via Sports Business Journal
Boxing’s grand new stage
How Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions has raised the stakes
By Bill King, Senior Writer
The most powerful man in boxing and the former mutual fund manager who delivered him more than $425 million in institutional capital share a chuckle when they think back to the meeting that started them down the path to prime time on NBC.
Al Haymon had a big, bold and unprecedented idea to bring the sport that once minted icons back into mainstream conversation.
Already the manager of about 50 fighters including Floyd Mayweather, Haymon was on his way to more than tripling his stable, creating enough heft that he could put together a steady stream of credible matchups in most weight classes.
The series has invested about $2 million on lighting and elaborate visuals to put on a show that mirrors its grand ambitions.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
But that was only the start of his plan.
Haymon wanted to match those fighters under a consistent, singular brand that would distinguish them from the hodgepodge of boxing scattered across the television grid. And he wanted to do it on the broadly distributed networks that sports fans turn to for the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, most of which had abandoned the sport more than 20 years ago.
So it was that Haymon, his longtime attorney Mike Ring and Waddell & Reed fund manager Ryan Caldwell found themselves across from NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus and Jon Miller, president of programming, late in 2013, discussing a plan that would showcase Haymon’s fighters on the network on weekend afternoons and Saturday nights.
NBC was more likely to shear the feathers from its peacock than it was to pay for a boxing series. But Haymon wasn’t suggesting a rights fee. Instead, it was Haymon who was willing to write a sizable check to NBC. But he wanted more than the traditional time-buy, where the network would take his money and wish him well.
Haymon wanted NBC Sports to not only air his series, eventually to be labeled Premier Boxing Champions, but to bless it. He wanted it produced by NBC, using front-line talent, with features and vignettes like those that are the hallmark of its Olympics coverage. He wanted the network to help promote the series across its assets.
And he wanted the best fights he could make to air in prime time.
It was an audacious request. And an expensive one.
This is why Haymon brought Caldwell.
As he laid out his plan, which would include not only NBC but other broadly distributed networks, it became clear that Haymon’s company might have to bleed upward of $100 million — and perhaps two or three times that much — as it built a brand and an audience, a proof-of-concept phase that would then enable him to cash in on the rights fees that continue to trend upward across sports.
Caldwell was there to show NBC that Haymon Boxing had the wherewithal to not only launch the PBC, but sustain
The March 7 series debut, featuring Keith Thurman and Robert Guerrero, attracted more than 4 million viewers to NBC.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
it, with the pledge of upward of $425 million from a $40 billion fund that he co-managed for Waddell & Reed, the same fund that had invested about $1.5 billion in Formula One.
For all that Haymon brought to the meeting in terms of vision, it was Caldwell who had what NBC needed to see that day.
“We laugh about it today,” said Caldwell, who eventually left Waddell & Reed to join Haymon as chief operating officer of the PBC. “Here is Al, who is legitimately successful multiple times over, the most powerful guy in the sport by a long shot, and the only thing they cared about initially was: Is the money real? That was where it all had to start.
“Putting the peacock up for this was a really, really big deal. So I was there to say: Here is our investment case.
Here is why Waddell is behind this and involved.”
The idea and funding behind the most important development to hit the boxing business since in-home pay-per-view have remained largely a mystery around the sport, mostly because the man behind it won’t discuss them publicly.
Haymon, a 59-year-old Harvard Business School graduate who built a successful concert promotion business that eventually included most of the major tours in R&B, does not grant interviews.
With Haymon’s approval, however, Caldwell and Reed agreed to discuss the venture with SportsBusiness Journal, but declined to reveal financials. The investment detailed in this story came from the most recent quarterly portfolio list of the fund Caldwell co-managed, Ivy Asset Strategy Fund, which included among its holdings an investment that those familiar with the deal confirmed was Haymon Boxing: Media Group Holdings LLC, Series H.
Ivy Asset Strategy’s holdings list included a $371.3 million investment in the company. A second Waddell fund, WRA Asset Strategy, listed an investment of $42.2 million. A third fund, Ivy Funds VIP Asset Strategy, showed holdings of $18.5 million. Together they invested $432 million. It is likely other funds run by Waddell also have invested, a source familiar with fund management said, although their positions likely would be smaller.
Between the deep-pocketed funding source, the accumulation of compelling fighters and the willingness to present the sport in a fresh way and market it in a consistent manner, Lazarus and Miller saw enough to consider exploring the matter further.
NBC bolstered the big-event feel by using Al Michaels and Suger Ray Leonard.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
Eventually, they reached a complex two-year agreement in which Haymon would pay handsomely for air time but NBC would invest as well, paying for some of the production costs, delivering Al Michaels, Marv Albert and Sugar Ray Leonard as on-air talent, and providing promotional assets.
Not long after that, the other TV dominos began to fall: a deal with CBS and Showtime to deliver even more major network exposure, with Spike to reach males 18-34, with ESPN/ABC to cement credibility with avid sports fans and with BounceTV to reach African-Americans.
The PBC’s debut telecast on NBC, a prime-time show headlined by Keith Thurman defeating Robert Guerrero in Las Vegas on the first weekend in March, averaged 4 million viewers during the main event, making it the largest U.S. audience for the sport since 1998 and, more importantly, winning Saturday night for NBC among viewers 18-49.
The second PBC on NBC telecast, featuring Danny Garcia’s victory against Lamont Peterson in Brooklyn on April 11, saw the main event average fall to 3.3 million but again deliver Saturday night for NBC among 18-49s, even though Fox’s prime-time NASCAR telecast drew a larger overall audience.
In between, the PBC debuted on Spike on a Friday night with a main event average of 989,000 viewers and on CBS on a Saturday afternoon with a main event average of 1.64 million viewers.
To put that in perspective, in only four tries, the PBC produced the three most watched boxing telecasts of the last 12 months, with one of them more than doubling the audience for the most watched fight on premium cable leader HBO and the other tripling it.
On the morning of the PBC’s debut show, Ring and Caldwell sat side by side in a meeting room in the bowels of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, explaining the creation of the PBC and Haymon’s road map for its future.
“An entire world of boxing has been built on short money,” said Ring, who has worked alongside Haymon for 15 years. “What can I get out of this fight and what can I get for a couple of weeks after that? And no one ever looked past it. Because when you look past it, it’s daunting. It’s a daunting investment. But when you get past short to medium to long money, it gets exciting.
“Real exciting.”
Boxing’s grand new stage
How Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions has raised the stakes
By Bill King, Senior Writer
The most powerful man in boxing and the former mutual fund manager who delivered him more than $425 million in institutional capital share a chuckle when they think back to the meeting that started them down the path to prime time on NBC.
Al Haymon had a big, bold and unprecedented idea to bring the sport that once minted icons back into mainstream conversation.
Already the manager of about 50 fighters including Floyd Mayweather, Haymon was on his way to more than tripling his stable, creating enough heft that he could put together a steady stream of credible matchups in most weight classes.
The series has invested about $2 million on lighting and elaborate visuals to put on a show that mirrors its grand ambitions.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
But that was only the start of his plan.
Haymon wanted to match those fighters under a consistent, singular brand that would distinguish them from the hodgepodge of boxing scattered across the television grid. And he wanted to do it on the broadly distributed networks that sports fans turn to for the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, most of which had abandoned the sport more than 20 years ago.
So it was that Haymon, his longtime attorney Mike Ring and Waddell & Reed fund manager Ryan Caldwell found themselves across from NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus and Jon Miller, president of programming, late in 2013, discussing a plan that would showcase Haymon’s fighters on the network on weekend afternoons and Saturday nights.
NBC was more likely to shear the feathers from its peacock than it was to pay for a boxing series. But Haymon wasn’t suggesting a rights fee. Instead, it was Haymon who was willing to write a sizable check to NBC. But he wanted more than the traditional time-buy, where the network would take his money and wish him well.
Haymon wanted NBC Sports to not only air his series, eventually to be labeled Premier Boxing Champions, but to bless it. He wanted it produced by NBC, using front-line talent, with features and vignettes like those that are the hallmark of its Olympics coverage. He wanted the network to help promote the series across its assets.
And he wanted the best fights he could make to air in prime time.
It was an audacious request. And an expensive one.
This is why Haymon brought Caldwell.
As he laid out his plan, which would include not only NBC but other broadly distributed networks, it became clear that Haymon’s company might have to bleed upward of $100 million — and perhaps two or three times that much — as it built a brand and an audience, a proof-of-concept phase that would then enable him to cash in on the rights fees that continue to trend upward across sports.
Caldwell was there to show NBC that Haymon Boxing had the wherewithal to not only launch the PBC, but sustain
The March 7 series debut, featuring Keith Thurman and Robert Guerrero, attracted more than 4 million viewers to NBC.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
it, with the pledge of upward of $425 million from a $40 billion fund that he co-managed for Waddell & Reed, the same fund that had invested about $1.5 billion in Formula One.
For all that Haymon brought to the meeting in terms of vision, it was Caldwell who had what NBC needed to see that day.
“We laugh about it today,” said Caldwell, who eventually left Waddell & Reed to join Haymon as chief operating officer of the PBC. “Here is Al, who is legitimately successful multiple times over, the most powerful guy in the sport by a long shot, and the only thing they cared about initially was: Is the money real? That was where it all had to start.
“Putting the peacock up for this was a really, really big deal. So I was there to say: Here is our investment case.
Here is why Waddell is behind this and involved.”
The idea and funding behind the most important development to hit the boxing business since in-home pay-per-view have remained largely a mystery around the sport, mostly because the man behind it won’t discuss them publicly.
Haymon, a 59-year-old Harvard Business School graduate who built a successful concert promotion business that eventually included most of the major tours in R&B, does not grant interviews.
With Haymon’s approval, however, Caldwell and Reed agreed to discuss the venture with SportsBusiness Journal, but declined to reveal financials. The investment detailed in this story came from the most recent quarterly portfolio list of the fund Caldwell co-managed, Ivy Asset Strategy Fund, which included among its holdings an investment that those familiar with the deal confirmed was Haymon Boxing: Media Group Holdings LLC, Series H.
Ivy Asset Strategy’s holdings list included a $371.3 million investment in the company. A second Waddell fund, WRA Asset Strategy, listed an investment of $42.2 million. A third fund, Ivy Funds VIP Asset Strategy, showed holdings of $18.5 million. Together they invested $432 million. It is likely other funds run by Waddell also have invested, a source familiar with fund management said, although their positions likely would be smaller.
Between the deep-pocketed funding source, the accumulation of compelling fighters and the willingness to present the sport in a fresh way and market it in a consistent manner, Lazarus and Miller saw enough to consider exploring the matter further.
NBC bolstered the big-event feel by using Al Michaels and Suger Ray Leonard.
Photo by: Suzanne Teresa
Eventually, they reached a complex two-year agreement in which Haymon would pay handsomely for air time but NBC would invest as well, paying for some of the production costs, delivering Al Michaels, Marv Albert and Sugar Ray Leonard as on-air talent, and providing promotional assets.
Not long after that, the other TV dominos began to fall: a deal with CBS and Showtime to deliver even more major network exposure, with Spike to reach males 18-34, with ESPN/ABC to cement credibility with avid sports fans and with BounceTV to reach African-Americans.
The PBC’s debut telecast on NBC, a prime-time show headlined by Keith Thurman defeating Robert Guerrero in Las Vegas on the first weekend in March, averaged 4 million viewers during the main event, making it the largest U.S. audience for the sport since 1998 and, more importantly, winning Saturday night for NBC among viewers 18-49.
The second PBC on NBC telecast, featuring Danny Garcia’s victory against Lamont Peterson in Brooklyn on April 11, saw the main event average fall to 3.3 million but again deliver Saturday night for NBC among 18-49s, even though Fox’s prime-time NASCAR telecast drew a larger overall audience.
In between, the PBC debuted on Spike on a Friday night with a main event average of 989,000 viewers and on CBS on a Saturday afternoon with a main event average of 1.64 million viewers.
To put that in perspective, in only four tries, the PBC produced the three most watched boxing telecasts of the last 12 months, with one of them more than doubling the audience for the most watched fight on premium cable leader HBO and the other tripling it.
On the morning of the PBC’s debut show, Ring and Caldwell sat side by side in a meeting room in the bowels of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, explaining the creation of the PBC and Haymon’s road map for its future.
“An entire world of boxing has been built on short money,” said Ring, who has worked alongside Haymon for 15 years. “What can I get out of this fight and what can I get for a couple of weeks after that? And no one ever looked past it. Because when you look past it, it’s daunting. It’s a daunting investment. But when you get past short to medium to long money, it gets exciting.
“Real exciting.”
to Allah Haymon for taking this risk...I am going to be interested in what happens when the 2 year deal with NBC is up. Will NBC be willing to pay for PBC instead of getting paid for it?
good read.
