Mitchell Kane
06-05-2008, 03:14 PM
Saw this article on BoxingConfidential, written by John Chavez.
Any thoughts or opinions?
The Top Ten Things I Would Do If I Ran HBO’s Boxing Program
The Simplest Solutions to the Multitude of “Issues”
John Chavez
6/4/2008
There seems to be quite an uproar within the boxing community in recent times in regards to HBO, Golden Boy Promotions, and meaningless bouts shoved down the consumer throats.
You know what fights I’m referring to… the “Pretty Golden Boy Saga Continues” or “Miguel Mosley Returns” or "Bernard and Tito Dance Again" or “Marco Antonio Barrera on Pay-Per-View Once Again!!!”
Being that there have been plenty of complaints based on the foreseeable future at the “Heart and Soul of Boxing”, I’ve compiled a top ten list of solutions to the issues at hand.
Here is the Boxing Bookie’s Top Ten Things He Would Do if He Ran HBO’s Boxing Program:
10. Adopt the motto of bitter rival network Showtime in making fights and not fighters. At the end of each year a skilled match-maker should oversee the list of potential blockbuster as well as exciting bouts that could potentially take place in the coming year. Make it of the utmost importance to make these wars happen and compensate fairly. I didn’t say underpay or overpay… I said compensate fairly.
9. Cease from spending so much money on bouts that just aren’t worth it. Why spend 6 million on a bout when you can spend 1 or 2 at most? The promoter threatens to instead sell it on Pay-Per-View? Let them go ahead and sell it on an independent source without the outlet of HBO’s marketing ability. It’s a necessary evil because as of right now, the top dollar shows aren’t necessarily providing the top dollar ratings or the top dollar form of entertainment. The excessive spending also heavily skews plenty of fighter’s self worth as it disallows for networks such as ESPN to afford exposing some of these combatants to a wider audience.
8. Allocate 20 Percent of the boxing budget to creating fight dates on Monday, Tuesday, or even Sunday Nights. Not everyone can find the time to be home on Saturday evening which tends to be the most eventful day of the week for most young creatures. With this type of television date availabilities, there will no longer be such an excuse to continuously host Pay-Per-View events. As soon as football season would end, a Monday night fight series could easily take it’s place to entertain the action junkies.
7. Hire Johnny Bos, Lou DiBella, as well as Don and Lorraine “The Cambria Cobra” Chargin to run the entire boxing program from front to back. With the knowledge, passion, and no nonsense attitude from this group of individuals, they’d be sure to keep the subscribers best interest in mind which in turn would lead to a much healthier and robust boxing industry. No more of these suits who don’t truly enjoy the sweet science as a whole. Can you imagine a man of Bill Gates’ stature not having a passion for the high tech market? Sounds preposterous? Well that’s exactly what seems to be taking place at the “Heart and Soul of Boxing”… more like the “Liver and Sauerkraut of Sanctioned Violence.”
6. Jump into the sanctioning body mix and get rid of all those championships that people deem as “necessary”. HBO has the ability to create it’s own tournaments leading to the unification and clarification of most weight classes within boxing. Once all titles are held by one individual, they can then be completely discarded and a “HBO Championship Belt” can then be wrapped around the waste of the true lineal champion. Merely ignoring the current sanctioning bodies has not worked so another approach must be taken in order to eliminate them.
5. With the creation of the HBO Championship Belt must come an independent ranking organization made of public figures that would be ready and willing to defend or explain their reasons for making their decisions openly. Nobody within the sport of boxing has the power to make or break certain fights from happening other than HBO. They have the clout and should use it accordingly for the betterment of the sport.
4. Cease from consistently showcasing the senior citizens within boxing as it doesn’t allow the next generation of rising superstars the chance to create their own thunder. The only reason past their prime fighters should grace the HBO airwaves would be based on their ability to prove their worth against young, hungry challengers regardless of their drawing ability. No more old money vs. old money fights should ever take place as they do nothing for the sport as a whole. Trinidad-Jones was a perfect example of this… a meaningless bout that had no impact on anything but the pockets of both combatants.
3. Announce that they will not distribute any Pay-Per-View bouts until their ratings have reached levels seen in the past for a sustained period of time. As of right now, not many people are tuning into the live HBO fights and this is a testament that boxing has been losing quite a lot of steam in regards to hardcore appeal. Who watches the NBA playoffs, MLB World Series, or the Superbowl on In-Demand replay? It’s a sorry excuse and reasoning that HBO’s boxing program no longer draws the ratings it once did. Must see live television should be just that… must see. I’d say that a solid average ratings number should hover around the 3 million viewer mark which is something unseen in 2007 and so far in 2008. Let me remind you… Klitschko-Lewis did over 7 million viewers in 2003.
2. Work with various boxing promoters in creating pilot boxing programs within major metropolitan areas in order to increase the exposure of the sport. As of right now, one of the major issues within American boxing is the lack of well-funded gyms and quality trainers in order to keep the sport going. If HBO were to financially support merely a handful of programs and market them correctly, it could pay plenty of dividends down the road as it’d create somewhat of a farm system in United States rather than simply relying on the dying crop of gyms and trainers today. Keep in mind where boxers come from… the gyms. The more well-marketed, well-run, and well financed boxing gyms in America, the higher probability of seeing more quality fighters produced here in the United States.
The last and most important thing I’d do if I was running HBO’s boxing program is….
Drum roll…
Here it comes….
Anyday now…
1. Slap yourself for making some of the dumbest decisions seen in recent times. Boxing is a circus and if you don’t like the two-headed midget, the balancing bear, or the three-eyed dog, I’d suggest you get out of the business altogether. You’re transforming the circus into a boring opera which translates into piss poor viewership because nobody likes to see a fat man in a penguin suit singing his guts out when what they really want and more importantly subscribe to see are two elephants playing air hockey with a rabbit as referee…
PS. There’s much more I’d do as head of HBO but I limited myself to ten. I’ll revise this list soon enough and continue adding in the near future.
Any thoughts or opinions?
The Top Ten Things I Would Do If I Ran HBO’s Boxing Program
The Simplest Solutions to the Multitude of “Issues”
John Chavez
6/4/2008
There seems to be quite an uproar within the boxing community in recent times in regards to HBO, Golden Boy Promotions, and meaningless bouts shoved down the consumer throats.
You know what fights I’m referring to… the “Pretty Golden Boy Saga Continues” or “Miguel Mosley Returns” or "Bernard and Tito Dance Again" or “Marco Antonio Barrera on Pay-Per-View Once Again!!!”
Being that there have been plenty of complaints based on the foreseeable future at the “Heart and Soul of Boxing”, I’ve compiled a top ten list of solutions to the issues at hand.
Here is the Boxing Bookie’s Top Ten Things He Would Do if He Ran HBO’s Boxing Program:
10. Adopt the motto of bitter rival network Showtime in making fights and not fighters. At the end of each year a skilled match-maker should oversee the list of potential blockbuster as well as exciting bouts that could potentially take place in the coming year. Make it of the utmost importance to make these wars happen and compensate fairly. I didn’t say underpay or overpay… I said compensate fairly.
9. Cease from spending so much money on bouts that just aren’t worth it. Why spend 6 million on a bout when you can spend 1 or 2 at most? The promoter threatens to instead sell it on Pay-Per-View? Let them go ahead and sell it on an independent source without the outlet of HBO’s marketing ability. It’s a necessary evil because as of right now, the top dollar shows aren’t necessarily providing the top dollar ratings or the top dollar form of entertainment. The excessive spending also heavily skews plenty of fighter’s self worth as it disallows for networks such as ESPN to afford exposing some of these combatants to a wider audience.
8. Allocate 20 Percent of the boxing budget to creating fight dates on Monday, Tuesday, or even Sunday Nights. Not everyone can find the time to be home on Saturday evening which tends to be the most eventful day of the week for most young creatures. With this type of television date availabilities, there will no longer be such an excuse to continuously host Pay-Per-View events. As soon as football season would end, a Monday night fight series could easily take it’s place to entertain the action junkies.
7. Hire Johnny Bos, Lou DiBella, as well as Don and Lorraine “The Cambria Cobra” Chargin to run the entire boxing program from front to back. With the knowledge, passion, and no nonsense attitude from this group of individuals, they’d be sure to keep the subscribers best interest in mind which in turn would lead to a much healthier and robust boxing industry. No more of these suits who don’t truly enjoy the sweet science as a whole. Can you imagine a man of Bill Gates’ stature not having a passion for the high tech market? Sounds preposterous? Well that’s exactly what seems to be taking place at the “Heart and Soul of Boxing”… more like the “Liver and Sauerkraut of Sanctioned Violence.”
6. Jump into the sanctioning body mix and get rid of all those championships that people deem as “necessary”. HBO has the ability to create it’s own tournaments leading to the unification and clarification of most weight classes within boxing. Once all titles are held by one individual, they can then be completely discarded and a “HBO Championship Belt” can then be wrapped around the waste of the true lineal champion. Merely ignoring the current sanctioning bodies has not worked so another approach must be taken in order to eliminate them.
5. With the creation of the HBO Championship Belt must come an independent ranking organization made of public figures that would be ready and willing to defend or explain their reasons for making their decisions openly. Nobody within the sport of boxing has the power to make or break certain fights from happening other than HBO. They have the clout and should use it accordingly for the betterment of the sport.
4. Cease from consistently showcasing the senior citizens within boxing as it doesn’t allow the next generation of rising superstars the chance to create their own thunder. The only reason past their prime fighters should grace the HBO airwaves would be based on their ability to prove their worth against young, hungry challengers regardless of their drawing ability. No more old money vs. old money fights should ever take place as they do nothing for the sport as a whole. Trinidad-Jones was a perfect example of this… a meaningless bout that had no impact on anything but the pockets of both combatants.
3. Announce that they will not distribute any Pay-Per-View bouts until their ratings have reached levels seen in the past for a sustained period of time. As of right now, not many people are tuning into the live HBO fights and this is a testament that boxing has been losing quite a lot of steam in regards to hardcore appeal. Who watches the NBA playoffs, MLB World Series, or the Superbowl on In-Demand replay? It’s a sorry excuse and reasoning that HBO’s boxing program no longer draws the ratings it once did. Must see live television should be just that… must see. I’d say that a solid average ratings number should hover around the 3 million viewer mark which is something unseen in 2007 and so far in 2008. Let me remind you… Klitschko-Lewis did over 7 million viewers in 2003.
2. Work with various boxing promoters in creating pilot boxing programs within major metropolitan areas in order to increase the exposure of the sport. As of right now, one of the major issues within American boxing is the lack of well-funded gyms and quality trainers in order to keep the sport going. If HBO were to financially support merely a handful of programs and market them correctly, it could pay plenty of dividends down the road as it’d create somewhat of a farm system in United States rather than simply relying on the dying crop of gyms and trainers today. Keep in mind where boxers come from… the gyms. The more well-marketed, well-run, and well financed boxing gyms in America, the higher probability of seeing more quality fighters produced here in the United States.
The last and most important thing I’d do if I was running HBO’s boxing program is….
Drum roll…
Here it comes….
Anyday now…
1. Slap yourself for making some of the dumbest decisions seen in recent times. Boxing is a circus and if you don’t like the two-headed midget, the balancing bear, or the three-eyed dog, I’d suggest you get out of the business altogether. You’re transforming the circus into a boring opera which translates into piss poor viewership because nobody likes to see a fat man in a penguin suit singing his guts out when what they really want and more importantly subscribe to see are two elephants playing air hockey with a rabbit as referee…
PS. There’s much more I’d do as head of HBO but I limited myself to ten. I’ll revise this list soon enough and continue adding in the near future.