Fight Club: Al Haymon hopes PBC will be boxing’s main event

Andy Lewis 06:20 23/03/2015
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  • One Time and the first time: Keith Thurman (l) beat another Al Haymon fighter, Robert Guerrero on the PBC’s debut show on NBC earlier this month.

    Another day and another boxer signs up to join Al Haymon’s rapidly expanding portfolio of fighters. Last Friday it was the turn of lightweight Dejan Zlaticanin.

    British fans will remember him beating a faded Ricky Burns in Glasgow last year but few others will have heard of him. In fact, he’s not even a big name in football-mad Montenegro, where he’s from.

    He is, however, 20-0 and the fact that he popped up on Haymon’s radar is indicative of the depth he is searching for with his roster.

    The cynics will always tell you boxing is a business first, a sport second. Well, the business side of things is undergoing some seismic changes, which will alter the landscape for a long time to come.

    Haymon, the former music mogul who managed MC Hammer, Whitney Houston and Mary J Blige, has begun 2015 with some serious power moves as he tries to become the game’s major player.

    Last month he launched Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), his all-singing, all-dancing, all-punching primetime TV show on the free-to-air network NBC. Haymon has also bought slots on CBS Sports, CBS-owned Showtime, as well as popular cable channel Spike TV, while last week it was announced PBC is destined for both ESPN (as a replacement for the long-running Friday Night Fights series) and also ABC.

    Essentially, Haymon’s model is to take boxing back to the mainstream and he hopes by eschewing the long-established pay-per-view paradigm he can use the PBC brand to stir America’s once ravenous appetite for the fight game.

    The idea being his initial outlay in buying all of these slots will eventually harvest huge profits in advertising and sponsorship.

    You will never hear this from the man himself, however, as Haymon doesn’t do interviews. In fact you’re never even likely to see him, with the Harvard economics graduate preferring to stay firmly in the shadows. PBC will premier on ESPN on July 11 and then be rolled out in 12 monthly instalments.

    With numerous US domestic deals now in place, PBC shows will also be sold to a worldwide audience, with Box Nation having snapped up the UK rights and beIN Sports highly likely to lead the way in the Middle East.

    Yet perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ESPN deal was that in their own coverage of the announcement they estimated the Haymon stable has now swelled to a mighty 200 boxers.

    They range from renowned world champions like light-welterweight king Danny Garcia, light heavyweight title holder Adonis Stevenson, headline grabbers like welterweights Adrien Broner and Keith Thurman to fringe contenders like Zlaticanin and any number of emerging prospects.Danny Garcia heads the Al Haymon stable.

    It’s pretty obvious the PBC means business, and judging by the style of their early shows they are set on forging a very clear identity and a brand – not dissimilar in method to the UFC or even, in a more fanciful comparison, the WWE with Raw or Smackdown.

    There are clear traits like the title credits, seemingly ubiquitous logos, the entrance music and the style of the ringwalks with boxers forced to enter solo, without the comfort of their huge entourages.

    The established competition comes from HBO who still have some serious quality to call upon for their subscribers, like Eastern European stars Gennady Golovkin and Sergei Kovalev, while their spring schedule includes Wladimir Klitschko, Canelo Alvarez and, of course, Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao.

    Haymon’s track record suggests he doesn’t back duds – ok, aside from Hammer – so don’t expect the PBC to go away. And with all the talent he can call upon plus the exposure from his multiple TV deals, fans can expect a 2015 packed with quality cards as the brand looks to get off the ground.

    The banner on the slick new PBC website reads: “In boxing there is no middle ground…” Haymon is certainly going all in.

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