De La Hoya’s MMA Entry Is Nothing to Dismiss
Published by on March 16th, 2008 in Operation Cleanup

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By Charles Jay

Golden Boy Promotions wants to be involved in mixed martial arts. Oscar De La Hoya’s group, which has experienced a surprising amount of success in boxing, is teaming up with Affliction, a leading industry clothing line, to create a new MMA organization that hopes to compete with the big boys.

“Maybe Affliction knows something we don’t,” wrote one internet columnist.

Well, as a matter of fact, it does.

First, any association with Golden Boy automatically opens up doors with HBO. You have to understand that no one at the network could care less about MMA. They were talking to the UFC only because Chris Albrecht, the chairman and CEO, was a big fan of it. But Albrecht has departed the scene, and with him went any hopes to have MMA at the Time Warner-controlled premium service.

Until now.

You see, if De La Hoya asks them to be involved, they are going to strongly consider it. Such is his value to the network. And as long as he continues to fight, he is going to have that kind of leverage. In fact, in the opinion of many boxing insiders, that is one of the principal reasons he remains an active fighter – because HBO has literally helped him launch his promotional company. Because HBO wanted to show Oscar’s fights, they had to take a lot of the very ordinary fights he was promoting as part of series for the HBO Latino channel. And it is the observation of many that, for HBO’s World Championship Boxing and Boxing After Dark franchises. he gets greater rights fees for the fights he promotes (those that do not involve him) than comparable fights from other promoters.

With a fight with Steve Forbes coming, a rematch with Floyd Mayweather to follow, and God knows what after that, De La Hoya still holds the hammer.

And HBO, whether you want to believe it or not, is real estate that is more valuable than CBS or NBC for purposes of this discussion as it concerns MMA. Sure the broadcast networks are accessible by more homes, but HBO’s subscribers are PAID subscribers. Therefore, the company can pay more money, if it chooses to, for the right events, which can mean more money for fighters. Let’s put it this way – the main event fighters on HBO’s World Championship Boxing series make more money than almost any main event contestant on any UFC pay-per-view.

So when this writer asked “How can Golden Boy compete?,” my first question to myself was “Is that a joke?” Believe me, when fighters find out they can make more money somewhere, they are on their way over. As far as how this makes it feasible for the promoters themselves (i.e., Golden Boy), I trust that they’re not making stupid moves. They know exactly how to back a show into a model; in other words, they know how to add a network rights fee to a casino site fee and structure a show so that it turns a profit.

One of the executives at Golden Boy, the CEO, Richard Schaefer, also realizes that there is a bit of a trend that is moving toward the fighters establishing themselves as the entity, rather than the brand doing so. And he fully understands, as I do but many people in this sport do not, that ultimately people pay to see the fighter, and that the star has leverage. In fact, that is the basis upon which Golden Boy was established in the first place. De La Hoya, who had been under promotional arrangement with Top Rank, wanted a bigger piece of the pie, and knew that if he was the attraction, he had leverage in dealing with the networks and the venues. And so he does just that.

In an industry like boxing, which had been dominated by the likes of Don King and Bob Arum (Top Rank) for over 30 years, Golden Boy is fast becoming the biggest player. That, in this reporter’s humble opinion, was a tougher nut to crack than what is out there in the MMA landscape.

So when I hear people questioning whether anyone else can make it work and stating that “History tells us a resounding ‘No’,” I have to laugh. Son, this sport isn’t old enough to have any real “history.” As far as that stuff is concerned, we’re just getting started.