Al Haymon’s PBC Destined To Fail?

Al Haymon created the Premier Boxing Champions televised series to offer professional boxing entertainment to the public with hopes to rebuild the sport’s popularity and prestige. But also there were selfish motives behind the grand enterprise – Haymon wants to monopolize and run the sport as a dictator figure. This is not a secret to insiders or astute ring observer – it’s a fact that Al Haymon wants to run and rule the sport. With hundreds of millions of cash backing Haymon he set sail and for about a year has televised dozens of boxing shows on NBC Spike ESPN etc. While many fans are pleased with the free TV boxing match-ups that only include Haymon-controlled B side and C level fighters, the entire operation has to be considered a failure. Because despite the fancy packaging and well produced boxing telecasts, the initiative has failed to create any new superstars. In a sense, Haymon is still right where he started – despite spending over $400 million (according to some reports) on bought network time, payouts to talent, advertising and promo, associated expenses, etc., Haymon still does not have a single new boxing superstar that he can reliably promote and sell to the public for profit. And no matter how much money he has to play with, without a superstar boxer his leverage is limited and his power to control the sport is severely minimized. Boxing is a star driven sport and it’s the boxing stars and the people who control those stars who are the ones with the most muscle in the business. For years Haymon has been able to ride the coattails of Floyd Mayweather and use the leverage of controlling Floyd’s career as his route to become a major player in boxing. Now with Floyd out of the picture, Haymon has lost his power and leverage and in a sense has been demoted to the minor leagues operating his minor PBC shows which he’s paying out of his own (investor’s) pocket to “give” to people “free” boxing. While the current exciting stars of the sport – Golovkin, Kovalev, Pacquiao, Klitschko, Fury, etc (all outside of PBC) – are generating revenues and buzz because the public wants to pay to see them fight. If Haymon can’t somehow find a way to manufacture or produce a superstar fighter who the public clamors for and WANTS to pay to see fight in the next few months before his investor money runs out, he and his well-intentioned PBC endeavor is destined for failure. -Scoop Malinowski (Las Vegas silk mosaic Artwork by Prince Duncan Williams: Princesilkcreations.com)