Canelo and Crawford leave PBC

Give you dates for the rest of the year? Top Rank/ESPN doesn't have dates for the rest of the year.

They're launching on March 30 ... in a month.

PBC is shifting their backlog of fights since 2015 onto Amazon Prime (so if you like watching their fights on YouTube you'd better start grabbing them.)

All their prefight shows and specials are going to Amazon Prime.

They're also going to be showing non-PPV cards on Amazon Prime.

This isn't a case of just announcing cards. They're moving their entire business/catalog to a new, global platform.

They just saved $100 million cutting Canelo and Crawford loose.

$100 million pays for a lot of shows ... as opposed to just spending it on two guys.

Their LIVE shows moving forward aren't going anywhere except EVERYWHERE AROUND THE WORLD, which wasn't the case before.

Instead of counting US PPV sales and US viewership (which they did with Showtime), they'll be counting PPV sales and viewership in 190+ countries.

It's ridiculous that people are writing them off because of Canelo and Bud.

They only had Canelo and Bud for one fight each anyway. People act like those two were on their roster for 10 years or something.

 

they could broadcast Tszuyu vs Thurman on every home on the planet, the end result will be the same. A PPV which will not sell 100,000 buys.

l'm writing them off because they have not got a broadcast deal to replace showtime. Please do not say Amazon Prime when you cant even tell me how much Amazon have paid let alone the amount of non ppv shows to be broadcasted?

Without a broadcast deal no promotional company can be a success.

Saved $100 mil. Na its now $100 mil they do not have to somehow find.

 

Mayweather was in his prime and seeking the biggest money fights. Canelo is past his prime and avoiding them. It's not the same.

PBC may well be dying, but big money deals like Canelo's was killing them faster. They don't have HBO's funding to front those sort of guarantees.

 

I agree it isn't the same, but there are some key similarities. Canelo, like Floyd, is the most important fighter on PBC's roster and a critical part of their go-forward business plan. When PBC pitched itself to Amazon, I'm sure they used Canelo as a carrot to entice them.

I'm not a Canelo fan and I agree he's being absurd with his evasion of Benavidez. It's indefensible at this point. But losing Canelo is no small matter for PBC, which appears to be struggling big-time now that Showtime is gone.

 

Maybe only 100,000 in the US. But, you can't sniff at 190+ countries.

Showtime covered the US and a couple of its territories. So, if they sold 100,000 on Showtime, it was considered a disaster. But now, with Amazon Prime, the US is one country out of 190+ countries.

You've got to add up the sales in all those other countries, too. Which wasn't the case before.

You could average a paltry 1,000 buys in the remaining 190+ countries, and still get close to 300,000 buys (of various prices)

If they averaged 10,000 buys on some shows in over 190+ countries, it's 1.9 million buys.

Putting PBC shows on PPV in basically every country in the world could get nuts really fast.

We'll see. I just think it's dumb people think this is the "end." They just expanded their live audience by a ridiculous freaking margin.

 

No question it's a bad look. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and cut your losses, though. It might have been different if PBC had HBO's money, but they don't.

PBC wouldn't be the first company to lose Canelo, and they won't be the last because, like his fans, he has no sense of obligation.

 

I love the optimism but this is fantasy talk

 

Taking a product that people don't want and making it available to more people who don't want it is not a sound business strategy.

I don't think it's the end, either, but PBC has to figure out how to deliver some non-PPV shows in order to grow its brand. At this moment it doesn't appear Haymon negotiated any marketing support from Amazon, though maybe that will happen closer to the fights. If it does then I'll feel much better about PBC's prospects, because Amazon can move mountains.

But it would be extremely expensive to do so, and all I've seen is that Amazon did not want to absorb any risk. If it's just a PPV distribution deal without ancillary support, I think PBC is in real trouble.

 

I do agree with this to the extent that when people are talking about Eddie Hearn bringing Canelo over to Mr Turkey and him grandly overpaying Canelo for a Benavidez fight, I still don't believe it will happen. As much bank as Canelo has made, does he need the money any more enough to have him bow and scrape and do all the 'Your Excellency" jazz? And give up agency over who he chooses to fight? I don't see it.

You got Mungia in May, Berlanga in September, and maybe he's finally convinced to fight Crawford next year before calling it day.

 

Crawford should have fought Boots and shouldn't have pissed on Jermell after he lost to Canelo. He's closed himself off to two significant options and left himself with no one to fight.

He's wasted all of the momentum he got from the Spence fight and he'll be what... 37 soon?

 

Taking a product people don't want? WTF is that?

People complain that boxing is a 'dying' sport in the US.

Well, now 190+ countries OTHER than the U.S. get to watch PBC fights live. And in some countries, boxing is growing in popularity.

In some countries, the live fights they currently watch are local promotions and are garbage and watching PBC fights live will be a massive improvement.

If you like boxing, and the price is right, people will buy the PPVs.

If you like boxing, and the non-PPV cards are good, you'll watch them, too.

The mindset that "in the US this isn't a big deal" or "these are fights nobody wants" is a US-centric mindset.

That argument may have worked when PBC was on Showtime, because Showtime is a US network. It doesn't broadcast live all over the world.

Boxing is a global sport. Taking PBC off Showtime, which was a US network, and putting it on a global provider is a positive step.

So is cutting loose two boxers who would demand practically $100 million of your budget this year.

Maybe people will stop spewing jargon that they heard somewhere else in about a month from now when the fights start being marketing and broadcast.

The same internet trolls who say "this is how much they actually sold on PPV in the US" will need to find sources in 190+ countries now, instead of just one.

A global audience is better than a US audience ... no matter what anyone says. And now PBC broadcasts will have a global audience.

 

A Global Audience is better than just a US audience.

No matter what you are selling.

It just is. And PBC fights will now be available live to a global audience.

No one can make a rational argument that having a global audience will LOWER PPV buys.

If you went from a global distributor of your PPVs to just a US distributor, I'm sure sales would tank. But this is the opposite of that.

Hell, nearly 10 times the number of households in the US have Amazon Prime Video than those with Showtime.

Just putting PBC on Amazon Prime in the US broadens its reach ridiculously. Now add the WORLD.

 

^

Increasing supply does not necessarily increase demand. Plus, you could order a Showtime PPV globally already. You can order DAZN PPVs globally.

Plenty of companies with explicitly global platforms have gone belly up. Again, if Amazon flexes its marketing muscle to support PBC then that's a different story. We just haven't see any evidence of that happening yet.

The issue isn't whether people in Iceland and Mozambique have the ability to order Keith/Tim; it's convincing those people to pay money to watch it. For PBC, they can't just rely on PPV sales if they intend to develop sustainable business. As a boxing fan I hope it works out, but I'm not optimistic.

 

Using that logic why not just use youtube as a platform as that can reach every human on the planet with a internet connection. However I think you know simply increasing the reach does not increase the demand.

 

Do you honestly believe PBC are happy to have no showtime and instead stuck are on Amazon prime without even getting paid much?