It's incredible how quickly boxing changes.

[nghtmr111]

I just wish FOX had Showtime's commentary crew.

**** tell me about it man... Lewis, Boom boom mancini, that god awful heidi androl kvnt, and some of those other Fox sports commentators that probably came over from football/basketball, etc. are TERRIBLE

Boom boom and his 'OHHHHHH OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' every time a punch slightly connects lol

[N/A]

J Rock vs Rosario is on FOX, right? Lil BHop vs Corrales as co-main. That'll be a good card.

https://www.premierboxingchampions.c...anuary-18-2020

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The fighters story and style was fully explained and handed to you on a silver platter each time out. Now that it’s gone I see all the bells and whistles weren’t necessary. Just put on good fights and people will tune in.

Fox does a lot of that stuff BEFORE fight night.

Face to Face, Countdown, Fight Camp, etc air incessantly on local Fox affiliates, FS1 and FS2 over and over. By the time the actual fight rolls around, Fox's version of those HBO hype packages have already been seen by millions.

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Trying to claim people recognise the WBA has having two belts?? Stop smoking stuff buddy.

I don't know what sport you're watching, but all of the networks, fighters, managers and promoters recognize the WBA title as well as the super WBA title.

In terms of the heavyweights becoming relevant , and actually far more so - boxing in general - that is obviously largely down to the impact of Anthony Joshua and Eddie Hearn.

Joshua's impact in the United States has been minimal and has nothing to do with the emergence of Deontay Wilder as the first American heavyweight draw in decades. Also has nothing to do with Fury's star making performance against Klitschko and the ESPN marketing machine promoting his lineal title ad nauseam.

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Don't mind him. He's an idiot. Every real boxing fan knows that the WBA really has 3 belts: Super, Regular, and Gold. Just put him on ignore and call it a day.

All of the networks, fighters, managers and promoters recognize both the WBA title and super WBA title as world titles. None of them recognize the gold title as a world title.

[Pigeons]

All of the networks, fighters, managers and promoters recognize both the WBA title and super WBA title as world titles. None of them recognize the gold title as a world title.

Who are you fooling? WBA Gold has already surpassed the WBO in most fans' eyes.

[Motorcity Cobra]

Fox does a lot of that stuff BEFORE fight night.

Face to Face, Countdown, Fight Camp, etc air incessantly on local Fox affiliates, FS1 and FS2 over and over. By the time the actual fight rolls around, Fox's version of those HBO hype packages have already been seen by millions.

This! ESPN does it during the show and it slows the show down. When it's time to fight people just want to see the fights. That's how you end up with your main event doing less numbers than the opening bout. Kriegel is unnecessary during the broadcast. I can understand if it's a 60 second piece. But those 3 min pieces kill the flow of the broadcast

[MDPopescu]

It was only 10-15 years ago that boxing was largely controlled by Don King, Bob Arum, Dan Goossen, Gary Shaw, Murad Muhammad, Lou Dibella, Leon Margules, none of whom have any power anymore except for Arum.

It was only 10-15 years ago that boxing only had three recognized world titles (WBC, WBA, IBF), now it has five (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO and Super WBA).

It was only 10 years ago that HBO ruled the sport with an iron fist and Showtime was a very distant second. Now the biggest fight of 2020 is being distributed by Fox and ESPN.

It was only 10 years ago that heavyweights had become completely irrelevant. Now there are three huge stars in Joshua, Wilder and Fury, with interesting contenders like Ruiz, Whyte, and Big Baby.

It was only 5 years ago that HBO level boxing was thought to be impossible to bring back to free TV. Now HBO is out of boxing completely and Fox is airing world title fights almost every month.

... your points above have nothing to do with changes in boxing as a sport, per se...

... you only mentioned changes in boxing a business (including the HW division -- back then, the Klit bros were were simply dominating that weight class...)

[Real King Kong]

I'm sorry man, but you're dead wrong on that. Look at what the PBC PPVs are doing. In a 12 month span, PBC did 325,000 buys, 400,000 buys, 375,000 buys, 500,000 buys, 350,000 buys and 275,000 buys.

ALL of those fights would have been on PPV in the HBO/Showtime days. HBO put pretty much any fight they thought could do 200k buys on to PPV. HBO boxing went out of business in part because so many of their PPVs flopped and couldn't come anywhere close to 200k buys. They would have been doing BACKFLIPS if they had a one year run of 325, 400, 375, 500, 350 and 275.




But it's a reversion to when BOXING WAS MORE POPULAR. Canelo's fights being $20 instead of $75 is ground breaking, but he hasn't had a fight yet for $20 that most people would have found compelling at $75. Canelo vs Jacobs and Canelo vs Kovalev wouldn't have been huge PPV fights. They'd have done respectable numbers because it's Canelo, but nothing like his biggest fights.

Showtime has been available as a separate independent app, with live fights, for many years. So there's nothing groundbreaking about DAZN beyond the top PPV fighter agreeing to fight on $20 shows. Which would be a big deal if it forced everyone else to fight on $20 shows, but instead it's just caused $75 PPVs to grow.

There’s nothing ground breaking about entering a business model that’s never been done in the sport? Like I said, it might not last or even help grow the sport, but for the time being it’s cheaper than buying 5 mediocre ppvs.

As far as those numbers, they are pretty good, if they’re even correct...but some probably overachieved in retrospect. You can’t say all those fights were “ppv worthy” going in if you’re going to say no fights on dazn were “ppv worthy”. There’s no reason some fights on dazn couldn’t have sold as well as some of those relatively weak ppvs. Canelo and Joshua alone are bigger stars than anyone on the pbc roster by a distance.

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There’s nothing ground breaking about entering a business model that’s never been done in the sport?

The only thing ground breaking about the business model is that DAZN has no built in way to spread the word about their service. Which is why the service is failing massively. When Showtime launched their standalone app, they had CBS and Showtime to promote it. When ESPN launched their standalone app (ESPN+), they had ABC and ESPN to promote it.

DAZN is out of sight out of mind. It'd be one thing if HBO had launched a separate boxing only app and could then use HBO, TBS, TNT and Tru, etc to promote it, (like they do with B/R Live), but with DAZN, they have no mainstream properties to promote their "ground breaking" app.

Like I said, it might not last or even help grow the sport, but for the time being it’s cheaper than buying 5 mediocre ppvs.

People either want to see a fight or they don't. The price is often irrelevant. Yes, DAZN is cheaper than 5 PPVs, but they don't have 5 fights a year people would have bought on PPV. They barely have 2.

You can’t say all those fights were “ppv worthy” going in if you’re going to say no fights on dazn were “ppv worthy”.

Other than Canelo's two most recent fights, DAZN has had exactly *zero* fights that would have been PPVs in the HBO/Showtime days. Joshua's fights wouldn't have been PPVs. GGG's fight wouldn't have been a PPV. GGG flopped on PPV whenever he was the A-side.