(Sport) Boxing: Is Al Haymon's boxing empire unravelling?

As things currently stand, Al Haymon is by far the most powerful man in the sport of boxing but with his NBC outfit Premier Boxing Champions bleeding money, Waddell and Reed (his financial backers) in turmoil, and rival promoters taking turns to file damaging and costly antitrust lawsuits against him, it seems like it's a matter of time before Haymon's dream of bringing order to the chaotic sport of boxing unravels in the most dramatic fashion possible. 

However, you won't get far betting against possibly the most skilled and ruthless business figure in American sports who has so far managed to successfully get a dying American institution back on TV after years in the wilderness and snap up its most promising stars which has made him one of the most polarizing figures in a sport full of them. 

When you look at most American sports, they're highly centralized and regulated in just about every facet of the game from how contracts are negotiated to rules players and coaches abide by even down to on and off field conduct. However boxing, the grand old wizard of American sporting entertainment, is anything but as everything from what network a match may air on to who enters the ring first is up for grabs which makes boxing a very chaotic yet strangely very predictable sport to follow.  

In this environment, the guy with the biggest purse often wins and more often than not that guy in recent years has been Al Haymon and rival promoters, principally Bob Arum's Top Rank and boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, can’t stand the power former music promoter Haymon has managed to amass in a sport almost designed to eat outsiders alive. 

Haymon earned his dominant position in boxing by playing by the rules set by promoters: cornering money divisions (in this case, the welterweight division)  by signing champions, top contenders and prospects then securing relationships with networks to sell fights. He effectively managed to do that in one fell swoop by securing a relationship with by far the most gifted fighter of his generation, Floyd "Money" Mayweather who at the time was smarting from a tumultuous relationship with Arum. However, what rankles rival promoters is that he effectively cornered the lucrative welterweight division by raiding Golden Boy's promising stable of fighters that included stars such as Danny Garcia, Amir Khan and Adrien Broner signing them up to contracts which recognised him as their "adviser". 

Haymon would then use his relationship with former Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer as well as other promoters such as Lou DiBella and Gary Shaw to promote fights featuring boxers under contract then sell their fights almost exclusively to Showtime sports. To this day Golden Boy aren't even half the force they were six years ago because of Haymon's ruthless tactics and since then have joined forces with former enemies Top Rank who had also been locked out of a number of lucrative fights with the notable exception of the underwhelming Mayweather v Pacquiao money bonanza.  

With Haymon now the undisputed king of boxing with a heavyweight champion in the shape of Deontay Wilder, promoters and fans for a whole year were forced to grit their teeth or complain impotently on the sidelines as Haymon continued to acquire talent to add to his already large stable of boxers. Promoters and fans justifiably quibbled about quality of the matchups (the infamous Garcia v Salka mismatch still rankles fight fans to this day) and his tendency to protect his fighters from real competition but fans largely praised Haymon for returning boxing to television after years in the wilderness. However, the damning irony is  that while getting boxing back on television will stand as the crowning achievement of Haymon's rule, it may just bring his empire crashing down around him. 

The ink barely dried on Haymon's exclusive time buy deal with NBC  before Golden Boy and Top Rank cried foul accusing Haymon of anti-competitive market practices as Haymon was effectively buying air time instead seeking a licensing fee. Haymon's plan to buy air time to get boxing on free television wasn't cheap and was largely bankrolled by mutual fund Waddell and Reed as NBC didn't believe in boxing enough to pay for it outright. Haymon then secured similar time buy deals TV deals with CBS, ESPN, Fox Sports and Spike  which angered  Top Rank and Golden as they saw Haymon's exclusive time buy deals (with the exception of CBS which was a non exclusive and short lived time buy deal) as a way to shut them out of potentially lucrative content licensing deals with networks. 

Seeing Haymon's exclusive TV deals as threat to their business, both Top Rank and Golden Boy have launched antitrust cases with Top Rank filing a lawsuit back in 2015  and Golden Boy filing against Haymon and Waddell and Reed also in 2015 claiming Haymon violated the Muhammad Ali act which prohibits promoters from moonlighting as managers of boxers. While Top Rank settled their 10 month case against Haymon last may, Golden Boy's case against Haymon is still going strong and could go to trial this March.   

While the chances of Golden Boy winning aren't great as antitrust cases are notoriously hard to prove and Haymon's advisory contracts with his boxers and relationships with other promoters side steps but doesn't exactly breach the Ali act, Golden Boy's case has definitely succeeded in piercing the veil masking Haymon's shadowy business dealings and possibly bring Haymon's PBC boxing series to its knees.  

Haymon's PBC series has been losing millions throughout it's three year run inspiring apoplectic Waddell and Reed's shareholders to file a lawsuit against them for pouring a reported $925 million into what they described as a "potentially criminal company". The lawsuit also revealed just how unprofitable PBC has been for Waddell and Reed so far as according to Bloody Elbow, the alleged $925 million investment funneled into Haymon companies has a market value of $357, 747, 414 which means PBC has allegedly  lost Waddell and Reed and its shareholders well over $500 million in three years.  

While most investments involve making losses initially, losing that amount of money in such a sport space of time suggest it's only a matter of time before Waddell and Reed either stop backing Haymon entirely or sternly encourage him to devise a path to profitability and fast. That time may come quicker than Haymon planned as Wallace and Reed are in freefall as the company had a nightmare 2016 where it had to lay off staff, suffered three losing quarters in a row (the fourth yet to be reported but likely to follow suit) and suffered downgrades and sell ratings by a slew of credit rating agencies and banks including Moody's and Citigroup. 

Waddell and Reed have been in decline for the last three years as it has gone from managing  $123 billion in assets to only $86.4 billion in just over 15 months as the company continues to lose investors hand over fist. Haymon is no fool and must know that sooner or later Waddell and Reed will pull the plug on PBC which would almost instantly bring all of Haymon's interests in boxing to a halt. 

Should Waddell and Reed pull the plug in Haymon, Haymon would be forced to seek funding from other sources but thanks the lawsuits filed by Waddell and Reed shareholders, Top Rank and Golden Boy, the pool of funds and investment firms looking to invest into Haymon's plan to bring order to boxing is shallow to say the least. 

The biggest losers other than Haymon should Waddell and Reed cut their substantial losses will be the fighters he advises as they'll no longer be exposed to a large network television audience and because Haymon's relationship with other promoters have been less than copasetic over the years, may find it hard to get their fights promoted.  

In sum, while Waddell and Reed may not cut its losses and Haymon improves his relationship with other promoters, it's quite clear the uncrowned king of boxing of sits upon a throne that could fall apart at any minute.   

(Sports) MMA: Congratulations UFC, you played yourself

Every organization suffers self inflicted wounds once in a while but no company in the world cuts its nose to spite its face more than the $4 billion MMA behemoth that is the UFC. 

The UFC can largely get away with these self inflicted wounds because they're far and away the biggest MMA promotion on face of the earth, have the best talent in the sport on their books, and with the recent sale to WME/IMG, are the most valuable sports franchise in American sports. 

However, with the recent formation of the Mixed Martial Arts Athlete Association that sports Georges St Pierre, former chairman and CEO of Bellator Bjorn Rebney, former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and former bantamweight king TJ Dillashaw as its members, the UFC may have to contend with possibly the strongest bid yet to bring collective bargaining into MMA. 

The nascent association also includes fan favorite Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone and Army Veteran Tim Kennedy which rounds up an impressive cast of elite level fighters in their prime. One of the big problems other organizations such as the Professional Fighters Association had in bringing collective bargaining into MMA was their inability to get prominent UFC fighters on board but with the MMAAA already attracting championship and top ten level fighters among its ranks out the gate suggests that this obstacle won't be much of a problem for MMAAA going forward. 

While the MMAAA hasn't revealed much in the way of a strategy or gameplan to take on the might of the UFC, MMAAA has two things going for it, Bjorn Rebney, a lawyer by trade and who knows MMA inside out and GSP, a much respected and admired former champion who could help recruit more fighters and possibly played a part in attracting the names the organization already has as members. 

However, MMAAA are hamstrung by the simple but crucial fact that the UFC have all the cards in their favour. They're by far the biggest promotion in the sport and have the best talent which means the UFC can and almost certainly will act as if MMAAA doesn't exist despite MMAAA already enjoying the backing of some of their best fighters.        

Despite this, there are plenty of chinks in the UFC's impressive armor, most troublingly its relationship with its fighters. Because the UFC is by far the biggest promotion in MMA, the UFC tends use its dominant position to undermine its fighters or make decisions that impact fighters directly without their input. The most flagrant example of this was the UFC's apparel deal with Reebok which was clearly hammered out without the input of their fighters. Because of Reebok deal, fighters lost thousands in sponsorship money which in some cases outstripped their show and prize money combined. 

The UFC wouldn't have been able to do this if fighters were represented by a strong union who could hold the UFC's feet to the fire which is why you'll have a hard time finding a member of MMA community who isn't in favour of fighters unionizing.  

While there are some concerns about MMAAA intentions particularly surrounding the involvement of Bjorn Rebney and his history in dealing with fighters, the MMAAA is possibly the best positioned effort so far to unionize the fighters though it remains to be seen how they plan to proceed. 

In sum, The UFC hasn't been shy about putting its interest first over it fighters but with the recent sale to WME/IMG and recent exit from one of its biggest market suggest the MMAAA has picked the right time strike the UFC as it may have played itself into a corner.