Also, fighter purses were going up to the point that low ratings and ad revenue could not support it, let alone the promotion and event itself. This is why PPV was invented. To be able to pay fighters huge purses.
I think the PPV model is becoming dead especially with all the streaming options people use these days, after Mayweather and Pacquiao is sure as hell going to be hard to be a regular on PPV
The NFL would become a "niche" sport too if the only way you could watch regular season games was by paying for the NFL Sunday Ticket, and if had to pay $75 to watch each playoff game and $100 to watch the Super Bowl. Frankly, boxing hung on longer than most of the national sports would if you had to pay to see them. Boxing wasn't a niche sport when it left the networks. The networks made the decision to stop carrying it for many reasons, "deaths" being one of them. Today, boxing is popular with women as well as men because women box in gyms as part of their workouts. Most never play football, but it's always ON TV so they see it. If boxing is on free TV, the advertisers will come. They always have.
.....and that is why when haymon finds a "star" from his "free fights," he will be charging us again to watch him on ppv. this cbs/nbc/spike platforms are just his proving grounds
Please, half the time on HBO they use the break to talk about upcoming fights, specials or shows and show replays of what we just watched happen during the round. If the trainers say anything about strategy while they're doing that Roy or one of the other commentators talks about it at the begfining of the next round.
That's why PPV was invented, but that's not why it's used today. One 30-second spot on the Super Bowl sells for $5 milliion. How many commercials do you think aired on the Super Bowl telecast? There's plenty of money in network television. I think everyone in the cast of The Big Bang Theory makes $250,000 for a 22 minute episode. And how many are in the cast ... a half-dozen people? That's not counting the writers, directors, producers, etc. When fighters went to HBO and Showtime ... THEY TOOK A PAYCUT.
Leave it on free TV for two years and see how many fans tune in. I think the NBA All-Star game had five million viewers. Nearly that many people might tune in to the freaking Berto fight, which is the first show out of the gate. When Holmes fought Cobb, 30 million people watched it on ABC. And it was suck fight going in. These 2 million buy PPVs are going to look comical in a few years when five times as many people are watching Saturday night boxing on NBC.
it was, i remember waiting for a bowling match to finish before a hagler fight on ww of sports. big fights left the network because they couldn't afford to pay what boxing fans could afford to pay star fighters on ppv.
let me tell you something about a berto fight. hbo did a BAD show in MIAMI (berto's hometown) when he was still undefeated, less than 300 people showed up.
And I remember watching Pinklon Thomas vs. Gerrie Coetzee as the lead-in to the NFC Championship game. What kind of an audience do you think that fight drew?
I don't care how much he loses. Why do you care? I'm tired of "caring" how much a promoter makes. The Mayweather-Pac hype includes people saying excitedly that it's going to cost "fans" $100 to watch it on television ... like that's supposed to make fans feel good. Boxing is going to be appearing regularly on multiple free networks and it's going to be seen BY MILLIONS MORE viewers than it is on HBO or Showtime or PPV. The fights, so far, sound good. What the f*ck are we complaining about? I hope it's a huge success. I'm done bashing Haymon. Like I said in a previous post, it's not like other channels, other promoters, other ratings bodies, ANYONE has done anything this good in decades. I'm just going to watch the fights and not care who makes money on them. I don't have to pay for them ... SO I'M NOT LOSING MONEY ON IT.