What has happened to Premier Boxing Champions?

[lefty]

What has happened to Premier Boxing Champions?

When Al Haymon's series began with massive hype in March 2015, PBC rolled out one fight card after another on numerous networks as part of its extensive time buy. It was almost impossible to keep up with all the fight announcements and the networks they were on -- NBC, CBS, ESPN, NBCSN, Spike, Bounce TV, Fox, FS1. Did I miss any?

Now, it's not so hard at all. In fact, it's easy. There is but one single card on the schedule, and it is nothing to get excited about. It's a weak show on Sept. 27 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on FS1 that is headlined by welterweight Bryant Perrella against Yordenis Ugas. This is not a significant, interesting fight.

Once upon a time, there were often multiple PBC cards per week populated by name fighters; Haymon spent his investors' $500 million lavishly as though it would never run out.

Now it is plainly clear that the war chest has been badly depleted, even though PBC officials are loathe to talk about it.

I regularly examine purse payout sheets from the state commissions, and the PBC fighter purses have dropped substantially from where they were last year. The production costs have also been slashed, which is why the huge stage and the blue-and-red fighter holding areas are gone; it costs a lot to truck them around the country. Other bells and whistles have also been eliminated to save money, according to people involved in producing PBC telecasts.

http://www.espn.com/blog/dan-rafael/pos ... -champions

[jujigatame]

PBC had a lot of promise, but in terms of matchmaking it behaved just like every other promotional outfit, who put on a bunch of garbage showcase cards with a few big fights per year. They must have thought that by appearing so frequently on so many channels, they could reach a critical mass of brand awareness and become the UFC of boxing, but it sure seems like they're gonna run out of money before that happens.

PBC actually reminds me a bit of the Affliction MMA promotion, even though their business models were different. They both made a big splash initially but they were paying their fighters way over market rate and ultimately it wasn't sustainable.

[lefty]

PBC had a lot of promise, but in terms of matchmaking it behaved just like every other promotional outfit, who put on a bunch of garbage showcase cards with a few big fights per year. They must have thought that by appearing so frequently on so many channels, they could reach a critical mass of brand awareness and become the UFC of boxing, but it sure seems like they're gonna run out of money before that happens.

PBC actually reminds me a bit of the Affliction MMA promotion, even though their business models were different. They both made a big splash initially but they were paying their fighters way over market rate and ultimately it wasn't sustainable.

If Haymon would have approached it with the same kind of matchmaking that the UFC showcases the majority of the time, I genuinely think he could have created something special for boxing. Instead he just served up the same old shite he's always done in terms of matchmaking on the whole.

A big part of the problem aswell is that he distorted the market- paying out inflated purses for the likes of Garcia in mismatches. So then what happens is those same guys end up wanting absolutely ridiculous purses for legitimate 50-50 fights.

Can you imagine being one of the people who invested in that fund aswell which has basically been pissed down the toilet.

[boxing_rocks]

[boxing_rocks]

[ElJefe]

It's genuinely a shame that the PBC wasn't able to grow into a UFC type thing for boxing. Even if it didn't get all the top boxers in the world, just going back to one set of rankings with consistent well matched fights would have been great. I think not having any sort of spokesperson or major public figure has been a problem for them. It's difficult to promote fights when there's no promoter. If you look at the UFC, Dana White is constantly in the public eye, whether it's on social media, YouTube or sports talk shows. They're so much more accessible and in touch with fans than the PBC. It's almost like it's up for fighters to promote themselves. You might get the odd 3 minute YouTube video of Thurman, Garcia or Spence telling an interviewer that they think they might have a fight announced soon, but they don't even know who it'll be. Other than that, it feels like nothing is actually happening, until you see an announcement of Danny Garcia vs another over the hill former world champion.

Oh well.

[lefty]

It's genuinely a shame that the PBC wasn't able to grow into a UFC type thing for boxing. Even if it didn't get all the top boxers in the world, just going back to one set of rankings with consistent well matched fights would have been great. I think not having any sort of spokesperson or major public figure has been a problem for them. It's difficult to promote fights when there's no promoter. If you look at the UFC, Dana White is constantly in the public eye, whether it's on social media, YouTube or sports talk shows. They're so much more accessible and in touch with fans than the PBC. It's almost like it's up for fighters to promote themselves. You might get the odd 3 minute YouTube video of Thurman, Garcia or Spence telling an interviewer that they think they might have a fight announced soon, but they don't even know who it'll be. Other than that, it feels like nothing is actually happening, until you see an announcement of Danny Garcia vs another over the hill former world champion.

Oh well.

That's spot on that.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

A Boxing card akin to a UFC card would cost 50 million dollars. The fact of the matter is that Americans don't care about Boxing. There is nothing they could do that would have succeeded. I'm glad they tried, we all know that Boxing will never be big here again.

Edit: Good point about the bizarre secret nature.

[Killer Blow]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

They're at a point where they're supposed to be generating sponsor money and continuing relationships. I imagine Spike is the only place looking to move forward.

[Killer Blow]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

They're at a point where they're supposed to be generating sponsor money and continuing relationships. I imagine Spike is the only place looking to move forward.

If they sort out their matchmaking and their promotion it's still salvageable.

[SFW]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

They're at a point where they're supposed to be generating sponsor money and continuing relationships. I imagine Spike is the only place looking to move forward.

If they sort out their matchmaking and their promotion it's still salvageable.

To who's detriment? Has this promotion not blown enough millions, does it have to lose a billion before everybody agrees it's been a flop?

[gilgamesh]

It's genuinely a shame that the PBC wasn't able to grow into a UFC type thing for boxing. Even if it didn't get all the top boxers in the world, just going back to one set of rankings with consistent well matched fights would have been great. I think not having any sort of spokesperson or major public figure has been a problem for them. It's difficult to promote fights when there's no promoter. If you look at the UFC, Dana White is constantly in the public eye, whether it's on social media, YouTube or sports talk shows. They're so much more accessible and in touch with fans than the PBC. It's almost like it's up for fighters to promote themselves. You might get the odd 3 minute YouTube video of Thurman, Garcia or Spence telling an interviewer that they think they might have a fight announced soon, but they don't even know who it'll be. Other than that, it feels like nothing is actually happening, until you see an announcement of Danny Garcia vs another over the hill former world champion.

Oh well.

If their product was gonna forever be mismatch after mismatch I'm very glad they didn't get any bigger.

[crusader]

Even Al's warriors are getting quiet about PBC these days. I wonder what ReggieDiggs would be posting if he were still around....

[SFW]

Even Al's warriors are getting quiet about PBC these days. I wonder what ReggieDiggs would be posting if he were still around....

Lol good ol' Reggie

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

They're at a point where they're supposed to be generating sponsor money and continuing relationships. I imagine Spike is the only place looking to move forward.

If they sort out their matchmaking and their promotion it's still salvageable.

Not on the networks. Al isn't going to use his own cash. Looks like NBC is pushing their last dates until after Football.

[jujigatame]

Didn't the investors cut back on half of the budget? That's obviously the reason.

I don't think investors "cut back on the budget" as much as the PBC is simply running out of the capital that their investors bought in with.

[crusader]

In May, Bloody Elbow reported on a $925 million lawsuit filed in Kansas City federal court by disgruntled shareholders of funds purportedly invested in the corporate entities of Al Haymon, boxing’s mystery manager and the man behind the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) television series which first aired on Mar. 7, 2015.

That lawsuit was dismissed voluntarily and subsequently taken to Kansas state court along with a change in some of the plaintiffs, but the thrust of the allegations remained the same – that trustees of two Waddell & Reed Financial (Waddell) investment funds, Ivy Asset Strategy and W&R Asset Strategy, permitted and approved purchases of roughly $925 million in private securities in a “start-up and potentially criminal company in the field of professional boxing promotion” in violation of the stated terms of the funds’ prospectuses.

The optics of the deal didn’t look good when Ryan Caldwell, one of the Waddell portfolio managers purportedly involved in brokering the massive alleged investments into Haymon entities, later left the mutual fund firm to become Chief Operating Officer of PBC, an entity allegedly financed by investments he helped facilitate.

According to an Amended Petition recently filed in Kansas state court, in April 2013 the two Waddell funds – Ivy Asset Strategy and W&R Asset Strategy – began investing in Media Group Holdings (MGH), alleged to be “a ‘shell’ holding company owned by the Funds or [Waddell] which, in turn, invested in one more [sic] business entities owned and controlled by Alan Haymon.”

The Amended Petition further alleges that the funds’ trustees knew the risks of their MGH investment, “were prepared to lose it all,” but may have also been given a board seat on Haymon companies to protect their investment.

From the very beginning, PBC’s business model was reportedly to spend money on risky deals in the hopes of earning future high returns. It would undertake time buys to get on television networks such as NBC, NBCSN, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, CBS, FOX, Fox Sports 1, Spike TV, and Bounce – something Caldwell described to Sports Business Daily as being “the irrational player for a while” and “turning the model completely upside down.”

“You have to be capitalized for three to five years to do this,” said Caldwell when Haymon asked for “X” and Caldwell offered “X-plus.”

Well, we’re three years into an experiment whose financing purportedly began in 2013, so how are the alleged investments into Haymon entities doing?



The Amended Petition shows initial investments into MGH totaling $925,339,000. Bloody Elbow has confirmed this total from SEC filings and it appears that the bulk of the investments were made in 2013 with some occurring as late as Jan. 23, 2015.

Using quarterly SEC filings from Dec. 31, 2014 through Jun. 30, 2016, Bloody Elbow has constructed a time series of the fair value of MGH investments which were allegedly used to finance Haymon entities including the PBC.

Think of fair value as a stock price, except MGH and Haymon entities aren’t publicly-traded companies with instantly-available share price quotes. Per SEC filings, Waddell investments into MGH are instead valued “as determined in good faith by the Board or Valuation Committee pursuant to procedures approved by the Board… These methods may require subjective determinations about the value of a security.”



According to SEC filings, the fair value of Waddell’s MGH investments through the Ivy Asset Strategy and W&R Asset Strategy funds has plunged by $624 million over the course of roughly three years from $925 million to $301 million, for an overall return on investment of -67.5%.

From the time initial investments were made through the end of March 2015 – when the first PBC events began airing – the combined value of Waddell’s MGH securities only dropped $136 million. Since then, it’s been a bloodbath in fair value losses, and in the last year from Jun. 30, 2015 – Jun. 30, 2016, Waddell’s MGH investments have been on a $434 million freefall.



Declining valuations do not necessarily represent equivalent earnings losses or negative cash flows, but earnings and cash flows would certainly influence valuations. If Waddell uses a valuation company to analyze its investments in private securities, they likely use, among other things, information such as earnings, cash flows, margins, growth rates, comparable investments, and – in the case of the PBC – viewership numbers to calculate fair value each quarter.

In February, Lance Pugmire of the L.A. Times sampled 10 California and Nevada PBC events and found only $3.9 million in gate revenues to go along with $19.2 million in fighter purses and state fees and wrote, “…the early financial returns suggest Haymon’s business model is not working.”

Now Waddell’s financial returns from MGH investments can be added to the list.



While certain quarters haven’t been nearly as bad as others, the three biggest quarterly declines of over $100 million all came in the last year. [Writer’s Note: The $116.1 million decline for Dec. 31, 2014 is over 20 months of activity since the first investment appears to have been made on Apr. 23, 2013.]

The clear, negative time trend of Waddell’s MGH valuations is the exact opposite of the typical trends for companies with strong future growth or profitability prospects. Even unprofitable companies that burn through investor money every quarter tend to see their valuations increase as future prospects improve. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here, at least not yet.

We’ll find out in October how the third quarter of 2016 played out. Fund trustees were allegedly prepared to “lose it all” according to the Amended Petition, and it’s looking more and more like that might be a very real possibility. Barring a surprise turnaround, by the end of September the value of Waddell’s MGH investments should be in the $200 million range – at or approaching a $700 million drop in value and making the $44 million the Fertitta brothers sunk into the UFC during its unprofitable years look like chump change.

We’re in the midst of perhaps the grandest financial experiment the sport of boxing has ever seen. The numbers involved are staggering, the valuations keep declining, and, to go along with concerns such as inconsistency in fighters and scheduling, there doesn’t seem to be an Ultimate Fighter Finale to help pull a Zuffa-style turn around.

Spike TV President Kevin Kay said in February, “It's premature to have discussions about if this [PBC] will make it after one year.”

With the SEC-documented three-year collapse in the value of investments allegedly used to finance Haymon entities including the PBC, it might be safe to start having some of those discussions now.

[lefty]

That's bloody scandalous lol. I have a feeling those mutual fund managers might be facing some prison time.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Where is Rover? He thinks the PBC is a profit turning machine.

[boxing_rocks]

Where is Rover? He thinks the PBC is a profit turning machine.

He is typing a 1000-line post with 100 links in it. Takes a while.

[crusader]

PBC put out some good stuff, but with such a big talent pool, a load of TV dates, all that money, and an obvious willingess to spend it, it feels like a big letdown. It was nothing at all like the UFC model some suggested it would be.

[BAD INTENTIONS]

MOVED

I don't think people understand how deeply entrenched the negative aspects of boxing business are.
Other sports are fucked up too, but they have significant oversight. Everyone cares about everything that goes in on the NFL.
Even the media people who cover the NFL are celebrities. Boxing is a wasteland for attention, and it shows.

That being said, where to now? I've seen more than a few anti-PBC threads here, but it seems if it weren't for me,
no one would be mentioning the huge S H I T HBO/TR is taking on boxing fans too, possibly more so.
So if the PBC folds fine, but the remaining options are more of the same/worse S H I T.

This isn't a boxing is dead thread, but I think it's time for fans to start realizing that no one cares about the sport.
Money is being taken out of the sport at an alarming rate. Of course, there'll always be fights,
but the response to PBC has been moving more fights to PPV.

It seems like no networks want to carry boxing anymore.
The PBC was such a spoiler considering in my previous 10 years as a boxing fan, what was the best fight on regular tv?
Sergio Mora VS Peter Manfredo? It doesn't matter now because I can afford HBO/Showtime,
But I remember when I couldn't and it sucked.
If it weren't for friends, I wouldn't have been able to watch enough fights to be a fan.
I think boxing is heading back to that state. And much worse this time.

[lefty]

PBC put out some good stuff, but with such a big talent pool, a load of TV dates, all that money, and an obvious willingess to spend it, it feels like a big letdown. It was nothing at all like the UFC model some suggested it would be.

I agree. I was behind it originally and defended it to certain detractors. However it's definietly been disappointing. If you're gonna piss the money up the wall- atleast do it on good fights.

[lefty]

MOVED

I don't think people understand how deeply entrenched the negative aspects of boxing business are.
Other sports are fucked up too, but they have significant oversight. Everyone cares about everything that goes in on the NFL.
Even the media people who cover the NFL are celebrities. Boxing is a wasteland for attention, and it shows.

That being said, where to now? I've seen more than a few anti-PBC threads here, but it seems if it weren't for me,
no one would be mentioning the huge S H I T HBO/TR is taking on boxing fans too, possibly more so.
So if the PBC folds fine, but the remaining options are more of the same/worse S H I T.

This isn't a boxing is dead thread, but I think it's time for fans to start realizing that no one cares about the sport.
Money is being taken out of the sport at an alarming rate. Of course, there'll always be fights,
but the response to PBC has been moving more fights to PPV.

It seems like no networks want to carry boxing anymore.
The PBC was such a spoiler considering in my previous 10 years as a boxing fan, what was the best fight on regular tv?
Sergio Mora VS Peter Manfredo? It doesn't matter now because I can afford HBO/Showtime,
But I remember when I couldn't and it sucked.
If it weren't for friends, I wouldn't have been able to watch enough fights to be a fan.
I think boxing is heading back to that state. And much worse this time.

It's doing okay in the UK and other countries (although it still takes a backseat to football/soccer, etc); in the US though the sport does seem pretty dead though.

The Canadian and Australian scenes seem ultra dead though that said.