For what it?s worth, Ken Hershman did a respectable job as President of HBO Sports, a position he?ll be walking away from at the end of the year after three years of service. Ratings are up, new talents are making names for themselves on the network and the relationship between the network and the promoters are stronger than they?ve ever been, but one can?t help but feel a little shortchanged for what could have been.
It?s not that Hershman did a bad job, because he absolutely didn?t, but Hershman?s three-year run on the network of champions could have been so much more. Many expected the boxing genius that kept Showtime boxing afloat despite being outnumbered in terms of viewership, budget and prestige, but they ended up getting a guy that just tidied up the place for when the new boss came in.
At Showtime, Hershman had to rely on ingenuity and improvisation to make a respectable and legitimate alternative to the glamour and glitz HBO blinded the public with. He constantly sought out the best fights and reached out to the promoters who were willing to provide them to their network, and boxing was better for it.
There were classic battles that were given to the public because Hershman wanted to feature the best fights without having to con the public into watching high-profile mismatches and pathetically favorable matchmaking. Showtime ran with ?Great fights, no rights? as a call to action and followed through with it until his departure.
Could you imagine HBO ever putting together something as time consuming as The Super Six? Would they have green lit the smaller guys like Israel Vasquez vs. Rafael Marquez or Nonito Donaire vs. Vic Darchinyan?
Once Hershman did make his stay official, he did make some waves by chasing out the heavily Al Haymon influenced Golden Boy Promotions while opening up talks with the other promoters in the industry. In the time he did spend, he mended the ties with the promoters that Greenburg ignored and ironically chased off to Showtime during his tenure.
Not to mention that Hershman also played a major role in shaping HBOs future, such as securing the services of Saul Alvarez, Roman Gonzalez, Sergey Kovalev and media darling Gennady Golovkin to long term commitments.
One the flipside, Hershman spent a lot of his time actually bolstering his network?s opposition. Chasing away Haymon and Golden Boy led them to be picked right up to Showtime, and ultimately led to their biggest opposition in the form of Premier Boxing Champions. Of course, the biggest loss to HBO was the loss of the services of Floyd Mayweather, who provided Showtime with pay per view numbers they hadn?t had since Mike Tyson was fighting on their network almost 20 years ago.
Not to mention that outside of creating Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao with the help of Showtime, Hershman failed to create a marquee matchup between his network?s fighters. There was no Pacquiao/Marquez V, Kovalev/Stevenson or Golovkin/Ward, all fights that fell by the wayside, as we had to settle for their headliners to smash horrifyingly overmatched opponents time after time.
While Hershman still has moves to make before the year is up and walks away from his position at HBO, he did a good job in undoing a lot of the damage the previous regime did and restored confidence in the brand. It?s just a shame that with more room for error and all the backing behind him, he didn?t take the chance to make a change that could?ve been what the sport has been waiting for.
