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Golden Boy/HBO builds on a strategy for PPV promotion

By Zach Arnold | September 18, 2010

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If you have had an opportunity to watch Fox Sports Net/Comcast Sportsnet in your area, you may have seen a paid infomercial running to promote the Sergio Mora/Shane Mosley PPV fight. It’s done in a similar style to the April/May UFC Countdown shows that Zuffa (reportedly/allegedly) paid to have run on CSN and Versus.

The 30-minute infomercial is produced by HBO & Golden Boy Promotions. Interestingly, a few newspaper writers were shown praising the PPV during the show. There was focus on Mora/Mosley but there was a clear focus on trying to push Victor Ortiz/Vivian Harris and the undercard for the fight, pushing the theme of ‘the young bucks’ coming up to eventually replace the bigger names in boxing.

I don’t know if enough people saw the infomercial to make a difference in PPV buys, but it was certainly interesting to see Golden Boy and HBO up their promotional game to try to sell tonight’s fight. Interestingly enough, Google News is absolutely littered with web links touting “free live streams” of the show online.

Boxing Scene has undercard coverage right here of tonight’s event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

On a side note, as of yesterday CSN is still airing PPV barker ads for next week’s UFC Indianapolis show and the barker is largely promoting Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (a fight that isn’t happening). Then again, after all the reports about Mirko Cro Cop getting poked in the eye during training, who knows if he will be healthy enough (despite what Dana White says) to fight Mir in seven days.

Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

11 Responses to “Golden Boy/HBO builds on a strategy for PPV promotion”

  1. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Don King used to do a great job of doing this for a period from around 2003-205 when he was putting on real solid packed PPV cards.

  2. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Best line I’ve ever heard by an announcer:

    “Any judge who scores this fight for Mora should be a candidate for a lobotomy.”
    -Jim Lamplely, tonight

    • Light23 says:

      The first I heard about this fight was this blog post. I don’t think they showed it in the UK, so I was gonna look for a torrent. Thanks for telling me who won :p

  3. Mr. Roadblock says:

    He made the comment in the 5th round. It was as true then as when the judges ruled it a draw.

    Interestingly Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant went on a tirade about how inept the CA boxing commission is. They were spot on.

  4. liger05 says:

    The fight was shown on premier sports in the UK. Think they charge £7.99 a month for that channel.

  5. Mark says:

    I saw the infomercial. I thought they did a great job, it was certainly more reminiscent of a Countdown show than a 24/7 deal. They got me mildly excited to see Mosley/Mora and extremely excited to see Alvarez and Ortiz. 2 out of 3 paid off (no spoilers.)

    I don’t think it’s going to affect buyrates very much, though. It certainly doesn’t have the reach a Countdown show does since very few people say they say the infomercial. And you’ve got to be pretty heavy into boxing anyway to be sold on paying for two 20 year old fighters and a reality show star versus sagging veteran card. And The Contender certainly doesn’t pack TUF’s punch to make that fight like Ortiz/Griffin I was.

  6. 45 Huddle says:

    I saw an ad for the PPV on Ain’t It Cool News. But the ad wasn’t very good and you would have no idea it was for boxing unless you recognized Mosley’s face.

    • Mark says:

      Yes, let’s just ignore a tremendous television campaign to say the internet banner that people don’t even pay attention to on a site with mostly nerdy visitors who don’t even like sports wasn’t good since the UFC didn’t do it.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        Hmmmm, this has nothing to do with the UFC.

        My point was that they put an advertisement on a website that had no purpose of having it. And the advertisement was horrible.

        • Mark says:

          Golden Boy didn’t personally sell the ad to the site. All internet advertising is done by ad agencies (namely Google) who have sites put their widget for banners on their front page and send them whatever. They blindly looked that the site had a young male demo, ignoring they’re only interested in sci-fi and comic book movies and are mostly anti-sports, and sent the ad there. That is not Golden Boy’s fault.

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