What does a post-Bob Arum boxing world look like?

[hfahrenheit]

There isn't a strong promotional company right now. Arum is on ESPN and his son in law, when he takes over, has a lot of different problems on his hands. Golden Boy have Alvarez and basically nobody else. Haymon has most of the top fighters signed up but who knows what's going to happen with Haymon. He's trying to UFCise boxing with PBC but it's not looking too good right now. There's been news that haymon and the UFC people are going to form a new company and also that UFC are going to set up on their own which could be just a negotiating ploy. I would guess boxing is going to get even more fragmented and messy over the next few years.

"...guess boxing is going to get even more fragmented and messy over the next few years. "

Yeah, but is that enough to kill it completely?

[Kirkland Laing]

There isn't a strong promotional company right now. Arum is on ESPN and his son in law, when he takes over, has a lot of different problems on his hands. Golden Boy have Alvarez and basically nobody else. Haymon has most of the top fighters signed up but who knows what's going to happen with Haymon. He's trying to UFCise boxing with PBC but it's not looking too good right now. There's been news that haymon and the UFC people are going to form a new company and also that UFC are going to set up on their own which could be just a negotiating ploy. I would guess boxing is going to get even more fragmented and messy over the next few years.

"...guess boxing is going to get even more fragmented and messy over the next few years. "

Yeah, but is that enough to kill it completely?

Maybe Haymon collapses, Zuffa (the UFC people) move in and buy him out and go after total domination and in a while we have some kind of UFC setup. Hard to see happening though with the profusion of sanctioning bodies and established promoters. No matter how fragmented it does get boxing will chug on. It's booming in some parts of the world, just not America right now but it'll come back a certain amount at some point.

Haymon has been successful in promoting music stars and is a wealthy guy but his boxing plan seems a little weird. UFC workd because they own the whole show and can tell fighters to fight each other whenever. Haymon legally is just these guys' advisor and is legally obligated to get them the best risk/reward purses he can get which workd directly against Haymon the PBC promoter (officially he isn't but in reality he is). PBC would be much better if Haymon could put whatever fights he wanted on on a schedule where there was a show every week and the most compelling fights in the divisions were constantly made like UFC but the various sanctioning bodies, the Muhammad Ali Act and various other things all work against that and PBC isn't a compelling spectacle with a schedule full of the best possible, it's a dog's breakfast that's blown through hundreds of millions of dollars and has done nothing to raise its profile.

[TAPugil]

Scandal-less

[Kirkland Laing]

Every other sport, either team or individual sports, benefits from some kind of structure. The difference with professional boxing, like it or not, is that it all stems from blokes putting their money up to finance fights. You're looking at a bunch of businessmen generally from the shady/sketchy part of town who are behind the whole thing. The current setup with multiple sanctioning bodies etc has evolved to serve the people at the top of the tree, who are the promoters. These promoters don't own a franchise like the Cowboys or the Lakers that are a guaranteed year after year money earner. They're a bunch of guys financing individual guys who are all only a punch away from being a losing investment.

Bearing that in mind you can see how boxing is kinda resistant to any kind of unified organisation. The closest you could really hope for is somebody being able to sign up enough top boxers to be able to UFCise the whole thing but then you have the Muhammad Ali Act and various other things working against any kind of setup like that. See what happens to UFC if the fighters manage to get the Muhammad Ali Act and other regulation to apply to them too. The bottom line is it's always going to come down to individual blokes in suits putting their money up to promote sportsmen with a limited shelf life and anybody wanting to be a successful promoter isn't thinking about the long term future of boxing, they're thinking about making money, and there's no getting past that.

[greynotsoold]

Top Rank and ESPN just signed a 7 year deal, for 54 shows per year.

[holmcall]

Somewhat more honest---somewhat

[Fenster]

It'll look like it does now.

How many of you Americans are buying the new boxing stream Danz? 32 shows per year plus the entire Super Series for $10 a month? I know most of you don't watch boxing outside the States but 16 shows are there and the Super Series has some American names you might recognise.

Anyone interested in paying to watch for regular boxing or prefer to buy one off fights like Floyd and McGregor?