By Norm Frauenheim-
The headlines said HBO is leaving boxing. Truth is, the premium network has been leaving for the last few years.
The long goodbye was official Thursday with news first reported by the New York Times. Yeah, it’s sad. HBO’s 45 years enriched fighters, promoters and advertisers throughout a run that will probably be remembered as a golden era for the unprecedented money it generated.
HBO also sustained and created generations of fight fans, many of whom expressed shock at a move rumored for a while and probably made inevitable with AT&T’s acquisition of the network in mid-June.
But 45 years are a long time to be in the ring. For fighters. And networks. HBO’s exit after one more fight in late October took on a sense of inevitability. It was like watching a great fighter grow old.
In the end, HBO was still around to pick off a few big events, the last one being Canelo Alvarez’ majority decision over Gennady Golovkin in a Sept.15 middleweight rematch in a pay-per-telecast that did a reported 1.1 million buys. It was clear then that HBO’s days were numbered. At least, it was clear to Top Rank’s Bob Arum.
“HBO doesn’t belong in boxing,’’ Arum was quoted as saying before GGG-Canelo 2. “Showtime doesn’t belong in boxing.”
“They’re entertainment networks. I think they’re beginning to realize that.”
Translation: For HBO executives, boxing is just another show. Like Sex And The City and The Sopranos, it has run its course. Time to move on. Boxing has begun to do exactly that. It has begun to stake its future on streaming with ESPN+ and DAZN.
From this aging perspective, streaming video is a media platform that feels like a couple of centuries beyond the black-and-white Friday Night Fights, the most memorable part of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Those days are mostly forgotten. In the wake of the HBO news, however, it’s important to mention them. The Friday Night Fights lasted for about 10 years. Boxing moved on from that, too. A historical footnote, the end of that boxing foothold on 1950s’ television represents a moment in a business defined by resiliency. Like it’s best fighters, the business is always getting up from knockdowns.
It has always moved on to other technology and venues. I watched a closed-circuit telecast in 1964 of Muhammad Ali (then, still named Cassius Clay) against Sonny Liston in their first fight at a movie theater. From the Ali era to Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, it followed technology, mostly because it had to. From pay-per-view to streaming video, boxing has always been something of a sports-industry pioneer. That hasn’t changed. Nobody could ever silence opening bell, not even HBO, which left open the door for further boxing telecasts after the Daniel Jacobs-Sergiy Derevyanchenko middleweight bout on Oct. 27. According to news reports and a prepared statement, HBO would still be interested in the right fight. But the biggest attractions have to be cultivated, in much the way Roy Jones Jr. was.
Jones, who shares the all-time lead for HBO bouts with De La Hoya at 32, was a beautifully-skilled athlete. Without HBO, I’m not sure Jones would be the acknowledged star he was and still is. HBO took a chance and invested in the fighter from small-town Pensacola. I think of Jones when I watch welterweight Terence Crawford, another wonderfully-skilled welterweight from Omaha, another small market.
If Crawford – perhaps the most instinctive switch-hitter in boxing history – isn’t underrated, he is under-appreciated. But he is a victim of bad timing, at least in terms of how fighters are marketed. HBO elevated Jones, Pacquiao, De La Hoya and others to worldwide celebrity and wealth. In a changing era, Crawford might have to follow a different path to the same fame and money.
It won’t be as easy. The path has changed. It’s uncertain, but it is still there, a new opportunity for a business that has a history of always finding new ways to sell a very old game.
