Comments Thread For: Showtime Sports Prez To White: We Can't Release Fake Numbers!

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Promoters don’t have power buyers and viewers do.

There are very few fighters the viewers are interested in, so the promoters that have those fighters have a lot of power.

I just don’t see a scenario where all the other promoters go out of business completely.

Where a promoter actually goes out of business or not isn't the issue. It's whether they get boxed out of big time boxing. Don King is still in business, but he's irrelevant now. Roc Nation is about to become irrelevant. Main Events is holding on by a thread. Golden Boy's post-Canelo future is anybody's guess. There are very few with firm footing.

My guess is Arum would cross promote and rip up the exclusive network deals before letting Top Rank die on the vine.

Refusing to do that is precisely why Top Rank hasn't died though. Arum has always made sure, no matter what, to maintain control of a few relevant fighters at all times, even if he has to keep them away from other relevant fighters to not risk get edged out.

[OnePunch]

And the NBA can't handle all active basketball players, so there are still leagues all around the world, but it's the clear top level league in the US.

If there's only one place to go for top level money, the fights the fans want to see are far more likely to happen. Arum has hung on as long as he has by overpaying a few top guys and protecting them as much as possible. It's smart business, but boxing fans would still benefit from him losing his grip, just as fans benefited from King losing his grip.

Crawford and Lomachenko are great fighters. Recognizing the WBO allows Bob to essentially own his own world title, hide his fighters behind it, and avoid making the match-ups fans want to see the most.

Just because one dominant "league" would make boxing more popular in this country and would serve boxing fans better doesn't mean that league has to support 15,000 fighters. Throw Crawford, Lomachenko and Canelo into Haymon's universe and ESPN/HBO become irrelevant very fast.

Doesn't mean Asia doesn't still dominate the smaller weight classes, doesn't mean there's not still big time boxing in Europe, doesn't mean there aren't smaller US promoters developing young fighters, just means US boxing fans can logically follow one league like they would with any other sport.

valid point. I personally dont think it would work, but I can see where you are coming from

[OnePunch]

There are very few fighters the viewers are interested in, so the promoters that have those fighters have a lot of power.




Where a promoter actually goes out of business or not isn't the issue. It's whether they get boxed out of big time boxing. Don King is still in business, but he's irrelevant now. Roc Nation is about to become irrelevant. Main Events is holding on by a thread. Golden Boy's post-Canelo future is anybody's guess. There are very few with firm footing.




Refusing to do that is precisely why Top Rank hasn't died though. Arum has always made sure, no matter what, to maintain control of a few relevant fighters at all times, even if he has to keep them away from other relevant fighters to not risk get edged out.

You can add Haymon to that list. Although he controls managerial rights to a vast stable, he has very few avenues left to showcase that talent. Sure, he has whatever dates Espinoza can throw at him, but other than that, he is old mother hubbard. Showtime cannot handle 200+ fighters. There arent enough dates. And Haymon doesnt have the revenue stream to continue to buy airtime or pay for dark shows.

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You can add Haymon to that list. Although he controls managerial rights to a vast stable, he has very few avenues left to showcase that talent.

Haymon has more world champions than anybody and a larger TV budget to work with than anybody. So no, I don't think you can really add him to the list of guys who would become completely irrelevant if they lost one or two fighters. He's in the healthiest position of anybody in US boxing. He has a near monopoly on Showtime and Showtime is the only network still putting up serious money for boxing.

Sure, he has whatever dates Espinoza can throw at him, but other than that, he is old mother hubbard.

Wait wait wait. Espinoza is throwing him more dates than ever for more money than ever. You can't just say "well other than that..." and disregard the most lucrative relationship anybody has with a US boxing network.

Showtime cannot handle 200+ fighters.

Nor do they have to. But what they have done is give Haymon the leverage he needs to accumulate more and more world titles. If a bottom rung fighter is fighting for peanuts on FS1 or off TV, that fighter was going to be fighting for peanuts with or without Haymon anyway.

There arent enough dates.

Okay, well he has more dates for more money than anybody else in US boxing. So why are you always so fixated on the guy in the best position and trying to convince us he's in a horrible position?

And Haymon doesnt have the revenue stream to continue to buy airtime or pay for dark shows.

Nobody ever intended to buy airtime for long. That was a short term stunt to get his stable mainstream exposure, show proof of concept that millions will tune into network TV for boxing, and to put pressure on Showtime to increase their budget.

All of those goals were accomplished. The last, and most important goal, was to convince a non-premium network to make a healthy financial commitment to boxing. That has not happened yet, but that doesn't mean it won't. A lot of dominoes fall once UFC's TV deal is done. The entire fighting landscape may be turned upside down by that, so nobody was going to make a long term commitment with serious money at stake until they saw how that deal shook out.

You can bring up ESPN with Top Rank, but that deal got done because ESPN isn't putting up a lot of money and ESPN had already decided they weren't going to make a run at the UFC rights. Anybody with interest in UFC is going to hold off on making any major decisions concerning boxing until that deal gets worked out.