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Originally posted by Bronx2245
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December 7, 2017:
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum has made it no secret that he's no fan of the current leadership at HBO Sports, but he's more than willing to have a working relationship with Showtime and their parent company, CBS.
Earlier this year, Arum's company parted ways with HBO and signed an exclusive multi-year agreement with ESPN.
However, there are big fights to be made with fighters who may be contracted elsewhere.
For example, one of Arum's star fighters, Terence Crawford, is heading up to the welterweight division - but the bulk of the welterweight talent, and the welterweight champions, are tied to Showtime.
Arum has no problem with working out a talent trade relationship with Showtime Sports head Stephen Espinoza - an arrangement where the two sides would make talent available to each other for necessary fights.
The veteran promoters realizes that it's not realistic to believe that every significant fight involving one his boxers will end up on ESPN.
"Lets not look at promoters particularly, lets look at networks. Over at Showtime, Espinoza is a very smart guy. And his boss is a very big fight fan, a good friend of mine, Les Moonves, and Moonves will make these fights happen. They can't all be on ESPN nor can they all be on Showtime - so there is something called trade," Arum told BoxingScene.com.
https://www.boxingscene.com/bob-arum...owtime--123187
January 5, 2018:
Stephen Espinoza is intrigued by the idea of having boxers tied to Showtime getting in the ring to face fighters affiliated with ESPN through Top Rank’s partnership with that network.
Of course, such synergy will be complicated and will require compromise from both sides. But Espinoza’s willingness to at least discuss matchups fans want to see – most notably Errol Spence Jr. (Showtime) against Terence Crawford (ESPN) – should be considered an encouraging sign for boxing fans...
“At a certain level, anything’s worth a conversation, particularly if there’s a way to get big fights done or interesting fights done,” Espinoza said. “At a certain point, though, if I look at Keith Thurman or Errol Spence or Shawn Porter or Danny Garcia, for that matter, they’ve got a lot of potential fights lined up. They’ve got a lot of unfinished business without thinking about having to go over to another network to fight.
“Look, if fights present themselves that make sense, we’ll have the discussion. But not only do we have guys with full dance cards, it’s not always as simple as trading fighters. It’s not like trading baseball cards or Pokemon cards. When you’ve put a lot of time and energy and financial investment into developing a group of fighters, or a particular fighter, only to see that fighter go somewhere else for a potentially career-defining fight, it’s tough to sort of identify something that is similarly valuable in return. It’s not just, ‘Here are two similarly known boxers. Let’s trade them.’ It’s not quite as simple as it may seem. But having said all of that, there are always challenges to making deals. If there’s a fight and there’s a demand for it, then we’ll do everything we can to make it happen, as long as it’s under reasonable business conditions and we’re getting value for what we’ve put into the development of the opportunity.”
https://www.boxingscene.com/espinoza...boxers--124009
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum has made it no secret that he's no fan of the current leadership at HBO Sports, but he's more than willing to have a working relationship with Showtime and their parent company, CBS.
Earlier this year, Arum's company parted ways with HBO and signed an exclusive multi-year agreement with ESPN.
However, there are big fights to be made with fighters who may be contracted elsewhere.
For example, one of Arum's star fighters, Terence Crawford, is heading up to the welterweight division - but the bulk of the welterweight talent, and the welterweight champions, are tied to Showtime.
Arum has no problem with working out a talent trade relationship with Showtime Sports head Stephen Espinoza - an arrangement where the two sides would make talent available to each other for necessary fights.
The veteran promoters realizes that it's not realistic to believe that every significant fight involving one his boxers will end up on ESPN.
"Lets not look at promoters particularly, lets look at networks. Over at Showtime, Espinoza is a very smart guy. And his boss is a very big fight fan, a good friend of mine, Les Moonves, and Moonves will make these fights happen. They can't all be on ESPN nor can they all be on Showtime - so there is something called trade," Arum told BoxingScene.com.
https://www.boxingscene.com/bob-arum...owtime--123187
January 5, 2018:
Stephen Espinoza is intrigued by the idea of having boxers tied to Showtime getting in the ring to face fighters affiliated with ESPN through Top Rank’s partnership with that network.
Of course, such synergy will be complicated and will require compromise from both sides. But Espinoza’s willingness to at least discuss matchups fans want to see – most notably Errol Spence Jr. (Showtime) against Terence Crawford (ESPN) – should be considered an encouraging sign for boxing fans...
“At a certain level, anything’s worth a conversation, particularly if there’s a way to get big fights done or interesting fights done,” Espinoza said. “At a certain point, though, if I look at Keith Thurman or Errol Spence or Shawn Porter or Danny Garcia, for that matter, they’ve got a lot of potential fights lined up. They’ve got a lot of unfinished business without thinking about having to go over to another network to fight.
“Look, if fights present themselves that make sense, we’ll have the discussion. But not only do we have guys with full dance cards, it’s not always as simple as trading fighters. It’s not like trading baseball cards or Pokemon cards. When you’ve put a lot of time and energy and financial investment into developing a group of fighters, or a particular fighter, only to see that fighter go somewhere else for a potentially career-defining fight, it’s tough to sort of identify something that is similarly valuable in return. It’s not just, ‘Here are two similarly known boxers. Let’s trade them.’ It’s not quite as simple as it may seem. But having said all of that, there are always challenges to making deals. If there’s a fight and there’s a demand for it, then we’ll do everything we can to make it happen, as long as it’s under reasonable business conditions and we’re getting value for what we’ve put into the development of the opportunity.”
https://www.boxingscene.com/espinoza...boxers--124009
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