That's right, former light heavyweight rivals Antonio Deon Tarver and Roy Levesta Jones, Jr. along with near-contemporaries Paolo Malignaggi and Juan Manuel Márquez Méndez (both of whom fought Juan "Toronto" Diaz twice in 2009/2010, although Paulie did so at junior welter and Juan at lightweight) have banded together with a vision to reclaim some of the live boxing telecast market from traditional networks, PPV outlets and new - but not specifically boxing-focused - media sources alike. Pretty ambitious stuff but they have a decent inaugural main event scheduled in Fanlong Mèng vs. Jean-Thenistor Pascal, and the charismatic foursome may be hoping to recapture some of the fan goodwill that fueled the magic of Golden Boy's early days a couple of decades ago. Longtime fight heads will recall that ODLH brought on friends B-Hop, SSM and MAB (two having conquered him in the ring, in a bold setting aside of ego) to help get off the ground. I believe JMM himself was later made a minor partner in the company as well, but didn't get in on the groundfloor. What do we think? Any prayer of someday competing with the likes of DAZN and Showtime? I'm reserving judgment until after the first card, see how professional a job they do with it. Not expecting crazy production value right away, just - are they completely botching it or not.
JMM is a very confusing guy. He's a professor of boxing inside the ring, but the comments he makes outside sometimes don't make a lot of sense. In a recent Interview, he said that Clenelo would stop Bivol in 8 or 9 rounds pointing to the styles matchup — falsely stating that Bivol is a very aggressive fighter and then saying Clenelo is ducking Benevidez who is actually an aggressive fighter.
$ $18/year....not bad. I won't expect to see top of the line boxers but some of the upcoming bouts are ok.
Isnt this bad for boxing's viewership and popularity? How many streaming platforms can a niche sport survive? Boxing hasnt been popular since it was taken off Network TV. Then it moved to Cable and dominated by HBO. And that was a big blow to boxing. Now streaming is taking over. The sport keeps going further and further underground. Its moving away from traditional broadcasting. And yea I get it, people dont care about legacy TV anymore. Except they do. When it comes to one thing. Live sports are still huge on Television.
I think the problem with bringing Big Time Boxing back to National/Free TV is the fact that the rights for big fights are too expensive,there’s no way to maximize advertising dollars with a big fight like a big NFL game and the unpredictability of the sport can run some advertisers away. ESPN takes huge risk already financially and commercially just by airing UFC/Top Rank boxing already. There’s no real way too commercialize the sport till the point it makes sense to air a fight like Canelo/Bivol on National TV. Fighters and promoters these days are taking no shorts so,it hurts the consumer but at the same time,fighters being paid well keeps the sport and its athletes at a high level. Anyways,I think if boxing went ahead and completely sold out,it would really be an advertisement orgy on another level at this point.