Boxing promoter Top Rank will move forward with its antitrust suit against Premier Boxing Champions founder Al Haymon, even after a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed its initial complaint for failing to show how it was injured and tossed out all claims against the $40 billion mutual fund backing Haymon’s audacious play.
In an Oct. 16 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge John Walter gave Top Rank until Oct. 30 to amend its complaint to show more specifically not only how Haymon’s conduct during the launch of a series now airing on most major sports networks constitutes antitrust, but how Top Rank was damaged financially by it.
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Promoter Top Rank sued Al Haymon, founder of the Premier Boxing Champions series.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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Walter also dismissed Top Rank’s claims against Waddell & Reed, which manages the mutual funds that provided Haymon upward of $400 million to launch the PBC, ruling that the investment firm was as a matter of law incapable of conspiring with Haymon, closing the door on further claims against Waddell.
In a 24-page ruling, Walter said that while Top Rank’s initial complaint did point out practices that the court might look at more closely, none of the instances specifically mentioned in the lawsuit directly involved Top Rank, and those that did weren’t supported sufficiently to survive Haymon’s attorneys’ motion to dismiss.
“Without any additional factual allegations, the Court cannot determine whether Top Rank has alleged an injury-in-fact,” Walter wrote, “let alone whether that injury flows from that which makes the conduct unlawful.”
Top Rank attorney Daniel Petrocelli said last week that he will amend the complaint to meet the judge’s requests. Attorneys representing Haymon would not comment beyond what they have said in court documents.
“Many of the allegations are there to demonstrate that this isn’t just a grievance that Top Rank has but this is an issue that affects the entire competitive landscape,” said Petrocelli, a partner in O’Melveny & Myers’ Century City, Calif., office. “What the judge is indicating is that he would like to learn more about how the conduct of the defendants has impacted Top Rank. That’s what we will endeavor to describe, in addition to other issues the judge identified.”
Among the points raised in the ruling was Top Rank’s curious choice to allege anti-competitive practices that harmed other promoters without ever contending that those same practices damaged its own business.
In alleging “tie-out” agreements that blocked most promoters from putting on events involving fighters managed by Haymon, Top Rank cited only one example: the refusal to allow Roc Nation to promote a WBO-ordered fight featuring Haymon-managed middleweight Peter Quillin.
In charging that Haymon blocked other promoters from using the nation’s more attractive boxing venues, Top Rank pointed to a date on which Golden Boy Promotions and Banner Promotions were unable to secure the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.
In accusing Haymon and the PBC of what it termed “payola practices” stemming from its time buys on most of the major networks, Top Rank did not raise any examples of a network denying to air one of its shows because it had committed to telecast the PBC.
That may prove to be a particularly difficult claim for Top Rank to prove, since the promoter did barely any business with any of those networks before the PBC came along earlier this year.
Of more than 40 fight cards that Top Rank promoted in 2014, only one aired on a network that since has picked up the PBC. That telecast — a show on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights” series in 2014 — was an anomaly, a loss-leader placed there as a means to promote a Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view the following night on HBO.
“Top Rank has failed to allege how it has been injured by the alleged conduct,” Walter wrote. “Indeed, it has not identified a single bout that it has attempted to promote but was precluded from promoting by the Haymon Defendants, a single venue from which it has been blocked, or a single network that has refused to broadcast a fight promoted by Top Rank.”
