When it comes to televising quality boxing events across America, it’s been pretty much a two horse race for a long, long time.
You might compare Home Box Office to Secretariat and then turn around and call Showtime, now the Showtime/CBS combo, like another great thoroughbred, Affirmed.
That’s why I think it’s remarkable and something that cannot be glossed over to note that there is a genuine chance that 2011 will be a calendar year in which perennial prime cable network frontrunner HBO may not televise a single Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather fight.
That’s right, the ailing sport’s two biggest stars may spend 2011 fighting, or in the case of the semi-retired Mayweather not fighting, elsewhere.
Mayweather pops up in pricey courtside seats for NBA games in Miami, New York and Los Angeles and in occcasional IRS rax lien and Las Vegas criminal and civil case news flashes but he’s about mark a full year (May 1) since he last fought.
No Mayweather and no Pacman on HBO, it’s a curious situation one must concede.
With this surprising notion in mind, I had to figure that Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum, who nearly always has something up his sleeve other than his sleeve, must be scheming, plotting and plotting and plotting how he can play off rivals HBO and Showtime/CBS to his financial benefit beyond the May 7 Sugar Shane Mosley-Pacman bout which screens on Showtime handled PPV TV.
How long will the fat cats at HBO wish to let exciting but still not at megastar level Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez be the network’s leading fistic face?
First, Arum said nothing is in the works beyond May 7 and nothing will be discussed with either network until Pacquiao and Mosley have concluded their business.
“It would be really unfair of us, I mean unfair to Manny and to Shane, to be distracted from this promotion,” Arum said. “So the answer is no, we have not been distracted by future business. All talks can come right after May 7. We’ve got to put in extra effort now on the May 7 event, nothing else.”
With a month to go before Manny and Shane cross gloves, Arum said that HBO’s boxing lineup is hardly its first priority. “If Pacquiao and/or Mayweather do not fight (this year) on HBO, HBO is and will remain a very profitable and highly successful TV company. That is for sure with or without a Pacquiao or a Mayweather fight on their air in 2011. Advertisement
“Don’t worry about HBO, I’m sure they will survive very nicely.”
Arum said a different Pacquiao will now get a major PR push.
“We’re going to get some really huge exposure for Manny’s wife, Jinkee,” Arum said. “We’re doing this like a presidential campaign. So, when her husband is training for the fight, you may see Jinkee appearing on different programs.
“Jinkee’s not coming to the U.S. until after Easter so, on April 29, she’s going to be a guert on a CBS talk show with Julie Chen. I spoke to Jinkee about this on the media tour and she’s quite excited.”
Arum said other Showtime/CBS connected media platforms will feature Mosley. Arum was delighted with promo spots CBS aired for the fight this past weekend.
“Besides the half hour show, the Fight Camp 360, they gave us a 60 second spot and a 30 second spot before the NCAA basketball games and that was just really huge exposure.”
Meanwhile, Arum’s ex-promotional charge, Oscar De La Hoya took some verbal shots at the Top Rank top dog while speaking to my fellow Anita Baker fan, Steve Kim at Maxboxing.
Always the dutiful, responsible hack, I mean journalist, I inquired if Arum wanted to counter Oskie’s saying he “blows smoke up” people’s rear ends and “always go negative, speaks negative.”
“No more,” Arum said. “I’m not going to do that, to respond. Let him say what he wants to say. I am not going to waste my time, he can say whatever the hell he wants to say. I’ll say nothing except what I’ve said about him before, that he is stupid.”
There, glad to see that TR-GBP namecalling end with a whimper, aren’t you?
I think both sides need to mellow out, listening to some love-infused Anita Baker crooning, don’t you?
