Today, special guest contributor Gibson Morales joins the UCNLive team with his thoughts on whether or not Premier Boxing Champions is good for boxing. Read on, UCNation…
If you visit a boxing website, you’re likely to get bombarded with ads or links for an upcoming Premier Boxing Champions card. From the PBC’s about page, “The PBC is a boxing series that returns the sweet science to its rightful place atop the sports pantheon.” Many fans have lauded PBC for its apparent free approach to boxing, suggesting it as a throwback to the heyday of the sport.
Thanks to funding by Waddell & Reed, boxing adviser Al Haymon launched PBC on March 7, 2015. One year and change later, it’s time to examine PBC’s effect on the sport.
It’s good for the boxers!
It’s easy to see why people defend PBC and grow dismayed by its criticisms. In a certain way, it does “good” for boxing by doing good for the chief component, the boxers themselves. Al Haymon’s fighters are receiving career-high paydays without having to risk their records or bodies against dangerous opponents. These purses are well above their market value; however, suggesting this isn’t a sustainable model. Paying boxers an inflated salary (Al Haymon can do this thanks to Waddell & Reed’s $500 million investment in PBC) is bad for the overall health of boxing, as it artificially shifts the market value of boxers and their salary expectations. This business strategy of subsidizing certain fighters essentially disrupts the free market of boxing. Not only can it force smaller promoters to cave in to demands of larger promoters, it can strain relations between fighters and promoters. Mikey Garcia and Andre Ward spent years in litigation with their promoters, alleging they weren’t earning their full dues. Were situations like these justified or based on comparisons of what other managers/promoters paid their fighters? Moreover, what happens when the market catches up and a huge number of boxers no longer earn the huge paydays to which they are accustomed ? Worse, what if they’re all under a single banner when this occurs?
Ever since boxing became a professional sport, businessmen have exploited fighters’ health and finances, so it’s hard to argue against anything that can change that. But on the other hand, this is a violent combat sport and it’s voluntary. No one is putting a gun to these boxers’ heads and forcing them to fight. (Just ask boxers who take long hiatuses.) Part of the reason boxers are celebrated as such is because they’re willing to risk their minds and souls in the ring. That’s what makes them exciting to watch. That’s what has bred some of the most beloved fighters in history.
And let’s not act as if other sports aren’t violent. Recently, we’ve seen several promising football players, like former San Francisco 49er Chris Borland, leave the sport because of the physical threat posed by repetitive head trauma.
Many boxing fans would agree that it’s OK for a boxer to fight an easy opponent after coming off a grueling war, a terrible defeat or when dealing with an injury. Many boxing fans would also agree that we’ve seen lots of soft competition in the PBC. This is supposed to keep the fighters healthy, while still allowing for a paycheck. But if Al Haymon, the head of the PBC brand and adviser of over 150 boxers, wants to protect his fighters’ health, he should help them develop better life habits outside the ring. Historically, many boxers have abused drugs and adopted unsavory habits. Oscar De La Hoya’s career could’ve included even greater achievements if not for his cocaine abuse. British boxer Ricky Hatton infamously gained so much weight between fights, fans sometimes referred to him as “Ricky Fatton.” Allegedly, Al Haymon fighter Marcos Maidana ballooned up to well over his fighting weight after losing to Mayweather.
For being athletes, many boxers enter the ring out of shape, drugged up or emotionally unstable. We’ve seen the negative effects in fighters like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, when Andrzej Fonfara stopped him after he failed to make weight properly. In a sport in which a single punch can be the difference between a healthy escape and a life-threatening injury, promoters and advisers should pay more attention to boxers’ lifestyles. That is, if the health and safety of boxers are really a priority.
Yet Al Haymon had little problem allowing boxer Jermain Taylor to fight Sam Soliman for a world title. The Jermain Taylor known to slur his words. The Jermain Taylor who reportedly shot his cousin and threatened a child with a gun at a parade. And when fighters like Adrien Broner are allowed to compete, despite arrest warrants, it sends a message to other boxers: As long as you’re popular and have money in your pockets, you can get a free pass for your misdeeds.
In terms of preventing a boxer’s bankruptcy, Al Haymon seems to have guided certain fighters, like Danny Garcia, into investments outside the boxing world. Perhaps taking a similar approach in regard to boxers’ lifestyle choices and health outside the ring without overprotecting them inside the ring would be a happy medium.
Moreover, what is PBC/Al Haymon’s stance on anti-doping? Surely, PED usage is not healthy; yet we’ve seen a number of Haymon fighters busted for PED use over the last few years: Andre Berto, Lamont Peterson, J’Leon Love. Recently, we saw Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Paulie Malignaggi working with strength-and-conditioning coach Angel “Memo” Heredia, whom a federal investigation tied to PED dealings with track stars in 2002. Scrutiny over Mayweather’s IV usage before his May 2 fight with Manny Pacquiao called the objectivity and effectiveness of USADA (the United States Anti-Doping Agency) and the potential loopholes fighters can exploit to dope before fights (despite claims of USADA’s thoroughness) into question. And for all of its efforts at legitimacy, PBC fighters partake in mostly USADA testing (if they do any testing at all), rather than VADA (the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association), which is generally considered to have a better track record.
Some may see similar illicit activities from other promotional companies and fighters under different banners. This is true. No one is disputing that boxing, as a whole, needs fixing. On the other hand, no one is praising Top Rank Promotions or Golden Boy Promotions as the savior of the sport in the way fans praise PBC and Al Haymon.
And let’s not forget about the other boxers. For every PBC fighter who gets to take an easy fight against a weak, underdog boxer, there is, by definition, a fighter who must face a very dangerous, possibly life-threatening opponent. What about them? What about the mismatched opponents’ safety? We’ve seen numerous Haymon/PBC fighters, including Leo Santa Cruz, Adonis Stevenson, Keith Thurman, Peter Quillin, Adrien Broner, Austin Trout, Danny Garcia and Deontay Wilder fight opponents who were serious underdogs for various – and good – reasons. What happens when they suffer terrible knockout defeats (as Michael Zerafa did against Peter Quillin) and leave on a stretcher? Should more established fighters be allowed to fight easy competition for huge paydays, while complete no-names serve as sacrificial lambs? It’s important to remember that, with so many fighters in his stable, Haymon cannot protect everyone.
Again, do we see mismatched fights from other boxing promotional companies? Yes (though arguably not as often). The difference is Premier Boxing Champions set out to fix boxing, as it were. To minimize these mismatches and maximize great fights, the onus is on them to produce.
For all the good graces over Haymon keeping his fighters financially healthy, we’ve seen odd instances in which his boxers have failed to maximize their profits. In 2014, a then-undefeated Peter Quillin turned down a career-high payday of $1.4 million and vacated his WBO middleweight title. He fought instead on PBC, earning $500,000 against Andy Lee in April 2015. Amir Khan delayed a fight with Devon Alexander in late 2013, opting not to fight until May 2014. Then he fought only once in 2015. Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter will carry a year of ring rust into their fight this summer (though Porter fought an exhibition match last March). Adrien Broner, Thurman and Deontay Wilder all turned down big-money offers to work with Roc Nation Sports.
It’s good for the fans!
Now, let’s consider the other reason some fans praise PBC: It’s free (mostly). For years, boxing’s critics derided the cost of pay-per-views, which robbed customers and alienated potential new fans. Note the PPV King, Floyd Mayweather Jr, praises Al Haymon as the man behind his success. Though Mayweather’s massive PPVs clearly helped his bank account, it’s debatable how much they really helped the sport as a whole. In May 2015, 4.4 million fans purchased his fight against Manny Pacquiao for approximately $100 each in high definition on PPV. With PBC premiering just two months prior, one might’ve hoped (albeit naively) for Haymon to truly bring boxing back to the public eye by offering Mayweather-Pacquiao free on network television. Because despite its record as the biggest boxing match in history, the fight’s price tag and dull outcome didn’t draw any new fans to the sport. Boxing remains low in overall popularity.
Moreover, premium network boxing, such as HBO and Showtime, does offer a higher production quality than PBC. Commentator analysis on HBO and Showtime is arguably more objective, deeper, more insightful and more encompassing of the effects of a fight on the world of boxing than anything offered on PBC. This is to say, you get what you pay for. And there aren’t any commercials.
Free network television in the PPV-era is not something bold and new. In 2012, Main Events (current promoter of Sergey Kovalev) launched the NBC Sports Network’s “Fight Night.” And “Friday Night Fights” existed long before PBC took over ESPN boxing (though ESPN isn’t a basic channel; it’s cable. So not all PBC is free. If you don’t have Spike, ESPN or Bounce TV, you can’t watch those fights). In an unclear dilution of the PBC brand, some Haymon fighters fight on Showtime too. Recently, Showtime announced its spring/summer 2016 boxing schedule, which included fighters who fought on PBC at one point. The fighters are essentially interchangeable; however, as Adrien Broner fought on Showtime in Oct. 2015, despite fighting on PBC’s first card and a second one on last June. It’s possible we may see Haymon fighters swapped between fights on Showtime, PBC and any future PPVs (Leo Santa Cruz fought on the Mayweather-Pacquiao undercard and fought Abner Mares on “PBC on ESPN”). Showtime, of course, costs viewers a monthly fee.
But the PBC cards on NBC and CBS are still free. In an era when we have access to hundreds of great shows, sports, and films on Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu Plus and other channels, should one spend his or her time watching free PBC boxing? That’s up to the viewer, of course. Falling ratings for NBC’s PBC shows suggest a consistent decision against it. As a hardcore boxing fan, I only watched five PBC fights in 2015: Thurman-Robert Guerrero, Broner-Porter, Garcia-Peterson, Quillin-Lee, and Santa Cruz-Mares.
Each possessed decent names in boxing and the fights seemed competitive enough to tell us something about the quality of the respective fighters. Unfortunately, typical boxing tomfoolery marred two of these. The Garcia-Peterson fight suffered bad judging. (How come when Mayweather touches and runs, it’s “brilliant boxing” but when anyone else does it, it’s “running”?) The Quillin-Lee fight included Quillin failing to make weight (so it was not entirely for the WBO title, as originally planned) and resulted in a questionable draw. (I had Quillin winning.) Even the Broner-Porter fight included a questionable catchweight.
Faulty judging has always plagued boxing, so much that it’s practically a tradition, one fans could do without. Sure it can be fun to argue that the judges robbed Marvelous Marvin Hagler against Sugar Ray Leonard but, at the end of the day, bad judging cheats one fighter. A loss, fair or not, can affect career trajectories, paydays, fighters’ mental well-being and the legitimacy of the sport. Couldn’t PBC have found a way to fix this? PBC is threatening to overhaul the boxing industry, so why not in the right way? Why not work toward solutions to poor judging, catchweights and all the alphabet titles? With the backing of two of boxing’s most powerful men, Al Haymon and Floyd Mayweather Jr (the extent of Mayweather’s involvement in PBC, if any, is unclear, but considering the relation between him and Haymon, it’s likely they could coordinate as needed), PBC could’ve introduced a revamped judging system and other possible solutions to the black eyes of boxing, if it really mattered to them. Even Senator John McCain outlined great plans to fix boxing but lacked the funding to carry them out.
Given the black eyes of boxing-faulty judges, harmful catchweights, mismatches, the so-called “Cold War” (in which boxers are blocked from fighting because of promotional company issues), so rarely do we see the best fight the best. PBC could’ve changed this – but didn’t.
As evidenced by the Garcia-Peterson and Quillin-Lee fights, controversial decisions and faulty judges still exist. This is obviously a hard thing to fix because so much of it is rooted in personal opinions and prone to human error. But if you brand yourself as the fix to boxing’s problems, you should find a way to deliver. To PBC’s credit, harmful catchweights (think De La Hoya-Pacquiao or Miguel Cotto-Daniel Geale) haven’t been a big issue. At least not yet. But we’ve witnessed far too many one-sided match-ups: Adonis Stevenson-Tommy Karpency, Broner-John Molina Jr., Amir Khan-Chris Algieri, Erislandy Lara-Delvin Rodriguez, Quillin-Zerafa, Thurman-Luis Collazo, Deontay Wilder-Johann Duhaupas, Santa Cruz-Jose Cayetano, Carl Frampton-Alejandro Gonzalez Jr., Garcia-Malignaggi, Austin Trout-Luis Galarza, Daniel Jacobs-Sergio Mora and so on and so forth.
It should go without saying that mismatches are harmful to the sport. Nonetheless, imagine if the NBA included Pros vs. Joes games as part of the season. Some of the listed fights are on the level of the Celtics playing a random college team (or a very talented high school team). Boxing matches like this are dull. We already know what’s going to happen. The old adage, “It’s boxing. Anything can happen” is overstated. A person can win the lottery or see a UFO too but certain statistics come into play first. Boxing is about tension, witnessing the certainties of men broken and a fighter rise to the occasion. It’s not about watching one guy beat up on a weaker guy for the pure violence. Sometimes mismatches aren’t one-sided slugfests. They can often be one guy simply outboxing the other in repetitive, awkward fashion with many missed punches and lots of clenching.
Mismatches have little at stake and rarely teach us anything about either fighter but we’ve seen plenty of them in PBC. Worse, fighters are getting paid huge amounts of money for them. I can’t blame the fighters involved. If you can make $1.5 million for an easy fight against a taxi driver (or, to be more accurate, a car insurance salesman or male stripper), then why not? Just the same, it’s fair to say these boxers lack the ambition to be the best. Ideally, there would be a middle ground. PBC claims to take boxing back to its roots. At its roots, boxing rested on the shoulders of men who sought paydays, yes, but also glory and legacy. Now, it’s just about easy paydays. That hunger is gone. It’s hard to be hungry, after all, when you’re making easy money.
PBC fans will argue that free, widespread boxing is good because it creates new fans. True in theory but the idea of free samples is to offer a taste of a great product, not a taste of a so-so product. And by the logic that PBC fights, mediocre or not, can draw in new fans, won’t great fights like Francisco Vargas-Takashi Miura and Jose Soto Karass-Yoshihiro Kamegai bring in even more fans? Shouldn’t we want new, potential fans to see the best fights? Consider UFC headlines over the last year- entertaining upsets of Ronda Rousey, Jose Aldo, Chris Weidman (all by KO), along with fighters like Conor McGregor stepping up to challenge himself against the best he can find. These are the sort of things that draw attention and interest to a sport, not routine record-padding fights or mismatches.
In the current boxing environment, a fan of free boxing isn’t necessarily a fan willing to pay money to watch the great fights out there or learn about other fighters beyond PBC. In Sept. 2015, Wilder-Duhaupas scored 2.3 million views on NBC. This translated to an average rating of 600,000 for Wilder-Artur Szpilka on Showtime last January, half of the 1.2 million who viewed Wilder-Bermane Stiverne in Jan. 2015. Quillin-Jacobs, a competitive fight (with a shockingly good result) that should’ve enticed fans, drew only 386,000 viewers in Dec. 2015. Note that both fighters were coming off KO victories on PBC broadcasts. Likewise, Santa Cruz-Mares peaked at 1.614 million viewers last August on ESPN. Santa Cruz’s next fight, against Kiko Martinez on Showtime, barely pulled in 300,000 viewers. So success in PBC isn’t helping these fighters’ overall brand.
All in all, it’s difficult to say if PBC is really building a new market of boxing when they give away so many free tickets to their events that they curtain off portions of the arenas to hide the empty seats. A friend of mine recently got into boxing, intrigued by Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin’s fights. I asked him what he thought of PBC. He had no clue what that was.
Considering roughly half of televised boxing is PBC and the other half is mostly HBO and Showtime fights, can one really say “PBC is good for boxing”? PBC is good for PBC boxing. It’s not good for boxing as a whole. Or even Showtime boxing, which has seen low viewership this year, despite hosting former or current PBC fighters.
Given most of the top 10 pound-for-pound fighters on HBO (which Haymon fighters generally can’t or won’t fight on), it’s hard to imagine seeing the “best fighting the best.” Most fans can agree that the best fighting the best is a huge element of boxing. For all the talk of taking boxing back to its roots – the mythical best fighting the best eras, Haymon fighters mostly seem unwilling to face the best competition. It doesn’t help that PBC announcers rarely mention non-Haymon fighters or those not aligned with Haymon.
While any number of PBC fighters have claimed they’re ready to fight anyone, we’ve only seen a couple rare examples. Recently, Amir Khan, advised by Al Haymon, signed to fight Golden Boy’s Canelo Alvarez. And Dominic Wade, a minor Al Haymon fighter and IBF mandatory, signed to fight “GGG” on HBO. While “Khanelo” is an intriguing fight, neither of these is a fight fans craved. And while PBC representatives quickly credited their company for the “Khanelo” fight occurring, Golden Boy head Oscar De La Hoya dismissed Al Haymon’s role in making the fight happen.
Maybe these match-ups will lead to more fights between Haymon and non-Haymon boxers. Just the same, one major fight, Kovalev-Stevenson failed to come to fruition because Adonis Stevenson (a Haymon fighter) claimed he wanted Showtime to co-host their fight. This, despite the fact that Stevenson last fought on “PBC on Spike.” Interestingly, Bernard Hopkins, Kovalev and Jean Pascal (each of whom owned one or more light heavyweight belts and fought each other) have all dismissed Adonis Stevenson’s willingness to fight the best.
The Cold War and how Al Haymon/PBC turned it into a Hot War
For years, a sort of hostility akin to a Cold War existed between major boxing promotional companies Top Rank Promotions, led by Bob Arum, and Golden Boy Promotions, headed by Oscar De La Hoya (and Richard Schaefer before he left in summer 2014). The Cold War prevented the respective fighters of Top Rank and Golden Boy from ever stepping foot inside the same ring. Arguably, it is one of the main reasons Mayweather didn’t fight Pacquiao for five years. Fans missed out on a great many match-ups because of the inability of Golden Boy to make fights with Top Rank. It truly prevented the best from fighting the best. So in 2014, when De La Hoya said he wanted to make amends with Arum, fans dared to dream for the Cold War to thaw.
Schaefer’s falling out with De La Hoya ended that hope. Note this from Schaefer: “(Haymon) and me are friends. We work well together. We have done good business together. He’s a businessman I highly respect and regard.” Given this, many speculated that Haymon, adviser of the majority of Golden Boy Promotions fighters, at the time, could withdraw his fighters from Oscar’s control and form a company with Schaefer and Mayweather, effectively pulling off the kind of malevolent betrayal you’d expect in “Game of Thrones.”
Lawsuits and mismatches, like Danny Garcia-Rod Salka, followed in the wake of Schaefer’s leaving Golden Boy. And then the sinister Game of Thrones betrayal came. Around early 2015, Haymon fighters Danny Garcia, Deontay Wilder, Peter Quillin and many others left Golden Boy Promotions. They walked out on the company that helped build them.
So, in short, Oscar said he wanted to work with Arum. Schaefer, friend of Haymon, left Golden Boy. Lawsuits and litigation followed. Then, Haymon fighters left Golden Boy.
But so what, you say? Even if Richard Schaefer and Al Haymon stayed with Golden Boy Promotions, that doesn’t mean we would’ve seen any matches between GBP and Top Rank fighters. Well, Oct. 3, 2015 delivered an anticipated match-up between GBP fighter Lucas Matthysse and Top Rank fighter Viktor Postol. Last year, we saw Top Rank fighter Luis Abregu vs. GBP fighter Sadam Ali. Earlier last year, Golden Boy Promotions treated us to Lucas Matthysse vs. Ruslan Provodnikov, a fighter generally aligned with Top Rank’s side of the proverbial wall. On March 5, we saw Jessie Vargas KO Sadam Ali (a Top Rank vs GBP fighter).
De La Hoya has spoken about matching the best against the best and has given us great fights. Many doubted he would pit heavy-puncher (and recently signed) David Lemieux against the middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, even though it would’ve made for a great match-up. But De La Hoya made the fight. Along with the long-awaited Canelo-Cotto match. Later this year, we may see Canelo-Golovkin. And in early 2015, Oscar started negotiations to make a fight happen between Leo Santa Cruz and the highly skilled Guillermo Rigondeaux – a long-anticipated fight between two undefeated boxers – the best versus the best. Shortly afterward, Leo Santa Cruz left with Al Haymon (Santa Cruz’s son is named “Al,” by the way).
Also, consider the video of Danny Garcia’s father, Angel, questioning the need for a fight between Thurman and Porter. He suggests that elite fighters should pad their resume for easy paydays. While this is a good financial strategy for boxers and promoters, generally, the better a boxer’s resume, the higher his pay. If a boxer piles up elite victories, he stands to earn more (by becoming a popular fighter) and this is arguably the case for Thurman and Porter. Neither is a bona fide elite boxer yet. The winner of Thurman-Porter may become a big welterweight star, though. That’s generally how sports work. You earn the right to better pay by winning. The more emphatic your victories, the more fans you gain and hence the more money you bring in. Angel Garcia’s arguments essentially forget the other side to the risk/reward ratio. The higher the risk, the higher the reward.
This “Garcia mentality” is, unfortunately, perhaps the biggest influence of Mayweather and Haymon’s success in boxing. Throughout his career, Mayweather chose fights via a low-risk/high-reward strategy. He selected opponents based on the biggest financial return, so long as they posed a minimal risk. This is not to bash his skills or talent; it’s just the reality. And most of Al Haymon’s current stable of fighters follow it, so much that Haymon fighters like Julian Williams can’t even get other Haymon fighters to fight them. Peter Quillin reportedly wanted “$5 or $10 million” to fight GGG. Leo Santa Cruz demanded $3 million to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux. Amir Khan preferred inactivity to fighting Kell Brook. Even non-Haymon fighters expect huge sums to face “risky” opposition as WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders declined a career-high payday of several million dollars to fight GGG. And, of course, there’s the audacity of Adonis Stevenson to turn down a fight with Sergey Kovalev over Showtime broadcasting rights.
Boxing has entered the age of entitlement, when an undefeated (or nearly so) record amounts to massive paydays against easy opponents. It’s interesting to note that the only boxer ever to become a mega-star from this strategy was Mayweather (yet even he fought far better opposition than young boxers today). And, arguably, he drew his popularity as much from his villainous “Money” persona as his undefeated record. Otherwise, the last two boxing mega-stars, De La Hoya and Pacquiao, attained their status by fighting anyone, often beating the best, in emphatic fashion. But when the best won’t face the best (or even decent competition), fans get stuck with a lot of hyped-up, largely forgettable fighters.
Ultimately, this widespread and extreme strategy of low-risk/high-reward doesn’t seem conducive to the overall health of boxing. Eventually, fans, including myself, grow tired of watching mismatches or protected fighters. Whether that means fewer ticket sales, less ratings, or less PPV buys, it means less money spent on boxing. Usually, boxing profits don’t come from a large pool of Waddell & Reed investment money as with the PBC. Profits come from fans willing to support the sport.
Looking at De La Hoya’s actions over the last couple of years, it’s clear he wants to make fights for the fans. This is no surprise as he is one of the few true promoters with firsthand experience as a boxer (who fought everyone). But Haymon pulled his fighters out from GBP before these fights could be negotiated. Last year, Haymon’s fighters proceeded to fight in mostly mismatches on PBC. Meanwhile De La Hoya gives fans great match-ups. Recently, Jesus Soto Karass-Yoshihiro Kamegai delivered in an all-action war. In June, Francisco Vargas-Orlando Salido will likely bring as many fireworks. Golden Boy Promotions made both of these fights. Fans can only sadly consider the awesome fights we might’ve seen if Haymon let De La Hoya be the matchmaker. Not only that, but the Cold War truly would’ve been over. Instead, we got a war of blocking venues, competing cards, and lawsuits.
Last year, Haymon blocked several venues from showcasing Golden Boy fights, including the StubHub Center. Instead of hosting Matthysse-Provodnikov, it served as the site for Andzrej Fonfara-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., leaving the former to Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York. Surely, a fight on the level of Matthysse-Provodnikov deserved to take place at the StubHub Center over a Chavez Jr. fight. In addition to this night of dueling cards, PBC put on a match between BJ Flores and Beibut Shumenov near a Main Events match between Sergey Kovalev and Nadjib Mohammedi on July 24, 2015. Kovalev is all one could ask from a boxer, ruthless, dangerously powerful, entertaining to watch, battle-tested against true champions and willing to fight anyone. He is the kind of fighter most fans would be happy to have represent the sport. Yet, Haymon saw fit to split the attendance of this match. (Remember, PBC gives away a lot of free seats.) Neither Shumenov nor Flores are marquee fighters and it’s safe to say they’ll never be. So how did drawing attendance away from Kovalev’s fight help anyone in boxing?
Of course, Golden Boy and Top Rank are suing Haymon, so some back-and-forth tactics are expected. Top Rank’s suit contends Haymon’s PBC series is monopolistic and violates federal antitrust laws. Golden Boy’s lawsuit is based on similar grounds. Are two of the biggest boxing promotional companies (apart from PBC) suing as a survival mechanism or are there legitimate reasons? The good news is we’ll soon know. The court cases are now entering the discovery process, which may reveal some telling details about Haymon’s business model.
Whether or not you’re a fan of PBC, one has to wonder about its business strategy. Most fight cards have lost money, paying purses into the millions with little-to-no commercial revenue. Unsurprisingly, there aren’t nearly as many PBC cards scheduled this year as last year. Recently, ESPN pushed its PBC cards back to June. It seems like Haymon might’ve intended PBC as a vehicle to promote fighters but, as we’ve seen in fighters’ transitions to Showtime, the numbers don’t carry over.
Some have speculated Haymon simply intended to make “easy money” (as Mayweather might say) off the PBC, since he receives a portion of his fighters’ purses. By paying them overly high salaries, he’s actually increasing his own. Since Waddell & Reed funded him nearly $500 million, he’s had a lot of money to play around with. And he’s played around with so much money that the latest holds information for the Haymon Boxing investment suggests PBC is down to its last $82 million. Ratings remain stagnant. Is this all part of Al Haymon’s master plan? Hard to say considering he is only now allowing one of his big fighters, Amir Khan, to fight a Golden Boy opponent on HBO. Even if the PBC fails completely, Al Haymon will be a lot wealthier, thanks to fight purse portions. There’s no question about that. The question is whether boxing as a whole will be better off.
Gibson Morales is the award-winning author of the sci-fi action novels “The Deadliest Earthling” and “The Boy Who Wields Thunder.” He publishes these under his imprint, Mo Bros Books, which he formed with his brother and writer Vicente. Gibson graduated from USC and lives in Los Angeles. When not writing, Gibson enjoys boxing, most things geek-related, computer science and traveling. He can be reached via email at mobrosbooks@gmail.com and on Twitter @mobrosbooks.
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