It has been a solid first half of the year for HBO Boxing. The network continued to lead the industry in ratings, drawing in the top six largest audiences for fights this year, topped by the 1.39 million viewers who watched Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s rematch against Bryan Vera in March. To date, ratings for HBO’s World Championship Boxing are up eight percent from last year. With a strong stable of stars headlined by welterweight Manny Pacquiao, middleweight Gennady Golovkin and light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev, the network is in a strong position going forward.
Of course, there have been some bumps in the road. Injuries and outside-the-ring issues have derailed key fights (and fighters), and the increased competition from Showtime has made it a struggle for HBO to produce appealing opponents for some of its top attractions.
With one of the biggest fights of the year on Saturday — a middleweight showdown between Miguel Cotto and Sergio Martinez that will be distributed by HBO Pay Per View — HBO Sports President Ken Hershman sat down with SI.com to discuss the state of HBO Boxing.
SI.com: So … your thoughts on HBO’s first half of the year?
Ken Hershman: I think it’s been a really good first half. We have had our share of really compelling fights. There are a few things we would have liked to have happen that didn’t. But there is always that in boxing. But Manny Pacquiao-Tim Bradley was a fantastic fight, a great event. Juan Manuel Marquez-Mike Alvarado was a fantastic fight, great event. June 7 will be a fantastic fight, great event. Carl Froch-George Groves was as compelling as it could have been.
We think the next few weeks and months could be great as well. Ruslan Provodnikov is coming back and we think that [Terence] Crawford-[Yuriorkis] Gamboa is an interesting fight. Golovkin is coming back in July. It’s great to have him back and hopefully it’s a really compelling matchup with Daniel Geale. We’re excited about what is to come.
SI.com: What’s the thing you are most pleased with and what you are most disappointed by?
KH: Most pleased, I would say the quality of the fights. They have been really high quality, which is what we set out to do. Our strategy is to put the most compelling fighters on in the most compelling fights. We have had a lot of 50-50 fights. I think that’s been the most pleasing. The quality of what we put on and the names we put on are second to none.
Most disappointing, clearly not having Golovkin, the hiccups with [Julio Cesar] Chavez, Mikey Garcia, Adonis Stevenson and Andre Ward. Those are all big fighters who have been built by HBO. We haven’t had the ability to televise their fights.
SI.com: OK, I’ve got to ask: Did you consider approving Peter Quillin as Golovkin’s next opponent?
KH: We’re open to anybody who is willing to step up and fight Gennady Golovkin. You see a lot of people in the press saying they want to fight him but when the rubber meets the road, when it’s time to put your signature on a piece of paper, there are creative ways out. I’m not suggesting Peter wouldn’t sign. But we weren’t exploring that for July. It wasn’t offered to us for July. Nobody said, ‘Hey, Peter Quillin is ready to take on Gennady Golovkin.’ I think Peter would be a terrific test for Golovkin. A unification would be fantastic. We don’t rule anything out. It’s just got to sync up with our timing and our business objective.”
SI.com: I ask because we know who promotes Quillin…
KH: The quality of the fight is unquestionable. Whether there is a business approach that syncs up to ours remains unknown. We’re open to the conversation. We want to make investments in fighters we can get a return on.”
SI.com: I’m not sure I know what “sync up to your objectives” means…
KH: I don’t really want to talk about what that would be or wouldn’t be. It just requires a business conversation in addition to a boxing conversation.
SI.com: Bob Arum seems to have mended fences with Oscar De La Hoya. If Bob starts coming to you with fights against Golden Boy fighters, what do you say to that?
KH: Again, if the fight is compelling and the business model works, we’re all ears. We’ll gladly entertain it.
SI.com: It does sound like you are more open to Golden Boy than you were the last time we talked…
KH: Actually nothing has changed. I maybe wasn’t as open about our point of view about it before. We just have to be comfortable that when we make investments in fighters and promotional entities that they share our vision and our philosophy about how to operate. Once we are on the same page, the world is our oyster. You see it in the way we treat fighters, the way we develop fighters into big boxing stars, there is no better, no more important platform than HBO. As a result, we expect there to be a shared vision to get there. Because without that, it becomes very difficult. We’re not in the one-fight business. You see a fighter [Adonis Stevenson] that was built on HBO jump ship and lose [nearly] half their audience, I don’t know why that would be viewed as a good business decision under any circumstances. For us, to put our resources, to put our platform, to put our network behind you, there has to be a reciprocity.
HBO Boxing is a hit series. You don’t buy one episode of Game of Thrones and then let them bid up the second episode. It’s a simple philosophy. We want to put a lot of money and a lot of resources behind the content and we’re not going to chase a fighter and insist that they want to be here. They have to want to be here. If you want to put things on eBay and have people bid, that’s not what we’re interested in.
The other thing I would say is that we have a long-term outlook. We really do. We know that HBO Boxing is going to be here long past me. We need to protect this franchise long term. An individual fight here or there isn’t going to change that. If we chase fights here and there, if we go down that rabbit hole, we never come up from it. This is about long-term consistency. Being fair and expecting fair support back.
SI.com: Is it fair to say that the budgets of HBO and Showtime are at least comparable?
KH: I don’t know what the question even means. We don’t talk about our budgets. We’re very comfortable. If you look at our activity level, if you look at the caliber of fights we are putting on, that we are the biggest platform for boxing is unquestionable. Look at the ratings, look at any measure. It’s our job to keep our eye on the ball and make sure we deliver on HBO boxing’s objectives and not worry about the other guys and what they are spending. It doesn’t impact what we are doing.
SI.com: But having someone spending as much as you do doesn’t change how you do your business?
KH: No, I think it’s our goal and mission to maintain HBO’s prominence as the most important platform for boxing and we think we have been doing that for the last few years that I have been here. If you look at the facts and the metrics, I think we have accomplished that and will continue to do so in 2014. What the other guys do, that’s up to them. We’re happy with where we sit. We’re happy with the fighters and promoters we’re working with and the caliber of fights we are putting on. I think if you look at the last few months, the facts will support that.
SI.com: One more thing about Golovkin. There was a time in Roy Jones’ history that HBO would televise his fights no matter whom he fought. Have you reached that point with Golovkin?
KH: People want to see him. He’s a very compelling fighter. Still, we want to put on the most competitive matchups. A matchup with [Jarrod] Fletcher [Golovkin’s mandatory challenger] could be a fight where Gennady goes back to Monaco and does the fight there. We can evaluate how we put it on HBO back here. As a main event on HBO, live from the States, [Fletcher-Golovkin] is a difficult one. It’s not what we want to do.”
SI.com: Finding opponents for Sergey Kovalev seems like it has been difficult, too. What are his options?
KH: We’re going to have to get him back in the ring and get him going. We love Sergey. We think he is a future star in boxing. He’s certainly one of the most exciting light heavyweights to come along in a wrong time. The opponent landscape is thin. But we all know in boxing that things change quickly. I don’t know who is going to present as a big fight in the fall but we are comfortable with a couple of different options.
