The boxing landscape has shifted dramatically and HBO may be finished.
HBO Boxing has long been synonymous with excellence and prestige in the fight game. Most of my life, if it was a major fight, HBO was involved. Its World Championship Boxing series dates all the way back to the era of Ali, Foreman, and Frazier. For years there has been nothing bigger in the sport than an HBO PPV. Sometimes Showtime would pop up and grab something that would be considered HBO quality unexpectedly, but on the whole they clearly played second fiddle for the bulk of the premium network’s dueling existences.
This started to shift a couple years ago. Major fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao jumped over to Showtime, if only for a fight. Then Al Haymon’s PBC exodus from Golden Boy struck. Around the same time, HBO had its falling out with Haymon as he moved on to Showtime full time. Still, HBO persisted. Rising stars like Gennady Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, Sergey Kovalev, Vasyl Lomachenko, and Terence Crawford regularly provided premium content without the PBC crew. That is they did until HBO decided to reduce its budget.
Maybe we have Game of Thrones to blame, but for whatever reason the premium network started to have less money to offer boxing as it doubled down its focus on original series. This posed a problem for the promoters working with them, but especially for Top Rank. Golden Boy’s roster had been badly diminished while entities like K2 Promotions or Main Events had small lineups to begin with that didn’t need a multitude of shows. Top Rank remained a major player, however, and was forced to search for alternatives when they found themselves unable to get their fighters three dates a year on HBO.
They struck gold on their own instead by signing a deal with powerhouse ESPN that was later expanded into a long term, comprehensive deal that also provides the backbone for ESPN+. Without Top Rank, HBO was left picking up the pieces by working without a true major promoter. Golden Boy still had Canelo, Jorge Linares, and a few young titleholders though. Loeffler at K2 still had GGG and the Superfly series. British super promoter Eddie Hearn along with the nation’s second largest promoter Frank Warren were also willing to play ball. Hearn signed Danny Jacobs and got him an exclusive deal with the network, for example, while Warren could provide middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders. Kathy Duva at Main Events was still bringing in Sergey Kovalev while the men doing the terrible work at Roc Nation still had Andre Ward to pair with him. Zanfer in Mexico could provide excellent top talents like Miguel Berchelt and action fighters like Micky Roman.
Then bits and pieces of that started to fall a part. Hearn signed his big deal with DAZN. Danny Jacobs reportedly has one more fight left on his deal with the network. There is no chance HBO could retain him or work with anyone else from Matchroom Boxing afterward. Frank Warren has joined Top Rank in signing on with ESPN+. Zanfer hasn’t officially done so, but they’ve been using the streaming service for their bigger fighters instead of HBO since its launch. Andre Ward retired Roc Nation is all but done in the sport too. Of course, I’m framing all of this in terms of what HBO has lost, but it might be more along the lines of what they have willingly given up. A major warning sign here is that the network has passed on paying a major rights fee to air the rematch between Eleider Alvarez and Sergey Kovalev. They retain the right to match whatever offer they get, but it remains a serious question of whether or not they will.
Now the news has broken that both Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez are in their last fights of their HBO deals come Saturday night. Golovkin is rumored to be disgruntled on how he perceived HBO as failing to support him when the rematch fell apart in May, costing the Kazakh star millions and millions of dollars. Canelo’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, has been very open over the past few days that he plans on shopping Canelo around to other networks. Oscar openly wondered if HBO still wants to be in boxing to the Los Angeles Times, even.
Beyond HBO’s desire to keep Canelo around, however, there are other factors to consider. FOX, ESPN, and international sports streaming service DAZN have recently sunk an extreme amount of money into the sport. Of course De La Hoya has every reason to see what the sport’s biggest draw can find in the newer, more lucrative market. Past entanglements do limit the possibilities a bit, however. I cannot imagine De La Hoya would ever work with Al Haymon again after the PBC kingpin walked away with most of Golden Boy’s roster in the middle of the night less than a decade ago. Oscar has also had a very difficult history with Top Rank. Time heals wounds and money might talk in the end, but I definitely see Canelo on ESPN as a longshot as of now. DAZN though? That makes sense to me in a big way. Golovkin and his team have none of these issues and will be open to all options.
What is left the of HBO if they no longer want Kovalev and Saturday’s two mega PPV main eventers walk away? I would assume that any deal with Canelo would include the rest of Golden Boy’s stable as well. Even if they didn’t, would HBO really still have any interest in Alberto Machado or Jaime Munguia if that was their entire roster? I doubt it. What it would leave is one Danny Jacobs fight left and nothing else. It would leave HBO outside of the boxing game, at least for now. Maybe forever.
