BOXING : Free Shows Aren’t Free to Networks

Network television boxing is in trouble.

NBC will be all but out of the boxing business in 1991. The sport is unprofitable for CBS and only moderately profitable for ABC.

You have to look beneath the most visible numbers, the ratings, to understand why boxing might disappear from network TV in the next few years.

Last Saturday’s NBC telecast of the Tony Lopez-Jorge Paez fight from Sacramento, on a busy TV sports day, had a 3.9 rating, which means it was seen in about 3,630,900 households. On the same day, CBS’ Pittsburgh-St. Louis baseball telecast drew a 3.0 and CBS’ college football was a 3.7. ABC’s UCLA-Michigan game was a 4.6 and Notre Dame-Michigan State was 7.8.

Historically, network boxing has gotten comparatively high ratings. Generally, more viewers watch network boxing than, say, regular-season NBA games, golf and tennis.

So what’s the problem? Simply, the networks frequently lose money on boxing, and that can mean only one thing down the road: Less free boxing, more cable and pay-per-view shows.

“NBC lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with the Lopez-Paez telecast,” said Kevin Monaghan, the network’s boxing coordinator.

“It’s very frustrating. The boxing viewers are there, but the advertisers aren’t. Next year, we’re going from 17 1990 boxing dates to two. The president of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersole, is a boxing fan, but he’s told me that boxing’s got to show a profit for us.”

At the heart of boxing’s tough-sell problems with advertisers, Monaghan said, is the sport itself.

“Boxing is a poorly run sport. There are a half dozen governing bodies, a million championships . . . and that stuff that went on in Tokyo after Tyson-Douglas (a perception that Don King and Jose Sulaiman were conspiring to overturn the result, Douglas’ surprising victory) . . . all that stuff just turns advertisers off.”

Also, Monaghan said, marginally profitable TV sports, such as boxing, are under more pressure today to operate in the black.

“In the old days, when the networks made so much money on the major events like football, basketball and baseball, no one much cared if boxing lost a little money,” he said. “Now, with the possibility we may even lose some money with the major sports, boxing simply can’t lose money for us.”

The plug hasn’t been pulled, though, Monaghan said. “I’m scrambling. I’m trying to figure out a way I can make boxing work for us. I’m talking to Barry Hearn, a European boxing promoter, who has an idea how we can tie in with European telecasts and do much better. I think you’ll see American boxing promoters looking to Europe, where there is much more boxing TV money.”

Cable boxing, such as ESPN’s weekly show, is thought to be profitable, because advertising rates are much lower than for network shows. Also, boxers’ purses are much smaller on cable shows. A spokesman Friday called ESPN’s boxing show “solidly profitable.”

Next year, ABC will drop slightly, from 17 boxing shows to about 15. Boxing is “moderately profitable” for ABC, a spokesman said. CBS will move up from eight 1990 shows to 12, despite losing money on the sport in 1990.

“We almost broke even,” said CBS boxing coordinator Rick Gentile. “If it weren’t for Budweiser, which buys about 25% to 30% of our advertising time, I don’t know where we’d be. We have a very solid relationship with Budweiser, but beyond that boxing is a very hard sell.”

Rafael Ruelas, Ten Goose Boxing’s unbeaten featherweight, isn’t far away from $50,000-per-fight paydays, his manager, Dan Goossen, said last week.

That may be, but until someone teaches him how to throw a left jab he’d be well advised to have another 15 or 20 $500 fights first. In the estimation of many at ringside last Saturday in Sacramento, Ruelas’ stock dipped a bit when he struggled with Felipe De Jesus on the undercard of the Lopez-Paez fight.

Ruelas 21-0 and a rare talent, had De Jesus down in the third round and stopped him in the seventh, but some had him behind on points after six. Ruelas was repeatedly hit with wild left hands by the left-handed De Jesus, a problem he would have avoided with the stiff jab he’d shown in earlier performances.

Boxing Notes

With the postponement of the super-bantamweight title fight between champion Paul Banke and Daniel Zaragoza, it now looks as if Banke will meet No. 1 WBA super-bantamweight contender Pedro Decima of Argentina at the Forum Nov. 5. Banke and Zaragoza were scheduled to fight there Oct. 8 but Zaragoza is ill. . . . Humberto Gonzalez, WBC light-flyweight champion, is nursing a sore hand but is penciled in for a Forum bout in December, opponent to be named.

Don Chargin, who promoted the California-record $601,000 Lopez-Paez fight in Sacramento last Saturday, said that Lopez passed a second turning point by beating Paez. “The first came when he knocked out Tony Pep in March, 1988,” Chargin said. “Tony and his dad had been after me then to get them a fight with Rocky Lockridge, but I held them off for a year because I didn’t think he was ready for Lockridge. But the night he beat Pep, Tony became a real fighter. . . .” Lopez has moved near $1-million purses, which he could earn for moving to lightweight and fighting undisputed champion Pernell Whitaker.

Crowd counts: The Lopez-Paez crowd, 15,008, was well short of a California record. By comparison, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mexican hero Ruben Olivares four times put more than 17,000 in the Forum, the topper a 19,200 crowd for a 1972 doubleheader featuring Olivares and Rafael Herrera and Enrique Pinder vs. Chucho Castillo.

Friends of 1984 Olympic heavyweight champion Henry Tillman honored him at a banquet this week at the Compton Ramada. . . . Word is that WBC bantamweight champion Rafael Perez was rewarded with a rubber check after his disputed draw with Pepillo Valdez at Culiacan, Mexico, Sept. 20. Nacho Huizar, Perez’s manager, said he followed the promoter around until 3 a.m., when he was given a $59,000 check, which bounced. A second check was issued, which also bounced. The third check was good.

The not-very-busy Tony Tucker, still regarded by many as one of boxing’s most talented heavyweights, has dropped his father from his management team, according to Tucker’s promoter, Ed Bell. Virtually every promoter who has dealt with the Tuckers has said that Robert Tucker, the fighter’s father, hurt his son’s career with countless contract problems. Robert Tucker was given a $35,000 check, it’s said, and went home to Detroit.