Where is the money coming from to buy the tv time? And how is he getting a return on that investment??
Well said and on point. I understand the value of belts. But the notion that what Haymon is doing is bad specifically because it doesn't mention the belts is silly.
What is the end game here?? To be fair I only care about the best fights being made, I don't care which platform or tv channel theyre on. So far though Al Haymons influence is not indicative with great match making.
He doesnt have to act as promoter, he doesnt act as promoter now. He can let Di Bella or Warriors or whoever promote the actual cards. Its worked well in the UFC. The only issue Haymon has is the obvious one; basically that he needs to get a lot of the remaining top fighters on board.
The end game here is to make boxing a more popular sport by getting it national television exposure, generating enough viewers to charge solid ad rates, making bonus money by putting super fights on PPV, and making it more like every other PRO SPORTS - with a LEAGUE and a COMMISSIONER. The problem with boxing for decades has been no identifiable champs, too many sanctioning bodies, no identifiable structure, no cross-promotion with advertisers, and on and on. So Haymon (the commissioner) is putting it back on television, building relationships with all the networks, looking for advertisers, shutting out the confusing sanctioning bodies so fans can get to know the fighters again and come to recognize who the real champs are ... and his hope is to build those champions and contenders into even bigger stars ... by getting them (the fighters) advertising dollars ... so when they do stage PPVs, they are all big events. Who knows, maybe at the end of each year, we'll have big Super Bowl-type events with all the REAL champs defending against the top guys on a series of cards. Maybe they'll be held in different countries every year in large venues that seat 80,000 people. Everything is on the table at the moment. It's an exciting time. Somebody with money and connections who actually gives a cr*p about making the sport huge again ... is putting his money where his mouth is and going for it. When the NFL and the AFL merged, and the NBA and the ABA merged, teams were lost. People griped. It took time. The commissioners weren't always the most popular guys. People complained about them. But you need a unified structure today if you don't want to be a "niche" sport. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be better than what we have now? Yes. And if they're looking for more investors, I'm in.
Also I dont see how you could say hes violating anti-trust laws. Ive never seen anti-trust laws apply to sport. Ive never seen anyone try to take the UFC to court on anti-trust laws...or the NFL or the NBA. Most sports have one over-arching body. Boxing has actually been an outlier in the sporting world. Imagine if there were 4 different FIFAs, each with their own world cup...
If Al Haymon has his way, you'll be seeing more "active" boxers doing commercials like these in the near future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6kROOfmhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzmZEQBx1e0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oCHqiN7ySE
Everybody was squawking that boxing was in bad shape and needed to be overhauled but nobody was doing anything or advancing any ideas. Along comes Haymon with ideas and a plan that he put into action. Now, instead of letting the man's plans unfold and blossom, people are just pouring hate, and trying to pick it apart with negative input. I can understand constructive criticism but the comments I've been reading are coming from a different place. Now like I've heard, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
Yeah he just picked up some Montenegrin kid, plus he has a bunch of Ukrainian fighters too Still I don't like the monopolization of the U.S. networks, Haymon can't sign every fighter, so there will always be some really good, exciting prospects we won't get to watch because here not in Haymon's stable.
But this is PRECISELY why your oft-repeated 'concern' of Haymon trying to turn PBC into a league and himself into the commissioner/boss has never made sense. He can achieve the EXACT same thing right now under his current structure without that. Hell, Top Rank ran a mini version of this same thing just a few years ago with all its in-house; sign-with-us-for-a-Pac-fight shenanigans from a few years ago. There's no 'new great evil' going on here.
Dunno why everyone constantly trashes Al Haymon, people literally want him to fail, 90% of boxing fans are so backwards. It's refreshing to see someone shake up the monopoly with fresh idea's, maybe he will fail, maybe he wont, whatever happens, boxing can't get any worse than it was.