Network war; not promoter war

By Boxing News - 06/16/2014 - Comments

By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: I want to the network war to end. Notice I didn’t say promoters. I want to see good fights just like everyone else. But here’s a harsh reality. Promoters can sit and be buddies all they want they want. But if the networks don’t play nice, then the fight doesn’t happen.

There is a twofold in boxing. HBO and Showtime need fighters on their networks to attract subscribers, and fighters need network to gain notoriety. There have been instances back in the day where an HBO fighter fought on Showtime and vice versa. For example in 1985, Donald Curry and Milton McCory met in a unification match televised by HBO. Two fights later, Curry challenge Lloyd Honeyghan on Showtime. In 1993, Pernell Whitaker battled Julio Cesar Chavez on Showtime.

Chavez, Curry, and Whitaker fought mostly on HBO, but was able to fight on Showtime as well (Note: Research has not allowed me to see contracts concerning some fighters). But whatever the reason these fighters were able to crossover, we saw some big fights. But a lot goes into whether we see big fights on TV or not. It’s all about maintaining ratings to get a leg up on the competition. Let’s look at a couple points.
Catching the casual viewer. Let’s say that 12 people are debating on what network they want; HBO or Showtime. On a particular night HBO let’s one of their fighters fight on Showtime. So the 12 people go to a friend’s house to watch a fight, but is unaware of the network the fight is on. At the conclusion of the fight, they see the fight was aired on Showtime. The HBO fighter puts on a great show and captures the eye of the 12 customers. In their mind, they think the HBO fighter is a Showtime fighter. So what do they do? They order Showtime. Meanwhile, they are steadily looking for that HBO fighter to fight again and don’t see him. But they do see a series of great fights shown by Showtime. Later on, they find out that the HBO fighter fights exclusively on HBO and that the Showtime gig was a onetime thing. So now they order HBO. In the minds of the networks, they just lost 12 people because they want those 12 customers all to themselves. If those 12 split; 6 with Showtime and 6 with HBO, then I think the networks can live with that. But the objective is to get all 12 customers.

The point is the networks have an image to maintain. They can and have shut down fights to make sure their rating remain stout. In 2011, HBO passed on Sergio Martinez’s fight with Sebastian Zbik who was the mandatory challenger. But they did approve his fight against undefeated 154 pound champ Sergiy Dzinziruk. Why? Because Sergiy was the only opponent HBO would pay for. So Martinez was forced into this fight. Not too long ago, HBO passed on the Gennady Golovki/Osumanu Adama fight. According to Ring Magazine (online), HBO was not able to accommodate all the production equipment in the small venue. I believe this had more to do with the opponent than the equipment accommodation.

I support that statement because the fight was shown in over 100 countries. And most recently, HBO threatened not to air GGG’s fight, if he chose to give the WBA’s number one contender Jarrod Fletcher a shot. But why? Fletcher maybe a decent boxer, but nobody knows him. Geale is a former champion and brings a decent crowd with him. K2, Golovkins promoter, wanting to maintain their presence on HBO, asked the WBA to make an exception to fight Geale and they did. In this scenario, Golovkin wins, Geale wins, the WBA wins, and HBO wins. The fighters win because it’s televised thus attracting more attention themselves. The WBA wins because they are going to get a sanctioning fee. And HBO wins because they will bring in high ratings, catch the casual fan, and possibly steal a Showtime customer at the same time.

Now the networks may let a promoter get away with a “no so interesting” fight or two depending on their track record. For example Showtime will air a triple header promoted by Golden Boy with Robert Guerrero/Yoshihiro Kamegai being the headliner (undercard: Gary Russell vs Vasyl Lamachenko with Devon Alexander taking on Jesus Soto Karass). Thing is, nobody knows Kamegai. But again, Showtime is allowing this because they believe Golden Boy has a slew of up and comers that bring more attention to the network and produce big fights(Please note: It is yet to be determined to see who is actually signed to Golden Boy and who is not). So while playing buddies and co-promoting fights is good, the networks can kill a fight as well. Wishful thinking; is that the promoters get together and buy their own network.



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