If parent company ViacomCBS has its way, Showtime Boxing and Bellator MMA could soon be coming to an audience-free sound stage in Studio City, California.
Bob Bakish, president and CEO of ViacomCBS, said in the corporation's latest earnings call on May 7 that combat sports’ return at a larger scale is around the corner.
“We, by the way, also look forward to bringing live sports back, and we're going to be one of the first with golf, the nature of golf probably makes that a little bit simpler than some of the other sports,” said Bakish.
“By the way, we set up a sound stage in Radford [in Studio City, California], the CBS lot to film both boxing and Bellator events, which we're going to use that sound stage to sequentially alternately produce those, albeit with no audience for the moment. So we're going to do some sports stuff around the edges. But yes, look, I like our position.”
Like every other company in combat sports, Showtime and Bellator have both been snake bitten by the coronavirus pandemic and have cancelled a slew of shows since March.
Showtime staged the last big boxing card in the United States in March with a show headlined by a Brandun Lee TKO win over Camilo Prieto in a crowdless arena in Minnesota.
Stephen Espinoza, president of sports and event programming for Showtime, told BoxingScene.com in an interview earlier this week that the premium cable network is looking to stage high-level fights after the pandemic is over.
“We need to take our time and come back with the right fights at the right time to try and reduce the [coronavirus health] risk as much as possible while doing premium-level fights that are worthy of the audience,” said Espinoza.
“I don’t think we are going to be one of the first ones to come back. We are not going to come back for the sake of coming back and doing something. We are a premium network and we do premium-level fights … and that’s going to remind people why they love boxing even before all of this took place.”
“There is a feeling that the audience is desperate for sports, which is probably true, but we’re not going to take advantage of that and throw a bunch of stuff out there to say, ‘we’re back.’”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.