F SCOTT FITZGERALD, who skyrocketed to riches by chronicling the Jazz Age in novels such as This Side of Paradise, made his spendthrift philosophy clear to the libertine era that reflected it: “All big men have spent money freely. I hate avarice or even caution.”
On March 7, 2015, managerial kingmaker Al Haymon, backed by $425 million in capital from an investment firm, opened a new frontier in boxing under the banner of Premier Boxing Champions.
In the main event – the first card aired in prime time on US network television in nearly 30 years – power-punching Keith Thurman outpointed veteran Robert Guerrero at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. That the inaugural PBC bill took place in Sin City, the gaming capital of the United States, seems only fitting. After all, Haymon is gambling that he can revolutionise boxing with a spin of a roulette wheel of his own design. It is an audacious, daunting, and, in keeping with Fitzgerald, extravagant undertaking, and one that may spark a full-scale war among boxing super-powers.
What, exactly, is PBC? To put it as simply as possible, Premier Boxing Champions is a start-up league – consisting of fighters managed exclusively by Haymon – looking to establish itself as the Premiership or NFL of prizefighting. Founded by Haymon and underwritten by Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc., an asset management firm with ties to Formula One, PBC is trying to develop a unified brand strong enough to attract long-term contracts from television networks across the board. To that end, Haymon decided to pay several networks to air PBC cards in hopes of proving the sustainability of his concept directly to programming executives.
Like something out of the board game Monopoly, Haymon brokered agreements with NBC, CBS, Spike TV, ABC, ESPN, BET, and Bounce TV (Haymon also remains the sole provider of fights to Showtime Championship Boxing). Part of the time-buy structure includes active marketing by each channel across multi-platforms. Having several networks advertising PBC events creates a public relations synergy unusual for boxing.
For years, boxing has teetered on the brink of irrelevancy in America, undercut by promoters and the ruthless demands of prestige cable giants such as HBO. A sport with lawless roots is now being corporatised by a single man apparently acting as manager, matchmaker, promoter, and CEO simultaneously. What was once, for better or worse, a free-market pursuit may now become just another Wall Street enterprise. It will also become, regardless of the outcome, a watershed moment in boxing.
How did PBC come about? And what does this bold move mean for boxing in the United States and beyond? Boxing News delves into the specifics.
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Who is Al Haymon?
A HARVARD University graduate with a degree in economics and an MBA, Haymon is not your ordinary fight-racket huckster. Before he became a force in boxing, he was a successful R&B concert promoter who segued into television production before finally settling in as an adviser to world-class welterweight Vernon Forrest and, most lucratively, to Floyd Mayweather. After engineering a buyout for Mayweather that freed him from Top Rank in 2006, Haymon began to make inroads in an industry famous for having few barriers to entry.
When Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya combined to shatter pay-per-view records in 2007, Haymon had all the leverage he needed to disrupt the boxing status quo. Before long, Haymon seemed to have an unusual amount of sway at HBO, where his clients regularly received coveted slots and outsized paychecks. But in 2013, HBO split with Haymon when the rebel adviser began taking fighters built up on the channel over to rival Showtime. By then, Haymon was already drafting his plans for a league. Now, less than two years later, Haymon is spearheading one of the most daring schemes boxing has ever seen.
The purpose of PBC
IN an era of media and cultural fragmentation, when entertainment options range from Netflix originals to Yahoo serials, televised sports have become something of a holy grail to network executives. TiVo, DVRs, and Video On Demand have combined to erode traditional advertising structures (because consumers now have the power to build their own scheduling), but sports programming retains viewers due to its here-and-now nature. No one wants to watch a football match a week after it initially aired. A live sporting event ensures a captive audience and this is where PBC steps in with its extraordinary gambit.
Modelled on the UFC, the WWE, and, aesthetically, at least, glitzy shows like The Voice, PBC seems intent on rebooting boxing. As part of its brand awareness, PBC has even done away with round-card girls, ring announcers, and entourages. Fighters now emerge from expensive stage sets and walk to the ring alone on oversized runways. Other than administrative infrastructure, a PR campaign designed by sports marketing firm SJX Partners, and elaborate audio/visual effects, the $425 million war chest has so far not been allocated to what matters most: the fights.
By signing close to 200 fighters, Haymon laid the foundation for a league, but what is the point of having so many professionals under contract if they rarely face off against each other? Veteran author Thomas Hauser views the matches as lacklustre. “They’ve been disappointing,” he said. “One of the selling points for PBC was, ‘Al controls everything, so he can match the best against the best.’ So far, that hasn’t happened.”
However, there have been some quality pairings since PBC launched; Thurman-Guerrero (which attracted 4.2m viewers in the US – the biggest boxing audience since 1998) and Danny Garcia-Lamont Peterson, for example. In order for PBC to succeed, it has to reach an as-yet-unknown baseline determined by either consistent ratings or sponsor interest – or both.
How does boxing view Haymon?
TO his rivals, Haymon is part Machiavelli, part Svengali, and part Andrew Carnegie. He is not a bombastic showman à la Dong King; nor is he a crotchety spinmeister à la Bob Arum. No, Haymon, who refuses to speak to the media, has cultivated an air of mystery since infiltrating the sport. But the wreckage he has left behind him belies his low-key persona: over the years, Haymon has devalued HBO Championship Boxing, nearly ruined Golden Boy Promotions, and left Showtime Championship Boxing so barren that it has aired only five cards this year.
For fighters, who are, after all, independent contractors without benefits, pensions, and union representation, Al Haymon has been
a godsend. Not only does he take a smaller percentage as an adviser than the industry standard of 30 per cent, he also maximises revenue for his fighters. “If I would have had Al Haymon from the beginning,” Mayweather told The New York Times in 2011, “I probably would be a billionaire right now.” (Mayweather, whose May 2 bout against Manny Pacquiao grossed roughly $600 million, has promoted a few cards in conjunction with Haymon and will likely become a bigger part of PBC when he retires).
The industry readies for war
NOT surprisingly, the boxing establishment is prepared to lash out against PBC. For those on the outside looking in, Haymon is capable of wreaking as much havoc as Michael Caine in Get Carter. Legal contretemps are as common in boxing as spit buckets, but already PBC has shown a unique knack for getting sued.
Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank, two of the biggest promotional outfits in America, have both filed suits against PBC, alleging that it violates the Sherman Act (an anti-trust provision), the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act and the California Unfair Competition Law. Top Rank is asking for $100 million in damages and, more importantly, an injunction to prevent PBC from continuing operations. Golden Boy is seeking $300 million. Restraint of trade, monopolisation, and anti-competitive practices are the themes here. The Ali Act – a federal law that has gone largely unenforced since it was enacted in 2000 – specifically prohibits a manager from assuming the role of promoter. Although Haymon uses licensed promoters to stage his fights, he seems to have an enormous amount of input into how, when, and where a fight takes places. As head of PBC, he is also making decisions about which network broadcasts each card. Perhaps the most troubling issue, in the eyes of his rivals, is the fact that Haymon acts as an adviser to both fighters in nearly every main event; a situation ripe for exploitation.
Although its legal status remains somewhat nebulous, it will be up to a court to decide on whether or not Haymon is engaging in anti-competitive practices. As it is, PBC has plenty of loopholes through which to escape charges of illicit behaviour, and boxing, after all, thrives on loopholes.
The future
As to the question of whether PBC is good for boxing, the answer may depend on which branch of the industry you scrutinise. “It’s good for some, not so good for others,” Michael Woods, Editor of The Sweet Science, says. “It’s great for the fighters signed to Haymon; they are making money hand-over-fist, many times for fighting foes they are clearly superior to, on paper. It’s great for the entities getting paid multi-millions to use their platform, their stage… what’s not to like from the perspective of ESPN? For the fans, though, who simply want the best fighting the best, it hasn’t been a win. Yes, they are getting free content, but these consumers are actually willing to pay up for quality, as evidenced by the fact that they have been doing so for too many years, to see quality bouts, which are too often shifted to the PPV platform. The consumer is not being best served, so far.”
On the other hand, the exposure boxing has been receiving over the last few months can only be considered a plus for the game. “I know people who won’t buy premium cable who are watching these fights,” said Clifford Rold, Managing Editor of Boxing Scene. “It’s exposure that the sport hasn’t had and volume means more chances for people to catch a round and stay there.”
A few months ago The Sports Business Daily published an article about the unprecedented logistics of Premier Boxing Champions. Ryan Caldwell, formerly a fund manager for Waddell & Reed, but now COO of PBC, made it clear that Haymon would be fighting for the long haul.
“You have to be capitalised for three to five years to do this,” Caldwell told SBD. “To weather the storm. Because in some regards you were going to be the irrational player for a while.”
Boxing has always specialised in irrationality. In the case of Haymon, however, it just may be a question of scale.
This article was first published in the August 6 issue of Boxing News. To subscribe to the magazine click here
