Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum had some less than kind words to say about HBO Boxing this week following their event last weekend in Las Vegas for the Golovkin vs Canelo 2 fight.
Arum was outspoken on Sirius FM on the quality of the telecast produced as it left fans waiting for almost two hours from when the undercard ended to when the main fight between GGG and Canelo Alvarez started.
Fans took to social media to voice their discontent on what was happening and Arum agreed with them.
Arum’s Top Rank were once long time partners with HBO in the past but nowadays have moved on to ESPN and ESPN+ in the more modern live streaming world where boxing fans now want to watch their fight action.
Indeed, ESPN announced today that they had passed over the 1 million subscriber mark for paying customers of their app in their first five months.
An impressive achievement indeed.
They cover a wide range of sports so boxing cannot be the only one thanked for this stunning success, but it does bode well for boxing knowing that Arum and Top Rank’s fights will be cross promoted to such a huge and quickly growing audience of American sports fans moving forward.
Speaking on Arum’s criticism of HBO last weekend, Golden Boy Promotions head man Oscar De La Hoya who promoted the event disagreed with Arum:
What are you talking about Bob? @HBOboxing is the strongest brand in boxing today, pulls in the best ratings bar none. @StephenEspinoza is doing good things at showtime as well. #whowatchesESPN+
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) September 20, 2018
HBO has long been an established brand in US boxing over the years to be fair.
Time will tell what the future holds for the gigantic American network within the sport of boxing specifically though.
A sport that now has huge competition from networks and platforms in not just the US, but worldwide.
