HBO Sports Prez won’t admit to promotional partiality
HBO main man and Sports President Ross Greenburg maintains that while he and big-time promoter Golden Boy Promotions honour a partisan business deal, it does not infringe on other promoters in the boxing business.
In a recent interview with boxing expert Dan Rafael, Greenburg said: “The deal we have with Golden Boy does not impact our delivery to other promoters. We buy fights. Golden Boy gets no preferential treatment, I can tell you that point blank.”
The comments were a reference to the well-known fact that HBO and Golden Boy maintain an output deal which guarantees Golden Boy a certain number of broadcasting dates through 2011. In other words, a certain percentage of HBO boxing broadcasts have to feature
Golden Boy promoted fighters, the best of which include legends “Sugar” Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins and Amir Khan.
Golden Boy is the sole boxing promoter to have established such territory with a broadcasting network.
It is unclear if the arrangement entitles Golden Boy to a majority number of broadcasting dates (more than 50 percent), or a smaller figure.
Either way the deal has been roundly criticized by other promoters in the boxing world as unfair business practice. At one point Gary Shaw of Shaw Productions even threatened Golden Boy CEO Oscar De la Hoya he should “get his attorneys and get HBO's attorneys
to discuss how they can avoid an antitrust lawsuit,” implying he would file one.
On the question of favouritism point blank, Greenburg said: "It's just not true. If you ask [Golden Boy CEO] Richard Schaefer, he feels as if he is punished because of that perception. We've done as many fights with Top Rank, Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella. The
deal we have with Golden Boy does not impact our delivery to other promoters.”
Greenburg likewise mentioned to Rafael he looks forward to putting on many great fights in the remaining two months of 2010. Some include Michael Katsidis-Juan Manuel Marquez and Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana.
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