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Lotsa people keep saying or hinting at that Schaefer thing (& lotsa super legit media people among them), but I don't buy it. Lets be honest Arum is a piece of sh^t & ESPN is working with him. He's admitted to paying off abc groups & has had fixed fight scandals (idk if he admitted to those or not). King worked with Showtime forever & has f#cked over more fighters than any promoter in the business arguably. King killed two guys iirc lol. Schaefer ain't got sh^t on King & Arum.
I don't see anyone in the boxing business being freaked out over what Schaefer did. Well the business at large I mean. I could see HBO being sketchy about it since GBP is their main promoter these days & Oscar was the one who allegedly got done wrong (I still maintain if Schaefer had tried to lock down Haymon fighters to long term contracts then maybe Haymon woulda went with DiBella or some other promoter & the GBP product during that time doesn't look as good & they don't make as much money either & maybe DiBella or whoever is a bigger player in the industry today because of it).
I think its about all those mfing fights 8 weeks in a row & 4 outta 5 weeks in a row in the quarter & semi finals. When has a boxing channel ever shown 8 big fights in 8 weeks like that? I don't think ever. Thats a lot of f#cking TV time to open up for the people who can afford this & that they have no affiliation to the winner once this tournament is over which goes against HBO's business model for sure.
I suspect if they'd have been willing to break up the product into weight divisions (they weren't from what I heard) or into tournament sections (they weren't til the finals from what I heard cuz TV has been secured rumor has it) they probably coulda secured a deal in the US sooner.
The fact there was 1 US guy among 16 boxers didn't help it along either. Someone paying a lot of money on the WBSS tournament as created would be like a US network picking up the Prizefighter tournament or something lol. I mean I could see it happening, but I don't think anyone would break the bank or go too far out of their way trying to pick it up. And I don't think anyone in the tournament had much of a US TV presence in general (Usyk was on HBO a couple times, but I'm not recalling if he'd even been a main event & a few others have had minor US TV fights).
But whatever the reasons that could be argued I don't think this has anything to do with Schaefer who was only a partner anyway. This is a Kalle Sauerland thing at the end of the day. And lets not forget Kalle got the Super Six a TV deal back in the day. That tournament had more spread out dates + more US boxers involved is the difference between these two events that I see.
I don't see anyone in the boxing business being freaked out over what Schaefer did. Well the business at large I mean. I could see HBO being sketchy about it since GBP is their main promoter these days & Oscar was the one who allegedly got done wrong (I still maintain if Schaefer had tried to lock down Haymon fighters to long term contracts then maybe Haymon woulda went with DiBella or some other promoter & the GBP product during that time doesn't look as good & they don't make as much money either & maybe DiBella or whoever is a bigger player in the industry today because of it).
I think its about all those mfing fights 8 weeks in a row & 4 outta 5 weeks in a row in the quarter & semi finals. When has a boxing channel ever shown 8 big fights in 8 weeks like that? I don't think ever. Thats a lot of f#cking TV time to open up for the people who can afford this & that they have no affiliation to the winner once this tournament is over which goes against HBO's business model for sure.
I suspect if they'd have been willing to break up the product into weight divisions (they weren't from what I heard) or into tournament sections (they weren't til the finals from what I heard cuz TV has been secured rumor has it) they probably coulda secured a deal in the US sooner.
The fact there was 1 US guy among 16 boxers didn't help it along either. Someone paying a lot of money on the WBSS tournament as created would be like a US network picking up the Prizefighter tournament or something lol. I mean I could see it happening, but I don't think anyone would break the bank or go too far out of their way trying to pick it up. And I don't think anyone in the tournament had much of a US TV presence in general (Usyk was on HBO a couple times, but I'm not recalling if he'd even been a main event & a few others have had minor US TV fights).
But whatever the reasons that could be argued I don't think this has anything to do with Schaefer who was only a partner anyway. This is a Kalle Sauerland thing at the end of the day. And lets not forget Kalle got the Super Six a TV deal back in the day. That tournament had more spread out dates + more US boxers involved is the difference between these two events that I see.
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