Sugar Ray Leonard thinks NBC Sports’ plan to bring boxing back to prime time network TV is just the ticket to help the Sweet Science regain some of the popularity and dignity lost to scandals, shady promoters and fickle fans who’ve migrated to other combat sports such as mixed martial arts (MMA). He told the Sporting News :
Under the plan announced Wednesday, NBC will present 20 live boxing cards in 2015 across NBC and its NBCSN cable network. More importantly, the new Premier Boxing Champions series will air five Saturday night cards on NBC proper — and another six on Saturday afternoons. There will also be nine primetime cards on NBCSN, the all-sports cable network that competes with ESPN and Fox Sports 1.
Sugar Ray Leonard at the announcement. (Courtesy of Michael McCarthy)
The March 7th debut of PBC on NBC (9 p.m. ET) will feature two marquee matchups: Keith Thurman vs. Robert Guerrero and Adrien Broner vs. John Molina.
The agreement between NBC and Las Vegas-based Haymon Boxing was announced during a glitzy event at Saturday Night Live’s Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. According to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times , Haymon is paying NBC an estimated $20 million to air the fights, which will feature many boxers from the Haymon stable.
The Peacock Network, meanwhile, will pick up production costs. They’ll be extensive, since the network is hiring A-List talent like Leonard, play-by-play announcer Al Michael of Sunday Night Football and composer Hans Zimmer, who’s scored movies such as Gladiator , Interstellar and 12 Years a Slave. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Haymon’s biggest name, will not fight on PBC on NBC . He’s exclusive to Showtime.
The idea of a promotion paying a network to air its bouts is unusual in today’s sports TV landscape, where the networks such as NBC typically pay rights fees to the NFL and other leagues to air their games. Then again, boxing needs all the exposure it can get. As Neil Best of Newsday noted , NBC’s last televised prime bout was Larry Holmes vs. Carl “The Truth” Williams way back on May 20, 1985 (The network televised its first boxing bout in 1939).
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But with the bout fans have longed to see — Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao — finally shaping up for May 2 , boxing is back in the news in a big way. A return to free TV will be welcomed most of all by fighters who now toil in low-rated obscurity on late night cable and PPV while fighters from Ultimate Fighting Championship such as Ronda Rousey grab the headlines and endorsement deals .
Said Leonard: “Boxers know that the more they’re on TV, the more their stock goes up."
Sugar Ray was joined at the event by two of his most famous opponents from boxing’s last golden era in the 1980’s: Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns and Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran.
Tommy Hearns. (Courtesy of Michael McCarthy)
Hearns, who fought one of the greatest bouts in history 30 years ago this April against “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler, said the sport needs a kickstart in the U.S. “We got to try to uplift boxing again. Having this show will do a great deal for boxing.”
Broadcast networks like NBC reach over 110 million U.S. homes, far more than premium pay cable networks like HBO and Showtime. Never mind pay-per-view bouts which are lucky to draw two million buyers.
Free broadcast TV is “still the most valuable way to talk to America,” said Jon Miller, President of Programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN. So why did boxing disappear from NBC over the last three decades? The network grew tired of dealing with shady promoters, Miller told SN :
Boxing promoter Lou DiBella was also on hand Wednesday. Reintroducing boxing to sports fans is “the best chance the sport’s had in a long time to return to its former grandeur,” he said.
Boxing has become “marginalized” over the last few decades, DiBella admitted. But having top bouts on free TV will hopefully remind fans why they used to love boxing. And it will reward loyal fans who’ve stuck by the sport despite all the scandals and over-priced PPV’s. As DiBella noted:
HBO Sports’ Gumbel blasts ‘sycophantic’ sports coverage
The all-new season of HBO Sports’ 20-year old Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel debuts Tuesday, Jan. 20 (10 p.m. ET/PT). As usual, the plain-spoken Gumbel killed it at the Television Critics Association (TCA)’s annual get-together in Pasadena.
Too much of what passes for TV sports journalism these days is “sycophantic,” he said. That’s not surprising given that TV networks are in bed with sports leagues, paying billions in annual TV rights to televise their games and events:
Gumbel also ripped college athletics, noting it’s “amateur” in name only. While college football coaches such as Nick Saban of Alabama and Jim Harbaugh at Michigan make millions annually, the players make zero:
Gumbel also went against the grain by declaring both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in the Hall of Fame. Surprisingly, he had no problem with players using performance-enhancing drugs:
NFC/AFC Championships: Pregame coverage
Based on previews provided by networks, there should be some excellent pregame pieces to whet viewers’s appetite before Sunday’s NFC Championship Game between the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers (Fox, 3:05 p.m. ET) and AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts (CBS, 6:40 p.m. ET).
ESPN’s Chris Berman will interview the Seahawks “Legion of Boom” defensive unit during Sunday NFL Countdown (Sunday, 12 p.m. ET). Among them: safety Kam Chancellor, who twice leaped over the Carolina Panthers offensive line during field goal attempts.
Meanwhile, ESPN’s NFL Matchup — the best X’s and O’s football show on TV in my book — will examine how the Seahawks and Patriots can use spy defenders to contain mobile QB’s Aaron Rodgers of the Packers and Andrew Luck of the Colts.
Around the Dial: MLB Network’s Nasty Boys doc
MLB Network will debut Nasty Boys , a new documentary about the 1990 Cincinnati Reds on Jan. 20 (9 p.m. ET). It will focus on the three hard-nosed relievers — Rob Dibble, Randy Myers and Norm Charlton — who helped the Reds sweep the favored American League champion Oakland A’s in the World Series.
“For us, there wasn’t a team we didn’t dislike,” says Dibble in the doc. “It wasn’t just Randy and I and Norm. There were a lot of lunatics on that team.”
Here’s a preview:
Fox Sports 1 announced its inaugural regular-season Major League Soccer (MLS) TV schedule will start Sunday, March 8 with a doubleheader featuring Sporting Kansas City vs. New York Red Bulls (7:00 PM ET), followed by the Seattle Sounders vs. New England Revolution (9:30 PM ET). FS1 network will show 33 games from March through October. Another game will be televised by Fox Sports 2. Most of the matches will kick off on Sunday nights in prime time (7 p.m. ET)…The New York Yankees’ YES Network finished 2014 as the most-watched regional sports network (RSN) for the 11th time in 12 years. YES’ telecast of Derek Jeter’s final home game at Yankee Stadium is believed to be the most-watched program ever by any RSN, averaging 1.25 million viewers.
