A couple of weeks ago, HBO announced that the president of their sports department, Ross Greenburg, was ?resigning? from his post after 33 years with the network. It?s a move that has a direct impact on the sport of boxing and its fans. Now, it?s time for Richard Plepler, the co-president, and Michael Lombardo, their programming president, to fill that void left by Greenburg.
HBO is vital to health and vitality of the industry in this country. It may not make or break the business but it certainly impacts it one way or another. When you think of big-time boxing in America, it is often associated with these three letters: H-B-O. Plepler and Lombardo can?t miss on this one. They need to hit it big.
They need to find another Lou DiBella.
No, not the actual Lou DiBella – who ably served under the regime of Seth Abraham and was the mastermind of ?Boxing After Dark,? the innovative series which first launched in 1996 and was not only a proving ground for a generation of future stars and icons, it instantly became ?must-see TV,? from the very moment Marco Antonio Barrera and Kennedy McKinney touched them up at the Great Western Forum – but a guy similar to him. DiBella, a graduate of Harvard Law School, wasn?t a guy born into boxing or grew up in a gym but it was clear, he was a ?boxing guy.? Someone who showed that you didn?t have to be Teddy Brener to recognize a good fight and would comfortably mingle with anyone in the business, be it the guy who carries the spit bucket into the ring to the very highest power brokers in boxing. He not only watched every fight on ESPN2 or USA?s ?Tuesday Night Fights,? he was a regular subscriber to Cedric Kushner?s ?Heavyweight Explosion? (I know this for a fact because way back when I was just getting into this business, he would shoo me off the phone as that broadcast was about to begin). DiBella loved a good bout and he generally enjoyed the fight game.
He was everything that Greenburg wasn?t in many respects, which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. From a boxing perspective, it was terrible.
Here?s the thing about Greenburg, you had to judge him in two realms. As a producer and creative mind in terms of documentaries ?24/7,? ?Hard Knocks? and ?Real Sports,? he rated a ten. To this day, the quality of those programs has never wavered. There?s a reason why he had three trophy cases full of Emmys and Peabody Awards but as the head of a network that was so intertwined with boxing, Greenburg was an unmitigated disaster. Not only was he disdainful of the boxing community, he garnered a reputation for being dishonest on a regular basis and oftentimes arrogant and spiteful. With boxing, he rates a negative ten. My colleagues have written some flowery tributes to the man (maybe it was all those ?Breakfasts with Ross?) but let?s be blunt; much of your legacy in running this network is tied into your boxing program. It?s like this; nobody knows who the volleyball coach is at Notre Dame but they sure as hell know who Brian Kelly is. Greenburg was akin to Gerry Faust.
You want a Yankee documentary made, go to Greenburg but if you need a guy who was going to continue the tradition of the HBO Boxing brand, he was absolutely the wrong guy. And for him to tell writers that too much of his time was bogged down dealing with boxing was odd, considering that as of now, it?s the only live sports programming they have. To me, Greenburg?s like Norv Turner, who excelled as an offensive coordinator in the NFL for many years. A guy who could craft a game plan on one side of the football but was incapable of leading a whole team as the head coach and delegating authority properly (and more on that later). In fairness to Greenburg, he should?ve been kept in the production truck- he was not the man to lead a whole sports division- especially one so closely tied to boxing.
Because under his watch not only have the ratings dipped but he created a toxic climate through exclusive output deals with Golden Boy Promotions (made in large part to secure their relationship with Oscar De La Hoya who, at the time, was the pay-per-view king) and for all his talk of being fatigued in trying to ?appease? promoters, he certainly didn?t seem to have a problem in continuously letting Al Haymon get his way (which is now well-chronicled, the seminal example being the Andre Berto run on HBO airwaves). There was a clear and stated plan to basically drive out the traditional promoters- most namely, Don King and Bob Arum- and keeping everything under one manageable umbrella, free from the headaches that can come with dealing with hardliners like King and Arum. It was an attempt to Wal-Mart this industry. Keep everything in-house and with open dates in their fold and Golden Boy would have a natural advantage in signing free agents and prospects (and more than once, HBO would make it clear to fighters looking around for promoters, who had these dates, while conversely telling competing firms that they may not have room for these same boxers should they sign with them.) Overall, real, bona fide promoters were basically cast aside for a cadre of TV packagers and casino brokers, who either played by HBO?s rules or decided to play the monkeys to the organ grinder that was Haymon.
