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Behind the Scenes, Haymon Is Shaking Up the Fight Game
Tom Uhlman for The New York Times
Al Haymon, center, with the W.B.C. welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, right, at the Adrien Broner-Martín Rodríguez bout in Cincinnati last month.
By GREG BISHOP
Published: December 17, 2011
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As Floyd Mayweather Jr. basked in his latest victory, the man behind the curtain actually stood behind a curtain, a cliché sprung to life. Few in the postfight news conference recognized this man, a reclusive, eccentric so-called adviser who rarely ventures into public.
Enlarge This Image
Tom Uhlman for The New York Times
Broner, one of Haymon's young prospects, after knocking out Rodríguez to win the W.B.O. junior-lightweight title.
The man arrived in Las Vegas incognito, dressed like a secret agent: black suit, white shirt, dark tie. His influence extended over every aspect of the promotion, from Mayweather’s $40 million pay structure to the resale of the best tickets at the MGM’s Grand Garden Arena.
As the chief architect of the career of Mayweather, perhaps the most prominent fighter since Mike Tyson, this man ranks among boxing’s most powerful figures. He also stands between Mayweather and a blockbuster fight with Manny Pacquiao.
From behind the curtain, he watched as Mayweather called his sizable entourage onstage, thanking bodyguards, assistants and assistants to assistants. “Where’s Al Haymon?” Mayweather said as he scanned the audience, his question a familiar one.
Mayweather shrugged. “Al Haymon would never come up here,” he added. “Al Haymon is the Ghost.”
These are the Haymon basics: Harvard-educated; successful in live concert promotion, then television production, now boxing; extensive list of celebrity clients; a brother, Bobby, who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard; no office, no answering machine, no photographs, no interviews.
“Think of Al as the Wizard of Oz,” said Phil Casey, one longtime partner in the music business. “It’s best not to try and figure him out.”
From Concert Stage to TV Screen
Haymon, 56, grew up in Cleveland and studied economics at Harvard, where he also earned a master’s degree in business administration. He started promoting recording artists while still in school, and even financed his first show, which featured the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, with student loans.
After college, Haymon returned to Cleveland and established a relationship with the O’Jays, growing especially close with Eddie Levert, the lead vocalist, and his son Gerald, an R&B singer. Haymon, Eddie Levert said, became “almost like blood to us.”
Levert described Haymon as a momma’s boy, and he meant it as a compliment. Early on, Haymon’s mother, Emma Lou, helped him with promotions, and for her 70th birthday, they recreated their trip to Harvard for his freshman year.
Haymon eventually created 14 businesses, mostly to deal with myriad aspects of live concert promotion. Early on, he was partners with Casey, then head of urban contemporary music at International Creative Management.
Casey estimated they staged more than 1,000 concerts together. Their client roster included M. C. Hammer, New Edition, Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige. They were, Casey said, among the first urban concert promoters to package several acts into a single tour, some of which ran for 300 days. They created the Budweiser Superfest, a concert series that ran from 1979 to 1999 and was revived in 2010.
Haymon and Casey turned an often haphazard business into an assembly-line production. They oversaw lighting, production, marketing and advertising, built an infrastructure, a total package, then plugged artists in. In 1992, Haymon, in a rare interview, told USA Today that they put on some 500 shows and grossed $60 million the year before.
“You could say the African-American concert world was divided in two camps: all the promoters who were trying to beat Al, and him,” said Jack Boyle, then chairman of the concert giant SFX Entertainment’s live music group.
By 1987, Haymon began to branch out. He co-promoted the “Eddie Murphy Raw” tour, working closely with Murphy and his stepfather, Vernon Lynch. Lynch’s partner, Gregory Pai, said the tour was at that time the highest-grossing comedy tour and comedy film ever.
“Promotion is as much science as art, and Al was able to mix the two,” Pai said. “He understood the mechanics of the business. He was an optimizer, the Steve Jobs of promotion.”
Haymon glided easily among constituents, as comfortable with lawyers in a boardroom as with artists from the streets. He knew politics, literature and economics, but he also knew how to avoid controversy. He sent holiday gift baskets and doled out concert tickets.
As his concert business evolved, Haymon’s reputation grew to include his propensity for putting on only the biggest, boldest shows, with back-to-back engagements up to 1,200 miles apart.
“If there’s a tour now with long routes, still, people say, is that an Al Haymon tour?” said Carl Freed, once executive director of the North American Independent Concert Promoters Association, which Haymon never joined.
In 1999, Haymon sold A. H. Enterprises to SFX Entertainment. The move, at the time, was typical, but the split was not. Haymon retained 50 percent and most of the creative control.
As R&B concert promotion gradually gave way to hip-hop and rap tours, Casey said, he and Haymon cut back. The problems with such tours — fights backstage, shootings, bloated entourages — were overdramatized, Casey added, “But when they did happen, it was so disruptive.” Casey recalled one incident, at a show in Boston, that resulted in a lawsuit and forced the cancellation of future events. They lost their building deposits and wasted their advertising money.
Behind the Scenes, Haymon Is Shaking Up the Fight Game
Tom Uhlman for The New York Times
Al Haymon, center, with the W.B.C. welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, right, at the Adrien Broner-Martín Rodríguez bout in Cincinnati last month.
By GREG BISHOP
Published: December 17, 2011
RECOMMEND
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
SINGLE PAGE
REPRINTS
SHARE
As Floyd Mayweather Jr. basked in his latest victory, the man behind the curtain actually stood behind a curtain, a cliché sprung to life. Few in the postfight news conference recognized this man, a reclusive, eccentric so-called adviser who rarely ventures into public.
Enlarge This Image
Tom Uhlman for The New York Times
Broner, one of Haymon's young prospects, after knocking out Rodríguez to win the W.B.O. junior-lightweight title.
The man arrived in Las Vegas incognito, dressed like a secret agent: black suit, white shirt, dark tie. His influence extended over every aspect of the promotion, from Mayweather’s $40 million pay structure to the resale of the best tickets at the MGM’s Grand Garden Arena.
As the chief architect of the career of Mayweather, perhaps the most prominent fighter since Mike Tyson, this man ranks among boxing’s most powerful figures. He also stands between Mayweather and a blockbuster fight with Manny Pacquiao.
From behind the curtain, he watched as Mayweather called his sizable entourage onstage, thanking bodyguards, assistants and assistants to assistants. “Where’s Al Haymon?” Mayweather said as he scanned the audience, his question a familiar one.
Mayweather shrugged. “Al Haymon would never come up here,” he added. “Al Haymon is the Ghost.”
These are the Haymon basics: Harvard-educated; successful in live concert promotion, then television production, now boxing; extensive list of celebrity clients; a brother, Bobby, who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard; no office, no answering machine, no photographs, no interviews.
“Think of Al as the Wizard of Oz,” said Phil Casey, one longtime partner in the music business. “It’s best not to try and figure him out.”
From Concert Stage to TV Screen
Haymon, 56, grew up in Cleveland and studied economics at Harvard, where he also earned a master’s degree in business administration. He started promoting recording artists while still in school, and even financed his first show, which featured the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, with student loans.
After college, Haymon returned to Cleveland and established a relationship with the O’Jays, growing especially close with Eddie Levert, the lead vocalist, and his son Gerald, an R&B singer. Haymon, Eddie Levert said, became “almost like blood to us.”
Levert described Haymon as a momma’s boy, and he meant it as a compliment. Early on, Haymon’s mother, Emma Lou, helped him with promotions, and for her 70th birthday, they recreated their trip to Harvard for his freshman year.
Haymon eventually created 14 businesses, mostly to deal with myriad aspects of live concert promotion. Early on, he was partners with Casey, then head of urban contemporary music at International Creative Management.
Casey estimated they staged more than 1,000 concerts together. Their client roster included M. C. Hammer, New Edition, Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige. They were, Casey said, among the first urban concert promoters to package several acts into a single tour, some of which ran for 300 days. They created the Budweiser Superfest, a concert series that ran from 1979 to 1999 and was revived in 2010.
Haymon and Casey turned an often haphazard business into an assembly-line production. They oversaw lighting, production, marketing and advertising, built an infrastructure, a total package, then plugged artists in. In 1992, Haymon, in a rare interview, told USA Today that they put on some 500 shows and grossed $60 million the year before.
“You could say the African-American concert world was divided in two camps: all the promoters who were trying to beat Al, and him,” said Jack Boyle, then chairman of the concert giant SFX Entertainment’s live music group.
By 1987, Haymon began to branch out. He co-promoted the “Eddie Murphy Raw” tour, working closely with Murphy and his stepfather, Vernon Lynch. Lynch’s partner, Gregory Pai, said the tour was at that time the highest-grossing comedy tour and comedy film ever.
“Promotion is as much science as art, and Al was able to mix the two,” Pai said. “He understood the mechanics of the business. He was an optimizer, the Steve Jobs of promotion.”
Haymon glided easily among constituents, as comfortable with lawyers in a boardroom as with artists from the streets. He knew politics, literature and economics, but he also knew how to avoid controversy. He sent holiday gift baskets and doled out concert tickets.
As his concert business evolved, Haymon’s reputation grew to include his propensity for putting on only the biggest, boldest shows, with back-to-back engagements up to 1,200 miles apart.
“If there’s a tour now with long routes, still, people say, is that an Al Haymon tour?” said Carl Freed, once executive director of the North American Independent Concert Promoters Association, which Haymon never joined.
In 1999, Haymon sold A. H. Enterprises to SFX Entertainment. The move, at the time, was typical, but the split was not. Haymon retained 50 percent and most of the creative control.
As R&B concert promotion gradually gave way to hip-hop and rap tours, Casey said, he and Haymon cut back. The problems with such tours — fights backstage, shootings, bloated entourages — were overdramatized, Casey added, “But when they did happen, it was so disruptive.” Casey recalled one incident, at a show in Boston, that resulted in a lawsuit and forced the cancellation of future events. They lost their building deposits and wasted their advertising money.
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