PROMOTIONAL WAR GOOD & BAD FOR BOXING
Bob “Always Happy” Arum
San Francisco, CA– With the invidious war going on between boxing promoters Bob Arum (Top Rank) and Oscar De La Hoya (Golden Boy Promotions), one might think the game would be hurt by it. The facts are HBO is with Top Rank in this skirmish, while Showtime is napping with Golden Boy. Before I go any further, in the midst of it all, the most powerful player in the game, manager/agent Al Haymon is hangin’ with CBS and Viacom which owns Showtime.
CABLE WAR NOT LIMITED TO BOXING
HBO, which is run by Time Warner, one of the biggest cable providers in the USA, has locked Showtime and CBS out of their current cable TV lineup. According to news reports, “Three Los Angeles-area Time Warner Cable subscribers are taking their anger over the cable company’s dispute with CBS to court. They filed a lawsuit saying they should be paid back for losing access to CBS and Showtime during a black out of those channels. It’s been two weeks since the channels were removed from Time Warner Cable (TWC) systems in New York, L.A. and Dallas.”
FLOYD MAYWEATHER HELPED START WAR OF NETWORKS
Floyd Mayweather
There is no way in the world that HBO thought that there any chance of losing Floyd Mayweather to Showtime, CBS, and their parent company Viacom. It just never crossed their minds until Floyd and Haymon signed that record six-fight deal. With HBO blocking out Showtime in Los Angeles, Dallas and the #1 media market New York City, they are essentially cutting an arm off the Floyd Mayweather-Saul Alvarez September 14 Pay Per View event. L.A. is the #2 market, so as you can see unless there is some type of pact reached, the Mayweather-Alvarez card won’t be on in the Big Apple or the City of Angels.
SORT OF GOOD FOR BOXING? WHY?
I’ve never been a fan of guys “within” a company fighting among themselves. Reason being, it was always a “win-win” for the promoter with both fighters. But with Arum and De La Hoya looking to all but castrate one another from a business standpoint, they realize that they have to throw their own lions in the ring in order to turn the Pay Per View crank as fans want quality, quantity they get on ESPN2.
Richard Schaefer & Oscar De La Hoya
DON KING PUT ON SHOWS WORTH WATCHING
With Pay Per View cards less than stellar in recent years, again quantity and no quality, other times the main event sucks and there was nothing outside of Butterbean or Mia St. Breasts to support it. Since the prime days of Don King, promoters have failed miserably.
BOXING COMEBACK NOT LIKE STOCK MARKET
While Wall St. came back in seemingly record time, the boxing game is slow to recover. And while some boxing purists see MMA and the UFC as strong competition, it doesn’t have to be that way. Like Danny Garcia vs. Lucas Matthysse, if the best fight the best, then the boxing game will both grow and prosper!
Pedro Fernandez