Showtime, PBC Agree To Three-Year Broadcast Extension
With the sport of boxing starting to have a growing presence in the United States, Showtime is ready to continue broadcasting events with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions and its stable of world-class boxers.
Showtime and PBC announced a three-year extension to its current broadcasting deal. According to the announcement, “the deal calls for a monthly series of events” to be televised on Showtime.
The deal gives Showtime more opportunities to stake its claim as the top boxing network in the United States in an ear where HBO is gradually decreasing the number of boxing events per year and ESPN is getting back into boxing thanks to its partnership with Top Rank Boxing.
Earlier this year, Showtime staged a special event called the “Boxing Upfront,” announcing a series of world championship fights taking place throughout the year. Though some fights that was previously announced weren’t able to be made, Showtime’s 2018 ensured that it was the U.S. television network that has ensured consistent broadcasts with world championship fights being regularly shown.
The new deal calls for even more boxing broadcasts to be shown on Showtime starting in 2019 after Showtime projects to have more than 30 boxing events broadcast by the end of 2018. No fights were announced for 2019 in the announcement, but Showtime is currently planning its boxing schedule and will unveil its first slate of boxing events in January 2019.
Showtime’s next PBC event will take place on September 8 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The main event of that card is a fight between Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter for the vacant WBC welterweight title.
