BOXING ON TV--IT’S A GIFT AND A CURSE

By Michael Swann

Wouldn’t you think that given the ongoing strike by the Writer’s Guild of America there would be a network out there that would consider broadcasting some good, competitive boxing on prime time? I mean after all, if we can be subjected to “American Gladiator” certainly there must be a place for a sport so rich in history with so many potentially good matches to be made.

The problem is that once a fighter reaches a certain level and makes an appearance on Showtime or HBO, there’s no turning back, apparently. They no longer want to appear on ESPN or Telefutura, let alone headline a non-televised card that would pay even less. It’s no secret that HBO pays the most, closely followed by Showtime. Telefutura pays more than ESPN, who do a great job of presenting the sport, despite the plantation purses.

Those are basically your choices, insofar as live fights go, at the moment, aside from Versus which spotlights Double A level Top Rank fighters.

It seems that every winning fighter that you see interviewed in the ring says, “I only want big fights,” which in layman’s terms means “Show me the money.”

Paul Williams, the talented WBO welterweight belt holder with the 82” reach fought four times in 2006, and just once in 2007 when he took the title from Antonio Margarito.

It’s not that Williams suddenly tired from his active regimen. It’s that he’s been waiting for a high profile HBO or Showtime date to open up. Williams was scheduled to fight IBF titlist Kermit Cintron on February 9 in a unification bout prior to Cintron’s hand injury. Williams is now facing Carlos Quintana, a lesser fighter perhaps, but at least he will get some much needed exposure in his first fight since Margarito in July.

Williams may well be the best welterweight in the world, with apologies to Floyd Mayweather Jr., but neither he nor Cintron are considered big box office as yet. But the problem with waiting for HBO and Showtime is if the dates are taken, you don’t fight, which creates a big vicious circle because you have to fight to be recognized. It also creates ring rust and restricts your growth as a fighter.

Cintron last fought on the Vargas -Mayorga pay per view event in November. Ironically, in a stay busy fight, he injured ligaments in his hand and is out for six months.

In the days before TV, fighters fought more often because that’s how they earned their living, from the live gate. It may not have been to their advantage from a long term medical standpoint, but they fought up to 6-10 times a year. Today, on the other end of the spectrum, the elite fighters fight so rarely that their fights are considered more “events” than fights.

At a time when there are so many exciting prospects and contenders, as well as some exciting divisions with multiple belt holders who need to unify their belts, network TV could easily provide entertainment equal to the premium cable networks. How many fights are simply not made because of a lack of TV dates?

Every network has a budget, just like any business. Showtime generally airs World Championship Boxing once a month. HBO, with a larger budget, has a few more dates on their WCB schedule but it seems to be more than that because they have a monthly Boxing After Dark show plus most of the major PPV fights come from HBO. Showtime’s ShoBox series, while excellent entertainment, features up and coming fighters.

If a network was to take a chance, boxing can supply the talent for programming that would excite the sporting public. Boxing fans are hardcore. They pay more for tickets than mainstream sports. They pay for PPV, which no other sport charges, aside from MMA. A typical HBO PPV fight might bring 300,000 and up buys at $49.95 a pop.

In addition, they pay the $10-$12 subscription fee to view boxing on a premium network, which is not to say that they don’t view other programming but there’s no fees of any kind in mainstream sports.

So we can safely assume that the free TV ratings would be significant for major fights on network. Hardcore fans would think that they had died and gone to heaven.

For some reason neither HBO nor Showtime wants to reveal the ratings of their non PPV fights. (Yet, the more successful a PPV card is, the faster we hear about the number of buyers.) But it needs to be taken into account that HBO is available in approximately 35 million homes and Showtime somewhere around 15 million, so any ratings comparisons should be done on a sliding scale to compare with network programming.

Am I just a naïve dreamer? I don’t think so. I realize that network TV means getting sponsors and I see more and more signing up for PPV shows. Someone just needs to sit down with a reasonable proposal without trying to squeeze out every nickel, schedule an attractive matchup, pitch it to the network and schedule it at the most suitable time to attract viewers.

Take the poor British fans, for example. Those people support their fighters as well as any country yet they continually take a back seat when American TV is involved.

For example, the cruiserweight unification bout between WBC/WBA titlist David Haye and WBO belt holder Enzo Maccarinelli will begin in the wee hours of Sunday morning March 9 so that the fight can be shown live on Showtime, as did the Joe Calzaghe-Mikkel Kessler fight in November on HBO.

The fight, to be held at London’s O2 Arena, will start at 2 a.m. British time. Originally Showtime was to broadcast the fight on a delay basis, and then days later it was changed to broadcast the fight live in the U.S.

$$$$$

Now that was an event that could easily have been shown live at five p.m. on Showtime, and still been shown on the delay. Or for that matter, it would have made excellent viewing in the afternoon on CBS, a division of Viacom, which also owns Showtime, and they still could have shown the delay.

Many have complained for years about the proliferation of PPV cards in boxing. Fans complain that all of the best fights are on PPV, which is often the case. Personally, I won’t complain as long as they, meaning HBO, don’t resort to over saturation of PPV fights to showcase their stars, as practiced in the past. If they truly are, at least on paper, the best half dozen fights of the year, I can live with that.

There are other PPV fights out there other than HBO, however, secondary cards shown strictly on PPV by many of the leading promotional companies because of the shortage of TV spots open. I’ve lost count of how many “Latin Fury” cards have been made available, for a price.

These cards require some decision making by the general public. You can price them at $19.95 or $49.95, but in the end, garbage is garbage. Take a pass if they don’t capture your interest.

The promoters take all the risks and split the proceeds with the cable and satellite providers. Some are lucky if they get 25,000 buys. But if you’re locked out of TV and you have fighters that need to fight, what’s a promoter to do?

Paulie Malignaggi sat on the bench for six months because his promoter Lou DiBella couldn’t get him on HBO, who had decided that he wasn’t exciting enough. Finally Paulie wound up on Showtime, just last week. Paulie is from Brooklyn and is very popular in New York, but he couldn’t break an egg with his fists so he’s limited as an attraction as far as the network suits are concerned.

Bob Arum, whose Top Rank promotional company manages to put on PPV boxing shows with a high degree of competency, doesn’t wait around for networks. In fact, he rejected an HBO fight with his fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. against Alfonso Gomez because he found that it was more lucrative to put Chavez on PPV cards. His last such card did 70,000 buys, so it makes sense for him from the financial standpoint.

In an interview with the website Boxing Talk, Arum said, “I think if I had my druthers there would be more networks doing boxing on the level of HBO and Showtime so we’d have fewer PPV shows. I’m not happy to put Chavez Jr. on PPV every time he’s on because even though we do relatively well, it’s a very small audience…

“The fights don’t belong on PPV and I’m the first to admit it, but what are you going to do? We’re in a real box without an ABC, CBS, or ESPN paying real money. We put guys on PPV shows that shouldn’t be PPV shows because that’s the only way to do it.”

Okay, you make more money and get more fights on PPV, but on the other hand fewer people see it and you can’t promote your fighter, unless he was born a big draw like Chavez Jr. The other fighters on the card who want to make a name for themselves are basically out of luck in that respect. Yes, they get fights and they get paid, but no one knows who the heck they are afterwards.