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Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza has made boxing business history with the sport’s powerful manager, Al Haymon, as architects of both Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s past six-fight deal with the premium cable network that included the record-setting Manny Pacquiao fight, and then the Conor McGregor mega-bout that followed.
Now, as Premier Boxing Champions head Haymon has steered a slew of compelling bouts this year to Fox for primetime and pay-per-view viewing as part of a new alliance following a banner PBC campaign in 2018 for Espinoza, Showtime has been slighted.
And the patience that Espinoza had originally expressed over Haymon’s Fox deal is quickly wilting as the fall schedule nears.
While Haymon gave Showtime the Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner pay-per-view bout that generated 400,000 buys in January and WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s first-round knockout of Dominic Breazeale in May, he’s since sent three PPVs to Fox (Errol Spence Jr.-Mikey Garcia, Pacquiao-Keith Thurman, Spence-Shawn Porter on Sept. 28), and is nearing a defining decision on the Wilder-Luis Ortiz rematch.
No date, venue or broadcaster has been finalized for that fight after Wilder overcame getting seriously rocked to stop Ortiz in the 10th round on Showtime in March 2018. Showtime has had ties to Wilder since 2012 and its coverage of each one of his heavyweight title fights since 2015 helped fuel widespread interest in the verbally skilled champion from Alabama.
Similar long-involved investments in covering other significant PBC fighters on “ShoBox: The New Generation” and “Showtime Championship Boxing” has lifted those boxers’ profiles, too.
Yet, Fox is now cashing in on most of the PPV riches and ratings points from those athletes this year, with additional help from elite fighters like featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz, former 154-pound champions Jermell Charlo and Jarrett Hurd, and current super-welterweight champion Julian Williams.
Showtime’s most recent card featured unbeaten super-featherweight champion Gervonta Davis’ late-July title defense by highlight-reel knockout before a capacity hometown crowd in Baltimore.
After that, the network offers Claressa Shields’ main-event bid for a third belt on Oct. 5, with at least two other championship cards to follow in the fall and the unsecured hope of landing Wilder-Ortiz II. One of the fall bouts could include new WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo.
In a discussion with*The Athletic, Espinoza, whose Showtime contract expires at the end of next year, according to an industry insider, denied that he’s ever been offered an executive position to direct boxing at Fox, and despite his great obvious interest, he says Haymon has not yet told him who will broadcast Wilder-Ortiz II.
If the Wilder fight goes to Fox after it received the Hurd-Williams bout — those guys had made 20 combined appearances on Showtime — you’d have every right to be chafed and to ask Al Haymon, “What’s keeping us happy?” You better get that fight, right?
Do we know we have it? No. … It’s never been promised. It’s an ongoing discussion and we’re pursuing it aggressively. Do I expect that we will have it? Yes. Is Fox pursuing it, too? Yes. But nothing has been decided for the networks, for either of Wilder’s next two fights (including Wilder’s scheduled Feb. 22 rematch against Tyson Fury following their December 2018 draw on Showtime).
Do you feel wronged by PBC taking so many of the fighters you helped build to Fox?
The reality is that in the market today, Fox is reaping the benefit of the work Showtime has done over the past five or six years to build up the current crop of stars. There couldn’t be any other way when you have a network that is coming into the market. At some point, I expect Fox will hopefully be developing its own stars and not relying on featuring stars who have been built by Showtime. In that way, all of boxing will benefit. For the time being, we built up the welterweight division. We built up the super-welterweight division. And Fox is reaping the benefit of that in some interesting fights. That’s the nature of the sport when a new network comes into the business.
You’ve been willing to be patient to a point on the loss of these fights to Fox, but isn’t the time coming when those bouts need to be more equitably dispersed?
Fox has a great platform and a tremendous opportunity in this business to build fighters and I expect they will be active in building new talent, and not just coasting off the hard work done by other networks.
But Haymon also has a powerful hand in balancing who is fighting for what network?
Having just come into the sport, Fox doesn’t have any stars they’ve built. As time goes on, the expectation is they will build and feature their own stars and the sport will grow because of that. Showtime will continue to build and feature its stars and Fox will, too, with some cross-promotion when it’s appropriate. For the time being, Fox is relying on the fighters Showtime built and while we’re not thrilled by that development. We understand why it’s happening and we take a long-term view in terms of what will be best for the sport as a whole to thrive.
Who else could be fighting on Showtime by the end of the year?
There’s a number of guys who performed well earlier in the year who are looking to come back. … Jermall Charlo is looking for another fight. Erickson Lubin wants one and we’d love to feature him. Plus, Mikey Garcia and the featherweights, like Leo Santa Cruz and Gary Russell, who are due for a fight. Whether “Tank” (Gervonta Davis) makes sense for either of those guys remains to be seen. The conflict with “Tank” and Tevin Farmer for a unification is not a platform issue. It’s that they don’t really have consistent views of their respective values. “Tank’s” side made an offer of $2 million, which Tevin’s side said was insulting. And Farmer’s side (with DAZN backing) made an offer that “Tank’s” didn’t feel was fair. “Tank” is highly in demand. He has plenty of good fights to make.
Would you get the Jermell Charlo-Tony Harrison WBC 154-pound title rematch?
I would expect Jermell and Tony Harrison’s rematch to end up on Fox because it’s sort of a courtesy in the business that if you did the first fight, you’re sort of entitled to the rematch, which is why we wouldn’t interfere with that fight or Hurd-Williams airing on Fox.
While you staged five of Mikey Garcia’s fights following his comeback from a contract dispute with Top Rank, are you concerned you’re losing him too, to a defection to DAZN?
We’d love to continue to be in business with Mikey. He has a lot of big fights ahead of him. We continue our relationship with him and we’re looking to be aggressive in getting him back on our air as soon as we can.
Given how passionate you are about boxing and what a great year you experienced in 2018, how difficult has it been for you to weather all of this with PBC?
Look, as an executive, it is, at times, difficult to share the talent with another network, particularly coming off the years we’ve had. But what’s truly key is keeping the long-term view in terms of the television business and the health of the sport. We’ve said several times in the past that while we prefer every single one of the big fights be on Showtime, that probably isn’t the best thing for the health of the sport. This sport does best when it’s on a range of different networks and it flourishes when there are multiple different opportunities and platforms on which to view it.
The NFL has demonstrated this very well, spreading its content to different platforms from free TV all the way to pay cable, with “Inside the NFL” on Showtime and “Hard Knocks” on HBO. I’m not saying the boxing business and the NFL business is the same, but a wise strategy for the health of boxing has always included a wide range of outlets. And if that means we must share some of the talent we’ve developed with other networks, well, so be it. That will ensure, hopefully, that we can all be participating in a healthy boxing industry for decades to come.
The reality is Haymon is empowered to take Wilder-Ortiz to Fox and explain to you that he believes that move is in the best interest of the champion and the sport. What would be your options to counter this continued inattentive attitude? What would be your response?
“Well, the great thing about the sport of boxing is that there seems to be almost an endless supply of new talent. It does go in generations. If you told me two or three years ago that “Tank” would be where he is today, I probably would’ve said, “That’s wildly optimistic.” Yet, that’s where he is. One of the challenges from the boxing industry is it’s difficult to control — or the vast majority — of the talent as the UFC does.
But that also means there’s no one supplier in the current configuration of the sport who controls all the talent. There are always guys being built up, being discovered by fans and networks, and that’s not going to change. Right now, PBC has a great talent pool and we’re happy to be doing business with them, but there’s always going to be new talent, some of which we’ll find with PBC and some of which we’ll go other places for.
Now, as Premier Boxing Champions head Haymon has steered a slew of compelling bouts this year to Fox for primetime and pay-per-view viewing as part of a new alliance following a banner PBC campaign in 2018 for Espinoza, Showtime has been slighted.
And the patience that Espinoza had originally expressed over Haymon’s Fox deal is quickly wilting as the fall schedule nears.
While Haymon gave Showtime the Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner pay-per-view bout that generated 400,000 buys in January and WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s first-round knockout of Dominic Breazeale in May, he’s since sent three PPVs to Fox (Errol Spence Jr.-Mikey Garcia, Pacquiao-Keith Thurman, Spence-Shawn Porter on Sept. 28), and is nearing a defining decision on the Wilder-Luis Ortiz rematch.
No date, venue or broadcaster has been finalized for that fight after Wilder overcame getting seriously rocked to stop Ortiz in the 10th round on Showtime in March 2018. Showtime has had ties to Wilder since 2012 and its coverage of each one of his heavyweight title fights since 2015 helped fuel widespread interest in the verbally skilled champion from Alabama.
Similar long-involved investments in covering other significant PBC fighters on “ShoBox: The New Generation” and “Showtime Championship Boxing” has lifted those boxers’ profiles, too.
Yet, Fox is now cashing in on most of the PPV riches and ratings points from those athletes this year, with additional help from elite fighters like featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz, former 154-pound champions Jermell Charlo and Jarrett Hurd, and current super-welterweight champion Julian Williams.
Showtime’s most recent card featured unbeaten super-featherweight champion Gervonta Davis’ late-July title defense by highlight-reel knockout before a capacity hometown crowd in Baltimore.
After that, the network offers Claressa Shields’ main-event bid for a third belt on Oct. 5, with at least two other championship cards to follow in the fall and the unsecured hope of landing Wilder-Ortiz II. One of the fall bouts could include new WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo.
In a discussion with*The Athletic, Espinoza, whose Showtime contract expires at the end of next year, according to an industry insider, denied that he’s ever been offered an executive position to direct boxing at Fox, and despite his great obvious interest, he says Haymon has not yet told him who will broadcast Wilder-Ortiz II.
If the Wilder fight goes to Fox after it received the Hurd-Williams bout — those guys had made 20 combined appearances on Showtime — you’d have every right to be chafed and to ask Al Haymon, “What’s keeping us happy?” You better get that fight, right?
Do we know we have it? No. … It’s never been promised. It’s an ongoing discussion and we’re pursuing it aggressively. Do I expect that we will have it? Yes. Is Fox pursuing it, too? Yes. But nothing has been decided for the networks, for either of Wilder’s next two fights (including Wilder’s scheduled Feb. 22 rematch against Tyson Fury following their December 2018 draw on Showtime).
Do you feel wronged by PBC taking so many of the fighters you helped build to Fox?
The reality is that in the market today, Fox is reaping the benefit of the work Showtime has done over the past five or six years to build up the current crop of stars. There couldn’t be any other way when you have a network that is coming into the market. At some point, I expect Fox will hopefully be developing its own stars and not relying on featuring stars who have been built by Showtime. In that way, all of boxing will benefit. For the time being, we built up the welterweight division. We built up the super-welterweight division. And Fox is reaping the benefit of that in some interesting fights. That’s the nature of the sport when a new network comes into the business.
You’ve been willing to be patient to a point on the loss of these fights to Fox, but isn’t the time coming when those bouts need to be more equitably dispersed?
Fox has a great platform and a tremendous opportunity in this business to build fighters and I expect they will be active in building new talent, and not just coasting off the hard work done by other networks.
But Haymon also has a powerful hand in balancing who is fighting for what network?
Having just come into the sport, Fox doesn’t have any stars they’ve built. As time goes on, the expectation is they will build and feature their own stars and the sport will grow because of that. Showtime will continue to build and feature its stars and Fox will, too, with some cross-promotion when it’s appropriate. For the time being, Fox is relying on the fighters Showtime built and while we’re not thrilled by that development. We understand why it’s happening and we take a long-term view in terms of what will be best for the sport as a whole to thrive.
Who else could be fighting on Showtime by the end of the year?
There’s a number of guys who performed well earlier in the year who are looking to come back. … Jermall Charlo is looking for another fight. Erickson Lubin wants one and we’d love to feature him. Plus, Mikey Garcia and the featherweights, like Leo Santa Cruz and Gary Russell, who are due for a fight. Whether “Tank” (Gervonta Davis) makes sense for either of those guys remains to be seen. The conflict with “Tank” and Tevin Farmer for a unification is not a platform issue. It’s that they don’t really have consistent views of their respective values. “Tank’s” side made an offer of $2 million, which Tevin’s side said was insulting. And Farmer’s side (with DAZN backing) made an offer that “Tank’s” didn’t feel was fair. “Tank” is highly in demand. He has plenty of good fights to make.
Would you get the Jermell Charlo-Tony Harrison WBC 154-pound title rematch?
I would expect Jermell and Tony Harrison’s rematch to end up on Fox because it’s sort of a courtesy in the business that if you did the first fight, you’re sort of entitled to the rematch, which is why we wouldn’t interfere with that fight or Hurd-Williams airing on Fox.
While you staged five of Mikey Garcia’s fights following his comeback from a contract dispute with Top Rank, are you concerned you’re losing him too, to a defection to DAZN?
We’d love to continue to be in business with Mikey. He has a lot of big fights ahead of him. We continue our relationship with him and we’re looking to be aggressive in getting him back on our air as soon as we can.
Given how passionate you are about boxing and what a great year you experienced in 2018, how difficult has it been for you to weather all of this with PBC?
Look, as an executive, it is, at times, difficult to share the talent with another network, particularly coming off the years we’ve had. But what’s truly key is keeping the long-term view in terms of the television business and the health of the sport. We’ve said several times in the past that while we prefer every single one of the big fights be on Showtime, that probably isn’t the best thing for the health of the sport. This sport does best when it’s on a range of different networks and it flourishes when there are multiple different opportunities and platforms on which to view it.
The NFL has demonstrated this very well, spreading its content to different platforms from free TV all the way to pay cable, with “Inside the NFL” on Showtime and “Hard Knocks” on HBO. I’m not saying the boxing business and the NFL business is the same, but a wise strategy for the health of boxing has always included a wide range of outlets. And if that means we must share some of the talent we’ve developed with other networks, well, so be it. That will ensure, hopefully, that we can all be participating in a healthy boxing industry for decades to come.
The reality is Haymon is empowered to take Wilder-Ortiz to Fox and explain to you that he believes that move is in the best interest of the champion and the sport. What would be your options to counter this continued inattentive attitude? What would be your response?
“Well, the great thing about the sport of boxing is that there seems to be almost an endless supply of new talent. It does go in generations. If you told me two or three years ago that “Tank” would be where he is today, I probably would’ve said, “That’s wildly optimistic.” Yet, that’s where he is. One of the challenges from the boxing industry is it’s difficult to control — or the vast majority — of the talent as the UFC does.
But that also means there’s no one supplier in the current configuration of the sport who controls all the talent. There are always guys being built up, being discovered by fans and networks, and that’s not going to change. Right now, PBC has a great talent pool and we’re happy to be doing business with them, but there’s always going to be new talent, some of which we’ll find with PBC and some of which we’ll go other places for.
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