The PBC don’t recognise Terence Crawford or the WBO in any of their Fox/Showtime broadcasts.
Bob Arum was demanding a 50-50 split for the purses, promotion & network coverage in order to stage a potential Crawford-Spence Jr. fight, despite the fact that Bud’s commercial worth, in terms of audience figures, PPV buys, revenue generation, sporting accomplishments at 147lbs, is nowhere near Errol’s. It’s not even close. So Top Rank are pricing themselves out of big fights.
Also, the PBC roster at 147lbs can achieve big numbers, commercially, by facing their stablemates within the same weight class, as well as those competing at 140lbs and 154lbs.
In stark contrast, Terence Crawford has no viable options at welterweight. Top Rank can’t make the big fights happen.
To make matters worse, Bob Arum has done his upmost to ridicule and criticise Al Haymon in the media, which achieves nothing but burn bridges, scuppering the possibility of certain bouts being made!
The Top Rank boss had also previously filed a frivolous lawsuit against the PBC chief (alleging that Haymon had violated the federal Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act) that was quickly dismissed by the judge before the case even reached court and then Bob subsequently dropped the appeal.
And let’s be perfectly honest, if beating the likes of Spence Jr., Pacquiao, Thurman, Porter & Garcia were high on Terence Crawford’s list of priorities, he wouldn’t have recently extended his contract with Bob Arum’s Top Rank. Bud must have surely known that not signing with the PBC would limit his opportunities. The American obviously preferred to cash in Top Rank/ESPN’s cheques rather than engage in legacy bouts.
There are no compelling sporting or commercial reasons for any of the big-name PBC guys to consider facing Terence Crawford, because the ESPN fighter doesn’t generate a lot of money and his sporting credentials at 147lbs aren’t impressive either.
Simply put, the PBC and Top Rank won’t work with each other (to stage bouts between their biggest names) unless mega-money is involved. The same rule generally applies (barring a few exceptions) with Top Rank and DAZN, as well as the PBC and DAZN.
These boxing content providers will be reluctant to work with each other if they have to share the proceeds of staging marquee events (involving cross-promotional/cross-network fighters) with their business rivals.
Everything I’ve written in this post has been well-documented by the media numerous times.
I believe that fight fans prefer to ignore the commercial aspect of boxing, because it’s not a particularly interesting topic, despite it being the most influential factor preventing certain high-profile fights from being made.
