Finally an in depth look at the PBC venture. It's surprising this writer works for the same site as notorious Floyd/Haymon hater, Steve "1iota" Kim.
The upcoming purse bid on April 17 for the proposed Adonis Stevenson-Sergey Kovalev bout will be a pivotal point in HBO Boxing’s future. While the bout is celebrated among hardcore fans for ultimately crowning the best 175-pound fighter, it would hardly be expected to draw anything higher than 1.6 million average viewers at best on HBO. If the premium network gets progressively drawn into bidding wars with PBC, unless, at some point, there is tangible evidence that ratings are significantly increasing and new subscribers are signing up to HBO specifically for boxing, it will make little financial sense to keep throwing money at a branch of the network that continues to degrade its own margins.
This is why i think boxing on premium cable is going away. They can't sell advertising and they aren't getting many new subscribers.
In 2006, CVC Capital invested $2 billion into Formula One racing in order to acquire 63.4% ownership. According to Forbes, by 2014, CVC had already received $4 billion in dividend payouts with the potential to earn a total of $8.2 billion, if it sold all of its shares in Formula One.
These people aren't trying to make their $100 mil back from three or four broadcasts. They're thinking long term with the possibility of quadrupling their initial investment. That $100 mil is nothing when you're dealing with billions.
Most of the top athletes in the world earn a significant share of annual revenue from endorsements.
Once other boxers see PBC start getting endorsements because they're getting more exposure they'll demand their promoter work with PBC or leave their promoter. How is T. Crawford gonna feel watching Danny Garcia or Adrien Broner on tv commercials knowing that should be him but can't get the exposure because he's on a premium network or TruTV? So not only is HHaymon getting his fighters more per bout they're also getting paid for endorsements.