Todd Dubeof: No decision has been made regarding HBO or Show Time

Despite reports that Top Rank was basically packaging their November 12 and December 3 pay-per-view events, Steve Kim spoke to Top Rank President Todd duBoef, who denied that any such package deal was in place"No decision has been made regarding HBO or Show Time for Pacquiao vs Marquez"

The idea of packaging the two pay-per-view events (Pacquiao vs Marquez and Cotto vs Margarito) was an interesting one, as it would have required someone to, in all likelihood, overpay a bit for Cotto vs Margarito.

Kim also reported on Twitter that Top Rank is looking at October 15 for the rematch between Juan Manuel Lopez and Orlando Salido, but that's the date of HBO's PPV headlined by Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson. Whether or not Showtime would want to pay for a Salido vs Lopez fight when they're going to lose a big chunk of a potential audience to an HBO PPV is debatable, but it wouldn't be a shocking little risk to take. Hopkins vs Dawson is destined to bomb on PPV (where everyone agrees it doesn't belong, but it's a budget issue), but even still, that's a night currently occupied by big name fighters. The October 15 date would also prevent HBO from bidding on the Salido vs Lopez rematch, but they just might not have any money available for it anyway.

HBO Offers $15 Million Worth Commercials on Pacquiao - Marquez III

On November 12, Manny Pacquiao will face Juan Manuel Marquez for the third time at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas; that much is known. However, what is still to be decided is just who will handle the pay-per-view broadcast. Will it be Showtime/CBS, which distributed Pacquiao’s last bout versus Shane Mosley, or HBO Pay-Per-View/Time Warner?

The bidding has just begun.

Bob Arum, whose company, Top Rank, handles the “Pac-Man” told Maxboxing on Friday, "All I can tell you is what’s happened; last night we got the proposal from HBO, which frankly, blew [Top Rank President]Todd [DuBoef] and myself away. It’s the most unbelievable proposal for a company wanting to be involved in a pay-per-view that I’ve ever seen. Huge, huge, huge, investment in assets both in Time Warner and outside of Time Warner. Just incredible. I don’t want to get into details but it looked to me like it’s $15 million worth of commercials and that type of thing. It’s being analyzed now by our media buyers. And based on that- and it appears to me to be much bigger than even the great amount that we got from CBS for the last fight- we will take what we have to CBS and see what CBS and Showtime come up with."

When asked if both entities will get one shot to make a pitch or if they will go back-and-forth with counter-offers, Arum said, "I don’t know; we haven’t decided that but that really wouldn’t be fair at all. But at some point, it’s gotta stop. At some point, we’ll say, ’Hey, you take the fight; just give us the money’ and we’ll walk away."

Arum chuckled as he said this because he knows his company and Pacquiao are in a win-win situation here. The decision to move Pacquiao to Showtime’s pay-per-view franchise caused quite the stir back in January. Not only did HBO lose one of the two big bona fide pay-per-view franchises in the sport (alongside Floyd Mayweather) but the new deal had the promise of utilizing other platforms to market the event instead of the stale, formulaic cookie-cutter that Top Rank believed had run its course. In what is now a multi-platform media age, it wasn’t just enough to promote on the network itself. The move to Showtime included their version of “24/7” getting airtime on CBS.

It’s hard to say just how much of a game-changer this was. One could make the argument that any Pacquiao fight would reach a certain benchmark. Others would argue that despite facing an opponent that was thought to have almost no chance of winning, the Mosley event on May 7th did around 1.3-1.4 million pay-per-view buys, the most ever for any Pacquiao promotion.

At the very least, it may have awoken the sleeping giant that was HBO.

"Well, I think we changed the whole nature of the business of promoting boxing on its ear; no question about it," said Arum, who did not deal with Ross Greenburg or Kery Davis, when he met with HBO, but skipped them on the corporate ladder. "Up to this point, HBO’s model was relatively limited to HBO. They did a good job but it was limited to HBO. Of course, that’s how they liked it because if you put the HBO assets against Showtime’s assets, there was really no contest. HBO is bigger, although that gap has narrowed. Now, we’ve brought in CBS and the network exposure that changed everything and now HBO, Time Warner is playing defense and they gotta come up with something to counter it and indeed exceed it- which they’ve done."

The paradigm seems to have shifted and it seems to be more of a two-horse race as it relates to landing the sport’s biggest pay-per-view attractions. Now Top Rank gets to play two media titans against each other. Even Scott Boras would be impressed.

"It’s really closed [the gap]," stated Arum, "and that’s to the tremendous advantage of Top Rank, which first of all, knows what they’re doing as far as marketing a fight and secondly, the ability to interface with both companies."

Source: maxboxing.com

HBO and Showtime Battles To Secure Pacquiao's next Fight

The networks are in a frenzy to secure the pay-per-view rights to Manny Pacquiao's next fight. The Filipino WBO welterweight champion will return on November 12 in a long-awaited trilogy match with Mexican rival Juan Manuel Marquez.

Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, is in the process of receiving very lucrative proposals from both Time Warner/HBO and CBS/Showtime. Pacquiao's last pay-per-view performance, a twelve round unanimous decision over Shane Mosley in May, generated his highest pay-per-view buyrate figures to date. Pacquiao-Mosley is estimated to have received between 1.3 to 1.4 million pay-per-view purchases.

Additionally, Pacquiao's last pay-per-view was handled by HBO's rival, Showtime, who used their parent company CBS to secure a deal with Top Rank. CBS aired promotional spots for the event, and episodes of the Pacquiao/Mosley Fight Camp 360 reality series.

To prevent another Showtime coup, HBO is bringing out the heavy guns by involving their parent company Time Warner.

"We are in the process of getting our proposals from HBO's Time Warner and CBS/Showtime, and I must say, that there is a frenzy. It's unbelievable. They're offering for the promotion an incredible amount of support. Like I've never seen before. We estimate that CBS, that their support was worth about $10 million on the open market for the last fight [Pacquiao-Mosley.] And both HBO and CBS/Showtime are way above that now," Arum told BoxingScene.com.

This time around, Arum believes the proposals will be worth around $15 million - based on early estimations.

"[Media expert] Mary Kleka is pricing it out right now, but based on looking at it, it looks to me to be close to $15 million, but I won't have an actual number until the end of the day as to what the real value is. These things have a value based on what they can be bought in the market place for," Arum said.

"I know what Showtime's numbers were last time, and they were over $10 million after Mary priced it out. We're dealing with CBS/Showtime together. Last time, we did it in the spring, and this time, we're in the fall, which is right in the heart of football. And CBS has all of the big college football games on Saturdays, and CBS has a channel of college sports that runs the smaller games throughout the day, and they have Sunday football, so those spots are extraordinarily expensive."

Top Rank will receive the proposal from Time Warner/HBO shortly, and Arum expects to have the proposal from CBS/Showtime by next week.

"We will have the HBO/Time Warner proposal first, and go to CBS/Showtime to get their proposal, which we will have next week," Arum said. "This will be the most incredible marketing plan and publicity plan ever for an event in history. Any event. The estimate of the $15 million that is being analyzed by media experts as we speak. God knows what number this can be. We're really excited on this one."

The 79-year-old promoter admits to being blown away by the high paced pursuit by both networks to secure the next Pacquiao pay-per-view.

"It's unprecedented. CBS/Showtime has not been finalized yet, but with HBO/Time Warner coming in, I tell you that they're making everything that came before look very small," Arum said.

"We're in the process now of making a decision within the next week. HBO blew us over last night with its proposal. We're not dealing with the sports department. We're dealing directly with the chief executives. I never believed that they would come up with anything like this."