Good (and free) article on Maxboxing about Top Rank and it's "new" business model. Apparently, DuBoef is essentially the guy running Top Rank now, and he seems to have a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities for boxing these days. I suggest reading it. One of the things mentioned was the fact that PPV numbers, as a percent of registered homes, have actually fallen. So while it's good to be optimistic, it's worthwhile to note that boxing has not grown at anything close to the rate the market has grown. Consider a TV show that was on when 20% of the population had TVs, measuring it's success in 2000, when 90% have TVs, and celebrating because 1,000,000 more people watch its show than before. Not a very meaningful measure of success. But that's not what the article's about. It's about the boxing business and it's a pretty interesting read.
Saying if he had to do it over again, he'd discuss Pacquiao-Clottey with ESPN, CBS and Showtime, or that TBS/TNT would be a good platform for boxing is one thing....we'll see what those words actually mean in the future. In the meantime, I'll be waiting in the nearest theater with my 3D glasses.
:: Yeah. It's easy to listen to the guy's ideas about the future and believe he's full of shit. And he probably is. But the point he touched on, that I think is important for people to understand, is the impact that HBO has had on the distribution of boxing. DuBoef wasn't critical of HBO, because he has the same goal as HBO, to make money. But as fans, we should be disgusted with HBO and what they've done to the sport.
Yeah, the anti-HBO theme is one that Hauser and Top Rank both agree upon, and there's truth in it...but when two of your best examples for going a non-HBO route are Julio Cesar Chavez Jr./Latin Fury and a Cotto-Jennings/Pavlik-Rubio ppv double-header, I'm not sure what exactly the positives are that fans are supposed to take away from that.
The promoters have done more to damage the sport than HBO has. Imagine if HBO or Showtime didn't pony up money and airtime for boxing, the promoters would be done.
Very good article, cheers Double L. :bears: This in particular was SPOT ON & it's very encouraging to hear somebody with some clout say it: “But the biggest problem that boxing faces,” DuBoef continues, “is that we’re cutting off the flow of content to the consumer. If you go back in history, media rode the shoulders of boxing content. Boxing was on the cutting edge of newspapers, magazines, radio, and television; all of which brought boxing to more and more people. Now we’re locked into a business model where fewer and fewer people see our best content. The contraction started when HBO paid large license fees to lure boxing away from free broadcast television. HBO is in the subscriber business; not the boxing business. It took a product that was in ninety million homes and put it on a much smaller platform, and the demographic was further diminished when HBO put boxing on a pay-per-view platform. That took the product away from even more consumers and further marginalized the sport. Now we’ve lost the flow of big fights to consumers. We’ve lost regularly-scheduled big fights. We’ve lost our foundation for the sport. We have to loosen the grip of the current economic model and expose more people to the sport.”
You can't imagine that because HBO has made itself such a integral part of the sport, it's hard to envision it going on without it. But you know as well as I do that boxing has been around a lot longer than HBO. The promoters would not be done - I think that's the point of the article (I'm guessing you didn't read it, however). Read the article and then see if you can imagine boxing without HBO.
