Premier Boxing Champions Founder Al Haymon has "aggressively been buying TV time to telecast fight cards as part of a daring strategy to revive the sport by tapping into a new, younger audience," but the "early financial returns suggest Haymon's business model is not working," according to Lance Pugmire of the L.A. TIMES. Haymon over the past year has bought time on NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN and Bounce TV to air PBC cards, while Showtime and Spike TV utilize "more conventional financial arrangements with the TV outlets paying Haymon licensing fees." All told, some 50 PBC telecasts "have appeared on weeknights and on Saturday afternoons and evenings." Kantar Media said that PBC collected $12.5M in "total ad revenue from 27 fight telecasts from March through September, an average of $462,963 per show." PBC also "pocketed some undisclosed license fees from Spike TV for six fight shows telecast during that period." Still, ad revenue for the boxing shows is "paltry considering the costs," such as PBC's $20M deal with NBC. The ad money also "appears to fall short for even lesser time-buy arrangements, like the five CBS Saturday afternoon boxing telecasts" that cost PBC around $300,000 per hour. Showtime Sports Exec VP & GM Stephen Espinoza: "What people have to keep in mind is that this sport has been off network TV for 25 years. You're not going to retrain your audience and your sponsors over nine months." Pugmire notes one piece of "good news for Haymon is that Premier had the four highest-rated prime-time boxing broadcasts of 2015," led by 3.37 million viewers for last March's Keith Thurman-Robert Guerrero fight on NBC. However, viewership for the next three NBC telecasts "shrank, with only 2.18 million watching" the Deontay Wilder-Johann Duhaupas heavyweight title bout in September. Eleven of 15 PBC shows on cable from Sept. 15-Nov. 13 "failed to draw more than 250,000 viewers," which "raises questions about whether Haymon is putting too many boxing shows on TV" (L.A. TIMES, 2/3).
