Will Al Haymon's NBC Boxing Series Help Make Boxing Mainstream Again?

It was one of those days for boxing.

But, unlike a lot of instances over the years...that was actually a good thing.

In a midweek announcement dwarfed only by increasing signs that a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight is imminent, the heretofore unlikely tag team of Al Haymon and NBC raised the curtain on a partnership that made a lot of people feel as if the sport had hacked into its mid-1980s glory.

The union means the Las Vegas-based entity—officially known as Haymon Boxing Management—has purchased time on NBC and NBC Sports Network that will yield 20 live shows in the new calendar year, the first of which will be broadcast on March 7 and feature a high-end double bill that matches Robert Guerrero and Keith Thurman in one fight and Adrien Broner against John Molina Jr. in another.

Reigning 140-pound title claimants Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson will face off on the second card on April 11, though their get-together will be a non-championship affair at a 143-pound catchweight.

Overall, Haymon’s $20 million outlay translates to five Saturday night “Premier Boxing Champions” prime-time shows on NBC, six more shows on Saturday afternoons and the remaining nine in prime time on the NBC Sports Network. Al Michaels will do blow-by-blow, with Ray Leonard providing analysis.

Lamont Jones, Haymon’s vice president of operations, promised at the introductory press conference in New York that the marquee matchups on the first two shows would be indicative of the project as a whole.

“The way that I look at it is that if a customer goes to the grocery store and sees one steak that has USDA on it and one steak that doesn’t, they’re going to buy that USDA steak,” he said. “So we want the fans to know that when they see a fight card and a series that has PBC on the telecast, that they’re going to know that can expect to see high quality and competitive matchups.”

For NBC, it’s a lucrative infomercial—with gloves and ropes replacing ThighMasters and Deal-A-Meals.

But what it means for boxing is this generation’s single-best chance for a renaissance.

Mark Duncan/Associated Press

The sport was a black-and-white staple in the 1950s and rode that TV wave all the way into the ’80s, when regular Saturday afternoon shows on NBC—along with rivals ABC and CBS—made household names of Canastota-bound fighters like Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Alexis Arguello and Ray Mancini.

Network interest waned in the 1990s, though, and as the penetration of premium cable increased and the lure of pay-per-view windfalls became stronger, the idea of boxing on regular free television was retired to the same dusty shelf as leather helmets, unmasked goalies and good-field/no-hit shortstops.

Little man Leo Santa Cruz got CBS back in the game with a one-off weekend performance two years ago, but the only routine appearances on a Big Three affiliate since then have been via NBC’s aforementioned cable arm, which debuted its Fight Night series following a rebrand from its days as Versus.

“That was just an amazing feeling,” Garcia said, referring to the presence of Leonard, Hearns and Roberto Duran at the celebratory midtown Manhattan gathering. “It felt great to be up on the stage with all of those men who actually opened up the door for fighters like us.

“So to be able to fight on NBC, it feels like you’re being a throwback to the old world.”

The initial two Haymon cards are a quantum leap from those shows in terms of quality, but amid the fully justified hoopla, the return to an in-every-home network will also provide a litmus test whose answer—in the form of ratings—will go a long way toward determining the duration of the revelry.

If the momentum that comes from the first two broadcasts carries into the third, fourth, fifth and beyond, it’d be no surprise to see one of the other major players find a reason to work mouthpieces and ring-card girls into the weekly schedule.

But if, contrary to Jones’ hype, the offering devolves from attractive hors d’oeuvre to bland entree and first-month lines around the block turn into half-empty dining rooms, it’ll just as clearly mandate a cab ride back to the 21st century marginalized niche.

Call it, America. Heads it’s The Tonight Show; tails it’s ESPN2.