ESPN - De La Hoya to put muscle behind USA Boxing - Olympics
HHhhmmpph, not bad! :cool: I wish he supported the Mexican team (as a Mexican that he is) but oh well.
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ESPN - De La Hoya to put muscle behind USA Boxing - Olympics
HHhhmmpph, not bad! :cool: I wish he supported the Mexican team (as a Mexican that he is) but oh well.
Yeah but he's a US Boxing alum.
This is good if he can get them on TV. There has been a deal similar to this one cut before. Recently actually.
I don't know if you're familiar with Michael King but he's a millionaire many times over in media, owns Kings Corp which Oprah operates under, and a few years ago he tried to completely revitalize the US amateur boxing system, had a team of investors and they said they were willing to spend up to 100 million dollars to help revitalize the amateur program here in the states. Shopped around TV deals, had sponsors lined up, everything. The thing was called A2P, amateur to pro. The sticking point for many was that the deal gave King and his cronies the first shot at signing all the boxers as they came out of the amateur program ahead of all other managers/promoters.
Once the true intentions were revealed, lawsuits were threatened by seemingly ever manager/promoter out there and at the last minute, King's investors pulled the plug. Really devastating to US amateur boxing, this was only a couple years ago. Right now the US club doesn't even have an equipment deal not to mention any money invested in building gyms, TV deals, ect.
If De La Hoya is in this to get first bid at guys like Andrade and Warren then the team is better off telling him to fuck off as they probably wouldn't survive another debacle like that. It's funny because they've asked for his help before and never gotten any involvement so the timing of this is really tricky.
But if his intentions are pure, then this could be great. De La Hoya has a very powerful name, surely he can land the team some sponsors and TV deals and possibly get more gyms built. They really want a TV deal, they wanted to show off these guys they got going to the Olympics before they went there but it never materialized because of the King pullout. So that would be a great start if they could get it done, there are a lot of people really bitter that Andre Ward an Olympic Gold medalist is operating in near annonomity, where in the past being a gold medalist made you a household name. They wanted to adress this before these games but obviously for reasons listed above couldn't.
De La Hoya could be their greatest asset for 2012. Best case scenario, US scores 2 golds in Beijing and generate some interest in the program again and let De La Hoya help build from there.
Does Mexico have an olympic team? I thought any Mexicans who can run jump or swim are already in America ;D
Good post. I hope your right about your positive points because Oscar could do wonders for the sport if he wanted to.Quote:
Originally Posted by amat