Comments Thread For: Showtime, Premier Boxing Champions Finalize New 3-Year Deal

[Butch.McRae]

Well it certainly didnt 'take over' anything. Looks like showtime saved the pbc. And hey im glad they did. I always wanted it to succeed. But lets not get all delusional. Pretty obvious what happened

Right....

"The deal in the works would see Fox paying a rights fee going forward." - per Dan's article on ESPN

As I've always said, nothing would happen with PBC until the UFC deal was done. As I predicted, soon after UFC gets things settled, PBC finds the money it's partner/s

[Butch.McRae]

They need to add more digital content which I think they will. When Espinoza says monthly series, does that mean he will now put on shows during college football season for the duration of it? I mean so far there has been no October card announced yet, and I know they put on a few last year during that time, including Charlo vs Lubin. They put on 15 cards last year on SHO (exc SHO Extreme), can we expect the same amount of cards in 2019, or that number will jump close to 20? And then of course we shall see what the FOX deal amounts to. If they give 6-8 big dates as rumored plus 20 SHO cards or 20 big level cards, then Haymon guys should be more active no doubt. Damn near doubles the amount of shows they have been having the last few years.

All it took was a little patience lol but I am excited about the guys getting more active. The calendar restraints were annoying.

[MrRolltide91]

Interesting.....

[N/A]

I remember when PBC was about the free boxing model: CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX were all supposed to feature PBC.

You see how HBO promoters have no leverage and will be screwed when HBO pulls out of boxing? And Arum was smart enough to see it coming and create leverage while he still could to jump ship to ESPN?

What PBC was about was creating leverage so that Showtime wouldn't be Haymon's only option. There's no way Haymon would have landed this Showtime deal if Showtime was bidding against themselves. Creating leverage through FOX leads to PBC getting a better deal from Showtime AND from FOX.

But how did boxing go from the major free networks having ZERO interest in boxing to FOX now being willing to spend big money on PBC?

Because Haymon spent the money to buy time on every network to prove to the networks that there were millions of people willing to watch boxing if you stopped putting the big fights on PPV.

Nobody at Haymon Boxing thought they could convince EVERY major network to give them a big money deal. They just needed to convince ONE. And they did. FOX. So now, instead of the smaller SHO budget Haymon was dealing with in 2014, he has a much larger budget, all to himself, PLUS a big FOX budget too.

So he was right all along and all the naysayers were wrong. A lot of crow should be eaten right about now. Big paid deals on FOX, FS1 and Showtime. PBC is the clear market leader in US boxing now. And HBO boxing is near death.

[thabanga510]

HBO messed up their own brand by only pushing European fighters.

[KTFOKING]

All it took was a little patience lol but I am excited about the guys getting more active. The calendar restraints were annoying.

Well, they still need to get the FOX deal to get active. They have wayyyyyy too many fighters for just 15 big dates or even 20 dates. This is why the FOX deal can work out just fine. There is enough on the table for both networks, especially if FOX won't air as many big cards as SHO. Add in the fact there is a good chance Wilder only fights on PPV from this point on? That will open up two more SHO dates for other fighters.

[slu]

I mean to say leaking like crazy around Fox, not PBC (it's uncle al after all). Fox has already cleared network time for 2019 and all the Ad buyers have been alerted they are doing a rights deal. Going to have Big Fox and FS1. It is believed Fox gets priority on fights.

[Phenom]

There goes buying the rights for Wilder Joshua for flat offer

[N/A]

Of course Showtime wanted to lock down a formal agreement with FOX lurking around the PBC brand.

Which is why the time buys were so critical. Haymon had to invent leverage where there was none. Before PBC, the options were HBO and Showtime. He jumped to Showtime, got blackballed from HBO, and was at risk of being at Showtime's mercy from then on if he didn't do something drastic to turn the paradigm upside down.

Clearly Haymon didn't expect to convince every network to buy content after the time buys, and he didn't need to. Ending up with a big FOX deal, while simultaneously getting SHO to give a bigger deal too, is really the best case scenario he could have hoped for here.

He could have had the ESPN deal, but ESPN wanted exclusivity (Fox did too btw, but he got them to cave). The ESPN deal was a life saver for TR, but when that deal eventually runs up, TR will have nowhere else to go, so they'll be at ESPN's mercy. Haymon is the only one here with a safe future.

[Butch.McRae]

Well, they still need to get the FOX deal to get active. They have wayyyyyy too many fighters for just 15 big dates or even 20 dates. This is why the FOX deal can work out just fine. There is enough on the table for both networks, especially if FOX won't air as many big cards as SHO. Add in the fact there is a good chance Wilder only fights on PPV from this point on? That will open up two more SHO dates for other fighters.

I think you have it right here. Once the FOX deal is finalized (looking for atleast 7 primetime slots).

Wilder, Spence, Garcia, and the twins are all solid properties to build around.