of Ward fighting on a Top Rank/ESPN card this year?

http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/i...pcoming-fights



http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/i...r-contract-hbo

Adonis Stevenson will finally make his mandatory defense against Elieder Alvarez, and Andre Ward is likely to make a mandatory defense for one of his titles.

Maybe it's me being simple, but Showtime airing Stevenson-Alvarez from Montreal, Showtime airing Ward's next fight (Ward-Beterbiev from Oracle or Ward-Cleverly in NYC/Ward-Jack with MGM Resorts), and then Showtime/CBS weighing out putting Ward-Stevenson on CBS (Garcia and Thurman did split $4m) or making the investment to put the fight on SHOPPV.

How large do you see the ESPN money being really?

[Scipio2009]

They may have the best at 126(Vakdez) 130. (Loma) 140-147(Crawford) 168 (Zurdo) 175 if Ward deals with them. And they a part of Parker at HW... Stevenson and Conlan and other talent..

147-154 is mostly Haymon guys but why can't they work together if the money is there?

If I was ESPN I wouldn't pay a dime fir boxing because it's a niche sport that's not growing at all with the younger crowd but it can work if these dummies ever work together to make good fights.

Except they don't have Parker; when Duco split, the guy that Parker was close to went with Parker one way and the guy that closed the Top Rank deal to begin with brought Jeff Horn with him.

Valdez is contending with GRJ, LSC, Selby, Frampton, and Mares at 126, all of whom he has no access to and none of whom I'd favor him against, tbh (have admittedly not seen much of him).

Crawford is not the man to see at 140, but he falls into the same issue when looking up at 147.

The rest of 168lbs is settling themselves out without Ramirez, and the odds that Ward gives up his money years to Arum are even less unlikely.

[Scipio2009]

Espn may force a real end to the Cold War to make the best fight the best in order tto maximize ratings. I'd hope they figured out with the Loma and Crawford cards that you need to put on more competitive fights.

Unless ESPN simply buys Top Rank from Arum, putting Todd DuBoef in place to run things and Arum as a figurehead for the press, I don't see that happening.