Not long ago, Premier Boxing Champions was everywhere. It was on NBC, it was on ESPN, it was on CBS, it was on FS1, Spike and NBCSN. It was even on something called Bounce TV.
Now it’s nowhere.
After Tuesday’s fight between welterweights Bryant Perrella and Yordenis Ugas, Premier Boxing Champions has no scheduled bouts for the rest of the year. Here’s what the PBC site says under “upcoming fights.”
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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 loath 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 both 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.
Rafael reports that PBC hopes to get back off the ground in early 2017, with NBC reportedly looking to schedule some fights in January or February. Still, the grand ambition of PBC seems to have faded, and dozens of top-level fighters aligned with PBC find themselves in need of bouts.
[ESPN]
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