Thomas Hauser: How HBO Lost Manny Pacquiao

It's not strong, it's HBO.

 

Does Showtime have PPV?

 

Yes.

 

Rafael's dead wrong on the part about Arum's inability to get Chavez Jr. on HBO. The network has twice slotted him for fights and Arum sabotaged both dates.

The first one was 2006 on an Arce undercard. Chavez Jr was supposed to be in the co-feature, but Top Rank tried to pull a fast one by switching opponents and HBO wound up scrapping the fight.

The other time was in 2008. He was slotted to face Alfonso Gomez. However, Arum took into consideration two things:
1) He struggled against Rey Sanchez, his first true step-up fight
2) that same card pulled in nearly 100,000 buys as an independent PPV, making him realize he could literally afford to tell HBO to go fuck itself and promote JCC Jr on his own against inferior opposition.

That's how Gomez wound up fight Cotto, and how JCC Jr wound up headlining his own PPVs for the next two years.

 

Comparison:

http://theboxingtruth.com/article.php?id=1954#

 

30% more viewers for four times as many dollars.

more if you count alexanders comeback bout

 

Neil I'm just reading your status. It boggles my mind the things Double says at times.

 

Chavez Jr. is saying he's been told by Arum the Zbik fight will take place in Las Vegas.

I guess that's another sign it's likely to end up on HBO.

http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&opt=printable&id=36381

 

You're talking about the Makepula fight card?

Amazing to think how long ago that was in the career of Arce, and yet how little Chavez Jr. has stepped up since then.

Curious to see what numbers he can do on HBO. I'm thinking they'll be good enough that they'll want to have him back.

 

The Canelo numbers from Nielsen...

http://www.theboxingtruth.com/article.php?id=1959

March 5, 2010 - HBO - 7:30 PST Adrien Broner vs. Ponce De Leon – 762,000 live viewers
March 5, 2010 - HBO - 8:30 PST Saul Alvarez vs. Matthew Hatton – 920,000 live viewers


Acosta-Rios did 709,000 live viewers

 

Correct, when Arce fought Makepula. And Jacy Kuhn was the originally scheduled opponent for JCC Jr. Kuhn pulled out, and the Texas commission suspended him indefinitely, informing him that unless his next fight whenever it took place would be against Chavez Jr, then he'd never fight again.

Apparently, he chose the latter.

I think no matter what network lands Chavez' next fight, it will do phenomenal ratings. Even with a paper title at stake, it's still the most significant bout of his career and no doubt his fan base will respond in droves.

 

Yeah, Chavez is big enough he's got Arum talking of Dodger Stadium again. ::

 

Why exactly did they think Bradley Vs Alexander was a much bigger fight than it was?

 

yeah was going to say...

this fight went from CBS and Dodgers Stadium... to most likely HBO and Vegas-bound.

Not that Hauser will write a 10,000-word expose on that, though.

 

This might deserve it's own thread, but I'll put it in here for now...Steve Kim has an interesting piece today talking about a possible new HBO2 boxing series...

http://www.maxboxing.com/news/main-lead/an-epix-commitment-to-boxing

 

Waste 150k per show to promote more useless Golden Boy prospects. Sound strategy. :bears:

 

Here's an example of the first show...

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gyXqUu_DuCo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Arum's still saying Dodger Stadium is possible...judging from the names he's putting out there for the undercard, is this now a (showtime?) ppv fight?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/spo...chavez-jr-june-4-title-shot-coming-to-la.html

 

HBO2

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/37499/boxing-with-dan-rafael

 

rico ramos should get some action if this happens. hopefully against living foes

 

I've liked Ramos for a while watching him on some of the Goossen undercards. Doesn't necessarily have a lot of power, but he's got skill.

 

They've been showing some of the commercials during the Elite 8 games today.

Abbreviated 10-second versions of this:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/94nxMJ-Zru0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Who do HBO think they are fooling?

The trick is to find talent, develop it, nurture it and televise it.

Not dig up ossified turds and pass them off as diamonds.

 

http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php...osley-fight-promo-in-ncaa-final-four-telecast

 

I thought the special (Part 1 of the Fight Camp 360 for this event) was going to be during the day, prior to the games?

 

Yeah, so did I.

I'm curious to see if this is true - haven't checked the tv line-up - and I'm wondering if "night" means in primetime, or perhaps more likely, 11:30 or midnight.

 

I just cleaned out my inbox this morning too, but I'm almost positive the press release I saw said that the first episode would air at noon (not sure if its ET and PT, or just ET) and that it will replay on Showtime, either Saturday night or Monday night. It's one or the other, I know this because the time struck me as odd being that it would conflict w/ the tourney.

 

Yeah, noon is the time they listed it originally. It could be Arum simply stated it incorrectly, mixing up the CBS and Showtime airings.

Looking back a few pages, here's what the release said...

http://www.fighthubtv.com/boxing/fight-camp-360-pacquiao-mosley-cbs/

 

http://twitter.com/KevinI

 

I guess the real test will be when it airs in primetime on April 30.

I'm not sure what a 0.5 rating means for a show that airs 12PM ET/9AM PT. Maybe it's good, but doesn't seem like a great investment to have (if my math is right) somewhere around 600,000 viewers.

If that number is correct, then it means more people stay up after midnight to watch Poker After Dark.