Thread: HBO and their PPV's

I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth but I am thinking to myself, how in the hell is Hopkins-Calzaghe not a PPV, with all this promotion and hype, yet Mosely-Judah is PPV? This is a historic type of fight, while the other is hardly even close to that. Just baffles me a bit....are they testing the draw power of Calzaghe? Will the British support Calzaghe like Hatton and fly over? Wales is pretty small isn't it?

HBO's marketing dept must have fuck3d up big time.

...but then, it could be also an excellent HBO promotion to get more subscribers.

I think it might have to do with the last Hopkins fight vs Winky being such a snooze fest

I was thinking it was a PPV this whole time. I was just sitting here wondering if I should order it or not and trying to make myself believe that the undercard wasn't complete shit.

Here's why:

Calzaghe-Hopkins was the first of the two fights to be put together. Calzaghe has never fought in the US, never on US PPV, most people in the US have no clue who he is. Hopkins is a known fighter, but he's never had a huge fanbase, and he's never been a big PPV draw. If this fight had been on PPV, it would have done very poorly. So HBO agreed to pay a big rights fee to air the fight on regular HBO with no PPV fee.

By the time Mosley-Judah came round, HBO had already paid the money for Calzaghe-Hopkins, had the Cotto/Margarito doubleheader scheduled on HBO for April 12th, and had the DLH fight scheduled in May, with another HBO card (with Gamboa) scheduled for later in May. They were all budgeted out for the spring, they didn't have money left to fund another free HBO card. So Mosley-JUdah had to go onto PPV or find another network like Showtime.

That makes sense, but they got fucked by scheduling if thats the case. I think this one would have done great PPV numbers. More than Mosely-Judah even though that should do ok with both having good fanbases.

It wasn't a PPV because JoeCal's fight against Mikkel Kessler was like the lowest rated HBO broadcast of 2007 so they were worried about him being able to get PPV buys. HBO wanted to use B-Hop's name to get people to actually tune in to JoeCal this time and they are hoping that JoeCal beats him so that JoeCal becomes a star. Then they can market his next one or two fights as PPV and more people will know him.

Originally Posted by No Contest

I think this one would have done great PPV numbers.

I duno, I have to disagree here. I think it would have done very poorly. As albsur correctly noted above, Calzaghe-Kessler did the lowest rating in the history of HBO championship boxing. Hopkins has never been that big of a draw.

By all accounts, the tickets sales have been pretty mediocre too.

Originally Posted by SweetPea

Originally Posted by No Contest

I think this one would have done great PPV numbers.

I duno, I have to disagree here. I think it would have done very poorly. As albsur correctly noted above, Calzaghe-Kessler did the lowest rating in the history of HBO championship boxing. Hopkins has never been that big of a draw.

By all accounts, the tickets sales have been pretty mediocre too.

Thats why they should have fought in Wales, we got a semi-recession going on and not alot of people got the extra cash nowadays. Millenium sold 20 some thousand for JC's last fight? Hopkins did ok on PPV when he fought Winky, not because people wanted to see Winky, but because people knew it was a big fight like this one.

Mosely vs Zab could have been on HBO if they were willing to wait for the fall when there was a boxing date open. Neither fighter wanted to wait so they have to fight on PPV.

ANd PPV is a big risk for everyone involved. Instead of the guaranteed HBO money, they actually have to sell PPV buys to make money.