Kayla HarrisonJoe Faraoni / ESPN Images
ESPN
Distribution: Linear television (ESPN, ESPN2), direct to consumer (ESPN+), pay-per-view (direct to consumer through ESPN+ with UFC, joint deals with linear providers with Top Rank)
Promotions: UFC, Top Rank, Pro Fighters League
Attractions: Conor McGregor, Jon “Bones” Jones, Amanda Nunes, Kayla Harrison, Terence Crawford, Vasiliy Lomachenko, Tyson Fury
After years as the de facto campfire for boxing fans through its “Friday Night Fights” show, but with few high-level fights to go along with it, ESPN dove headlong into combat sports in the past two years, first signing long-tenured boxing promotion Top Rank to an exclusive deal and then wresting exclusive rights to the UFC from competitor Fox. The two deals provided the heft and the transactional-oriented consumer base that the network needed to launch its now surging ESPN+ direct-to-consumer service, which recently eclipsed 3.5 million U.S. homes. ESPN added still more heft to its combat menu with the addition of the Professional Fighters League, which includes judo gold medalist Kayla Harrison. Still to be seen is whether the network can migrate the UFC fan base to its pay service and get them to click on its pay-per-views, and whether the strategy of moving Top Rank’s fighters up and down the ladder from basic cable to ESPN+ and to pay-per-view fosters the development of stars in a sport starved of them at the moment.
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Fox
Distribution: Over-the-air (Fox), linear (FS1), pay-per-view (through linear providers and direct to consumer through the Fox Sports app)
Promotions: Premier Boxing Champions
Attractions: Deontay Wilder, Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter
With the UFC bound for ESPN, Fox moved its combat resources to the scripted WWE and to boxing, where it placed its bet on Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions. The PBC not only offered programming heft through the deepest roster of fighters in the sport but also had spent the previous three years growing its fighters’ profiles across broadly distributed television, often through proof-of-concept time buys. Fox is all in on the PBC, dedicating 10 Saturday nights annually on big Fox to offer fighters the greatest visibility available and a dozen slots on FS1 to expose young fighters. And then there’s pay-per-view, which Fox entered this year, optimistic that it will be a strong revenue generator, especially now that the UFC has cleared the decks by going direct to consumer with its PPV shows. With the title of the world’s most-bankable pay-per-view star up for grabs, Fox is banking on the PBC filling the void, and likley hoping it lands on Deontay Wilder.
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Showtime
Distribution: Linear television (Showtime), direct to consumer app, linear pay-per-view
Promotions: Premier Boxing Champions
Attractions: Mikey Garcia, Gervonta “Tank” Davis, Adrian Broner, along with occasional access to stars who appeared on Fox and Fox pay-per-view in the past year — all of whom fought on Showtime previously
The disruption wrought by Al Haymon’s play for a network rights deal was especially hard on his premium cable outlet, Showtime, which often saw the stars who had appeared on its air used as bait to attract viewers to NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN. For decades, Showtime and HBO slugged it out as the home of the sport’s biggest names — Leonard and Hagler and Tyson and Mayweaher and the rest of them. HBO is out now. Fox is in, doing business with Premier Boxing Champions across its platforms. So where does premium cable fit in this new environment? Showtime points to a recent survery that shows 81% of those who identify as following boxing “very or somewhat closely” subscribe to a premium channel and half subscribe to Showtime. It’s clear that Showtime wants — and expects — more marquee PBC fights on its air. We should get a better feel for whether that will happen as 2020 unfolds.
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DAZN
Distribution: Direct to consumer only, available through monthly and annual subscriptions
Promotions: Golden Boy Promotions, Matchroom Boxing USA, Bellator MMA
Attractions: Canelo Alvarez, Gennady Golovkin, Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk, Cris Cyborg
While Al Haymon’s move to broadly distributed television shook up the market for fighters and fights, no development has been more disruptive than the launch of DAZN, the streaming service that announced its presence in North America by signing the sport’s only big-ticket pay-per-view attraction, Alvarez, to a $365 million contract — and then taking him off pay-per-view. DAZN’s core value proposition is that you can see Alvarez fight there twice a year for less than it costs you to buy two pay-per-views, and get lots of other combat content and some other sports on top of it. To further strengthen its pitch, DAZN added Golovkin and Joshua, two more of the sport’s reigning established stars. Still to be seen is whether U.S. fight fans will pay $99 to keep the service year-round when they can sign up to see Alvarez, Golovkin or Joshua in any given month for $20 and then cancel. The latter is not DAZN’s business model. The streamer also has a foot in MMA through a deal to carry seven Bellator cards exclusively and simulcast 15 others.
