You're talking about the PPV provider of the early to mid '90's? Yes, it started off putting on some great cards for $19.99-$29.99 But, they were offering the type of fare that would have been on free network TV or HBO/Showtime in the '80's. So, in some ways, it was the beginning of the end for boxing's popularity. I'll never forget an issue of the Ring from 1991. The cover showed a huge hand reaching into a tv set and pulling out a bunch of $$ The caption said "Now you'll pay" Did we ever. I remember shelling out in summer '91 and around christmas '91 for Rosario-Garza, Hearns-Hill and McCallum-Toney I I gotta say Rosario's complete demolition of Garza was a surprise. Edwin just flipped the "on" switch one last time for that sublime performance. Also, I remember a fan walked in front of announcers Joe Goosen and Len Berman while they were talking on air. The laid back from LA, Goosen was like "whatever" The high strung Berman, from NY City was Pi$$ed. LOL Hearns was also an upset winner. And Toney-McCallum was a great tactical, if not exciting, fight. Here's a good article about it from 1992 when it was still losing money. They were revamping their approach to put on big fights because they were losing money on the smaller ones - probably cause people were like "why am I paying to see fights i used to get on free tv." http://articles.latimes.com/1992-11-13/sports/sp-61_1_tvko
TVKO was just HBO PPV with a different name. HBO put on the shows. HBO hired the announcers. That was before marketing geniuses knew much about branding. Someone at HBO decided they should stage monthly PPVs, so they decided to call it TVKO and hire new announcers for the PPV telecasts. Then, the following weekend, they'd usually show them on HBO with the HBO announcers. Then someone at HBO figured "Why are we employing two different sets of announcers (Merchant and Lampley/Len Berman and Joe Goosen) to sit next to each other and call the same fight?" On fights like Holyfield-Foreman and Bowe-Holyfield, Merchant-Lampley and Berman-Goosen were literally sitting at the same table a few feet from each other calling the same fight for the same network. It was dumb. So they fired Berman and Goosen, and since HBO was more well known than TVKO, they started calling TVKO by the name of HBO PPV.
Nice post. i wasn't aware that it was basically HBO PPV The problem was they were putting on fights that should have been on HBO, or weren't even high profile enough to make the HBO cut. Something like Rosario/Garza would have been on ABC, CBS or NBC before PPV They were taking advantage of the fact that network TV was abandoning boxing. They finally switched their strategy to show only big fights that probably would have been on closed circuit before PPV. Network tv essentially leaving boxing and the rise of ppv meant top fighters made more money, as well as some of the middle tier, but it became much harder for fighters to break through, and the average fan became more unaware of what was going on. The hardcore, like me, bought some of the PPV's but boxing's overall fan base declined. The rise of PPV and decline of network boxing hurt boxing, in the long run, overall. It make quick money for a few stars and some good money for mid level champions - in the short term.
Yeah, they were trying to capitalize on the decline of network boxing at the time. There was an article in one of the magazines listing the number of network fights each year around 1990 and 1991. They'd gotten down to about two or three a year by that point. So HBO decided holding PPVs every month would be a smart idea. I remember buying some that were $19.99. Some were less. I remember the Tony Lopez-Brian Mitchell unification, with Mark Breland losing to Jorge Vaca on the undercard. That was one of the less expensive ones. Then, I think, they'd go up to $29.99 for a fight like Holyfield-Foreman. The bigger ones were on HBO the next week. Smaller ones, like Lopez-Mitchell, weren't. But the monthly PPV idea wasn't really sustainable back then. The fact that people aren't aware that was HBO PPV just shows how little they were aware of branding back then. Showtime wasn't very aware, either. I remember around that same time, they signed an agreement with Don King (who always understood branding) to stage PPVs ... and they let King call them SET and KINGVISION. The SET stood for Showtime Entertainment Television. But the KINGVISION logo was often prominent. And everyone just thought they were Don King PPVs. (King probably was shrewd enough to get them to not put the name Showtime on there, just SET.):deal Eventually, Showtime caught on, too. But Showtime always used their regular announcers on those Kingvision shows. HBO hiring Len Berman and Joe Goosen to sit next to Larry Merchant and Jim Lampley was weird, and not even including HBO in the name was a huge marketing blunder from a branding standpoint. But people still bought the big fights. Apparently, Lampley and Merchant didn't want to do "all" those lower-level cards. So they hired Berman and Goosen. But then, on the bigger cards, they'd keep Berman and Goosen and also send Lampley and Merchant, so they could be on the call when it replayed on HBO. Eventually, they sorted it out and realized they should probably leave HBO in the title somewhere.
