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

[IMDAZED]

I said Mayweather-Pacquiao, that was HBO's main reason for staying in the sport and investing in both Floyd and Manny after De la Hoya retired.

Boxing Viewership is crap apart from Wilder. Majority is under 800K. It does make me think how much Wilder would do on HBO though or CBS given he got 1.2M for both Ortiz and Stivrene 2 on Showtime.

PPV is dead in this country, and majority of boxing cards get rubbish viewership. Let's be truthful

Save the hyperbole. From yesterday:

“We’ve seen the development of stars very quickly. Viewership is growing. Subscriptions are growing. Free trials are growing; direct, tangible indicators (of success),” Espinoza, the President of Sports and Event Programming for Showtime, told The Ring.

“That’s a better advocate for the continued expansion of boxing programming than anything I or anyone here could possibly offer. … The proof is in the pudding.

[Manlikefemi]

Some of you guys figured it out quickly. Doesn't matter at this point. This is the only account now and has been since it was created. Don't believe in sock puppets or multiple accounts.

You're famous here now. Tell me what do you think of HBO's Situation in Boxing, only Canelo PPV's or will they get out completely?

[slu]

Good points...

Okay, so lets say SHO puts one 18 cards next year, they will do so with ~50 million in rights fees. That's on average around 2.7 million per card. If FOX gets a similar budget and puts on say 8-10 like you are predicting, plus 15 FS1 cards. I have no idea how many FS1 cards take place now but lets say it is around that mark from 2019 on. If FOX wants bigger fights and will want to pay good rights fees for them, then we can assume about 3.5-5 million for those FOX cards. That already puts you around 30-35 million. So for the 15 or so FS1 cards, you have left around 10-15 million. No way can you put the type of quality SHO puts on with that type of budget. If FS1 is to put on SHO level cards, then FOX better be paying around 75-80 million per year, and not 45-50 million per year.

Your right, probably pretty good math and so FS1 is likely to be a below level Showtime production. I'm super interested in the mix of prime time shows vs. FS1 vs. number of showtime shows. Your right if Showtime does between 12 and 18 and Fox Big Channel does 8-10 and somewhere between 12-15 shows on FS1 on the low side he's got to budget for 32 events on the low side and 43 on the high side then your right you probably got be in the 90-100 mln range in total fees to make the whole thing go and FS1 is likely to see a different level of fights. Thanks for the insight.

[slu]

Fox is not paying more than Showtime. Fox paying much less than Showtime. If Fox was paying more, they would be announcing their deal first. But Fox has to wait until next week, and their deal will be announced during a showtime fight week lol

We will see when Fox announces, there are ad buying reasons (which showtime doesn't have) for Fox to wait. I'd argue Showtime had to release first so it didn't look like they were "getting out of boxing" when Fox announces. Espinoza cares more about optics and didn't want to seem like he got cut out. More important than showtime fight week is NFL first week and Fox now has Thursday night football. That's my guess.

[IMDAZED]

We will see when Fox announces, there are ad buying reasons (which showtime doesn't have) for Fox to wait. I'd argue Showtime had to release first so it didn't look like they were "getting out of boxing" when Fox announces. Espinoza cares more about optics and didn't want to seem like he got cut out. More important than showtime fight week is NFL first week and Fox now how Thursday night football. That's my guess.

What he said.

[slu]

Showtime has Viacom problems? How so? They are completely separate companies.

Fox is paying $20M. SHowtime 2-3 times that much. 20 fights per year on FS1 costs nothing. Fox pays peanuts for FS1. It's filler.

There paying more than 20 million. That's too low if all you know is they are doing somewhere between the rumored 6-12 prime time shows. Yes Showtime has a Viacom problem. Showtime is owned by CBS, CBS is in a nasty fight with Viacom and it's keeping budgets in check across all their properties. CBS and Viacom are both controlled by the Redstone family and they want to put the two back together. No way Espinoza has some massive budget (guess is 40-50 tops) to buy content. So like I said in another post, just formalizing what he was already doing with PBC is a win for PBC. You don't need a big price swing. For Fox, they were getting paid AND PBC had to pay for everything. Fox will be paying and paying for event costs. No way that can happen at 20mln with the big channel in the mix. No way.

[The Big Dunn]

to all the haymon fan boys celebrating you do realise PBC is just a name now, its not developed the way haymon intended

I notice whenever the subject is Haymon you call people that post something positive about him "fanboys", When the subject is Hearn, GBP, TR etc., and someone posts something positive you don't use the same term.

Why is it only pro Haymon posts that you disparage?

[The Big Dunn]

We will see when Fox announces, there are ad buying reasons (which showtime doesn't have) for Fox to wait. I'd argue Showtime had to release first so it didn't look like they were "getting out of boxing" when Fox announces. Espinoza cares more about optics and didn't want to seem like he got cut out. More important than showtime fight week is NFL first week and Fox now has Thursday night football. That's my guess.

This is a solid post.

[IMDAZED]

There paying more than 20 million. That's too low if all you know is they are doing somewhere between the rumored 6-12 prime time shows. Yes Showtime has a Viacom problem. Showtime is owned by CBS, CBS is in a nasty fight with Viacom and it's keeping budgets in check across all their properties. CBS and Viacom are both controlled by the Redstone family and they want to put the two back together. No way Espinoza has some massive budget (guess is 40-50 tops) to buy content. So like I said in another post, just formalizing what he was already doing with PBC is a win for PBC. You don't need a big price swing. For Fox, they were getting paid AND PBC had to pay for everything. Fox will be paying and paying for event costs. No way that can happen at 20mln with the big channel in the mix. No way.

Exactly. You add in production costs everything and I’d wager its much much more than that.

[KTFOKING]

Your right, probably pretty good math and so FS1 is likely to be a below level Showtime production. I'm super interested in the mix of prime time shows vs. FS1 vs. number of showtime shows. Your right if Showtime does between 12 and 18 and Fox Big Channel does 8-10 and somewhere between 12-15 shows on FS1 on the low side he's got to budget for 32 events on the low side and 43 on the high side then your right you probably got be in the 90-100 mln range in total fees to make the whole thing go and FS1 is likely to see a different level of fights. Thanks for the insight.

Espinoza told The Ring that Showtime “will definitely be committing more resources both financially and personally and technically than at any point in the recent past.” He declined to reveal what the boxing budget’s ballooned to, but promised that the network will televise more fights than any other time in their 32-year-history — 30 live telecasts in all.
Now, there’s plenty of industry chatter that PBC has struck a new deal with Fox, and this time, Haymon will receive license fees for his content.

If another partnership indeed materializes with PBC, regardless of which network joins Showtime, Espinoza has “confidence that everyone is going to get their fair share.”

“We’re asking PBC to provide different things and more things than they have in the past,” he said, “and we’ll be asking other content providers and other boxing promoters to do the same.”

The increased budget could help alleviate that issue, but it’s unlikely there will ever be enough funds to satisfy seven-figure purses for 20-plus boxers to compete three times a year.

https://www.******.com/542753-stephe...owtime-boxing/

All this was from Espinoza's interview with Coppinger.

What I took from the interview was that they definitely got a boost in their boxing budget and Espinoza wants to put on a few more cards next year. He also wants to do more in the production area with short documentaries or what not to highlight the journey of these fighters.

So what are we talking here, the budget goes from 45-50 million to 55-60 million? I think that is a fair estimate. But as to your post on the breakdown of the amount of shows put on, this would be my best guess.

SHO ~18 shows
FOX ~6 Primetime shows
FS1 ~12-15 shows

And I have no clue if this FOX deal will or will not include those Tuesday or Thursday FS1 shows. So Haymon should have 24 big money SHO level cards along with around 15 lower level cards. Now, they could still be higher than the current level of FS1 cards, but just unrealistic to expect big license fees for those cards. I would have to think the ratings would have to improve greatly for FOX to invest big license fees for those cards.

Haymon, if I am right on the new estimated budget from reading that article, should have around the 90-100 million budget you stated.

SHO 55-60 million
FOX Primetime 25-30 millon
FS1 15-20 million

So yeah, if FOX gets six primetime shows, then Haymon should still have a bigger budget than he has now for the FS1 shows. So the quality can improve there. Just won't reach SHO level, but that's fine. Impossible to put on 35-40 high level cards a year. Look at some of the crap ESPN is putting on to fill their slots.