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Here comes the “Floyd Mayweather is an ungrateful moocher” narrative from boxing brokers
By Zach Arnold | June 18, 2017
The promoters involved in Saturday’s Vegas fight between Andre Ward & Sergey Kovalev made it no secret how unhappy they were that the talk of the town was all about Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor. Kathy Duva went as far to suggest that Showtime intentionally announced the fight on Wednesday to hurt the HBO PPV.
Unannounced and with no fanfare, Joe Tessitore returned to boxing broadcasting head-to-head against the Ward/Kovalev fight by reuniting with old broadcast partner Teddy Atlas for a Golden Boy at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. During the semi-main event fight, Tessitore damned Floyd Mayweather with faint praise. He called Mayweather one of the smartest businessmen ever in boxing and then promptly called him a taker, not a giver to the sport of boxing and that it would impact his legacy. Mitt Romney was unavailable for comment.
Tessitore was absolutely right and absolutely wrong at the same time. The fight with Conor McGregor is a circus. Everyone knows it. That’s the beauty of the shamelessness of it — it’s a rare moment for truth in advertising. You can post all the videos online of Conor McGregor sparring and it still won’t matter. Almost 80% of smallish-to-medium sized bets are on McGregor while 80% of the sharps are on Mayweather. ESPN claims that you can get Mayweather at 6-to-1 odds (-600), which is an incredible value. The fact that there is so much activity coming in on McGregor signifies the voracious appetite around the world to consume this spectacle. It could even be as entertaining as Michael Phelps racing a shark. You never know.
I get it. Mayweather and McGregor is going to impact the PPV bottom line for Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo Alvarez. Oscar De La Hoya has his valid reasons to be upset. He had his chance to book GGG vs. Canelo long ago and decided to play out the string. He’s the one who decided to take the Vegas date over AT & T Stadium in Dallas. I don’t know if he regrets it yet, but he will soon enough. Regardless, Mayweather’s fight will happen and he’ll be primed to do business if the financial terms are right to re-match against Canelo Alvarez.
As long as promoters continue doing business with Al Haymon, Haymon and associates are going to have the last laugh. He got a huge pay day for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in 2017. He was involved in getting Mayweather vs. McGregor booked. Haymon is going nowhere. Neither is Stephen Espinoza at Showtime. They’re following the money just like Floyd Mayweather. Boxing isn’t dead. It’s not dying. The circus fight with McGregor isn’t going to hurt the sport and put boxing back “on the barges” as Tony Kornheiser often claims.
If Golden Boy is as upset about the Mayweather-McGregor fight as they claim to be, they can turn around to their “partners” at ESPN and ask them where Bristol stands. Where’s the advertising for Golden Boy events? Where’s the support? Why is a Joe Tessitore return to ESPN boxing not announced? ESPN has gone hog wild, like the rest of the American sports media, on Mayweather vs. McGregor. It’s going to be two months of non-stop hour-to-hour junk sports talk show fests psycho-analyzing the circus antics brewing for the pending road show. The amount of support ESPN is going to give to promote a fight they have zero financial interest in, juxtaposed to the lack of promotional support so far for Golden Boy events, should be Golden Boy’s real focus.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
Agreed. And As I said before Golden Boy got too cute with the GGG negotiations, by dragging them out for a year. Canelo -GGG is still a money maker. But the Blockbuster show in terms of buys is going to be the Mayweather fight.