50 cent Mayweather & TMT trying to make positive changes in the sport of boxing

It's possible, but greed will prevail like always.

 

Steve kim who does the best reporting on the business side of boxing wrote his take on this today

So What’s 50 Cent Worth to Boxing?

50 Cent

By Steve Kim

Last week in a rather memorable Twitter exchange between rapper-turned-boxing promoter 50 Cent and Oscar De la Hoya, the figurehead of Golden Boy Promotions, 50, probably more noted now for being the close friend of Floyd Mayweather than anything he’s recorded recently, made it very clear that his newly formed company, TMT (“The Money Team”), will be a major player in the industry. And he made his intentions crystal clear just who would be his company’s bell-cow as he emasculated De la Hoya 140 characters at a time (maxboxing/50-to-promote-money).

I mean, really, did you think Mr. Curtis Jackson got into this to promote the likes of Yuriorkis Gamboa (who split the $1.4 million cost with Floyd to extricate himself from Top Rank), Andre Dirrell and now Billy Dib? The real money for a guy like him is in the pay-per-view business and in Mayweather, he has one the biggest franchises in the sport with a built-in audience.



But questions have to be asked: is “Fiddy” in the boxing business or just the Mayweather business (and trust me; there’s a huge difference)? Will this be a long-standing commitment to the sport or another venture for him like Vitamin Water? Just how much of an impact will TMT have over the long haul?

And what many want to know is what this means for Al Haymon. A major part of his influence over the sport is based on having “Mayweather Muscles” he can flex over both major premium cable networks and Golden Boy Promotions. There are a lot of fighters who need Haymon in their corner in order to land dates on HBO and Showtime (and get paid very handsomely for it) - Mayweather isn’t one of them. Mayweather has a tangible market value which isn’t just rooted in what a television executive believes should be a license fee for his fights but the multi-millions of dollars he generates with pay-per-view purchases. There are some who believe Haymon will always be part of Mayweather’s brain-trust. Others say that he and 50 don’t really get along and will not be part of this new union (it says here, never, ever count out Mr. Haymon, who can seemingly do Jedi mind tricks to such a degree that it would leave Obi-Wan Kenobi envious).

This much is clear; this new company- with or without the ever-influential Haymon- can open doors at places like HBO. Dirrell, who was with Haymon for much of his career before leaving him earlier this year, told Lem Satterfield of RingTV (http://ringtv.craveonline.com/blog/174079-dirrell-on-mayweather-50-cent-) that he’s already had direct meetings with executives of HBO before even officially putting his name on the dotted line with TMT:

Andre Dirrell: Well, we were able to sit down with HBO, you know? And that’s another thing. Until now, I have never had a chance to ever sit down with a television executive, whether it was ESPN or Showtime.

I never had that experience for any of my fights. But that’s the first thing that we did, is that we sat down with [Vice President of Programming and Sports] Kery Davis of HBO.

RingTV.com: Who was there at the meeting?

AD: We met with HBO in the Mandalay Hotel, and it was me, 50 Cent and Gamboa and Kery Davis. We all sat down with HBO, and I knew, right then and there, that that’s something that a lot of fighters don’t get to do.

They don’t get to sit down and have the negotiation with the network, but that’s something that they let me in on, and they let me have input into my fight, so I was really, really impressed with that.

So yeah, anyone who thinks this group won’t have influence on the business is sadly mistaken. Alienating De la Hoya or his company will have no bearing on that. Having big “Money” on your side makes you a major player in this racket. And while some might be want to dismiss 50, the reality is his history- and portfolio- shows that he has a keen business sense. And again, he’s not necessarily building a business; he’s taken over the controls of one. He’s not taking over a new garage band but the Rolling Stones here.

However, there are a few questions that remain. First is in regard to infrastructure. Just who will run this company on a day-to-day basis? This isn’t like selling your mixtapes out of the trunk of your Escalade here. And while Mayweather has always claimed to promote himself since he faced De la Hoya in 2007, all his fights have been promoted exclusively by Golden Boy Promotions (who takes a set fee for its services). “Mayweather Promotions”- which never officially applied for a promoter’s license anywhere- is nothing more than a name on the banner and a few t-shirts. It’s Floyd’s boxing version of “Filthy Rich Records.” Will TMT use another promoter to do the nuts-and-bolts work that goes into staging a major pay-per-view event? And there is this question posed by a veteran of the boxing industry via email:

Can they put on their own shows, do they have a matchmaker, site coordinator, publicist, accountant, travel coordinator, any infrastructure at all?

All valid queries. While promoting boxing at the highest levels seems glamorous, the reality is that running a major promotional firm is a daily operation, where a regular set of responsibilities have to be adhered to. Say what you want about Bob Arum and Don King; they have survived this business for a reason and have been in it for the long haul. It’s not as easy as some think it is. Ask the likes of Josephine Abercrombie and America Presents, to name a few of the bleached bones making up the desert of failed promoters who believed they were going to clean up (while cleaning up financially) the business in boxing.

However, there’s a reason why TMT has gone out on an early shopping spree because it’s evident by the aforementioned interview with Dirrell that they can secure network dates. History has shown that those who have pay-per-view titans get certain accommodations they otherwise wouldn’t receive. In the ‘90s, Don King took Mike Tyson from HBO over to Showtime, basically giving him exclusivity to that network for a full decade (which led to too many Fabrice Tiozzo fights for my liking). Golden Boy was able to leverage an exclusive output deal with HBO several years ago when its namesake was still fighting and doing robust pay-per-view figures.

So yeah, expect a Dirrell and Dib doubleheader very soon on “Boxing After Dark.”

One of the great concerns existing is that if “TMT” is indeed around for the long haul and can procure a vast stable of fighters and secure network slots for them, will they be allowed to exist in a vacuum by themselves, much in the same way Golden Boy and Top Rank currently are? It’s bad enough that we basically have two separate leagues of boxing between those two; could this new faction be allowed to operate in much the same way with Mayweather’s clout? It’s bad enough that some of the best fights in boxing can’t even be discussed because of the differences of two companies. It will only be compounded if another company (which is signing a significant amount of talent and will probably continue to do so) stages fights with boxers whose sole qualification is that they are not aligned with Bob Arum or Richard Schaefer.

Mayweather gets released from his time at…uh…“summer camp” later this week, so some of these questions will be answered. As of now, it’s not even clear if he will fight the rest of 2012 but this much is clear: whenever he does, it will be under the “TMT” banner.

Whatever that is made up of. And whatever that even is.

And they’ll get rich- or die trying.
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/main-lead/so-whats-50-cent-worth-to-boxing

 

The game done changed.

This is nothing but an absolute positive for boxing. I'm stoked.

 

good luck to tmt but i think at the moment they are living in a bit of a fantasy world , attacking de la hoya over twitter isnt a good move

 

Don King always stacks his cards whenever he puts on a show so it is possible. Unfortunately, did isn't an active promoter. That dude had 3 title fights with Alexander-Kotelnik, Spinks-Bundrage, & Johnson-Cloud all on one card. Why can't other promoters do that? It's a shame King's heart isnt in the game anymore. Arum is up there in age, but is as vicious as ever. He loves the game

 

with best of luck to 50 and TMT. It won't be easy, but very interested in seeing there 1st card.

 

I wish them the best of luck. What is good for boxing and boxing fans is also good for them. As long as they keep their word and their actions are in line with what they say they are striving for, I will gladly support their cards and company.

Of course, I've been down this path before with Golden Boy Promotions, so my optimism is guarded.

 

their gonna lose alot of money the first few years but if they can weather that **** n keep pushing it can pick up

 

Really hoping they do well.

 

GBP rips off more fighters than all the rest

 

Problem solved. All you have to do is give more of that $40M to the other 9 fighters on the card.
Lets wait and see.

 

PrincessN is by far the biggest homo dick riding mayweather fan boy on the planet. that is all

 

Billy Dib is the future of boxing.

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this could be a good thing for boxing if they start snatching up some great talent....it might even be more of an incentive for the promotors to work with each other more....think about it when a company comes in guns blazing snatching up everything things start kind of evening out in way that theres not a strong enough stable on each roster to just put on shows by themselves hence we have mega-fights that are forced to be made

 

#TheMoneyTeam