In prelude to the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight, HBO will offer “Fight Day Now.” The show, which gets its take from NCAA Football’s GameDay on ESPN will be live from the lobby of the MGM Grand to offer hype for Saturday night’s fight.
The Sports Business Journal reports that “Fight Day Now” will air at 4 p.m. Saturday on the HBO Zone channel. The hour long live show is sandwiched between two episodes each of HBO’s 24/7 series. The live show and 24/7 reruns give the third fight in the Pacquiao-Marquez trilogy 6 hours of same day hype.
The live show hyping the Pacquiao fight hopes to garner the same buzz and fan frenzy as Saturday morning GameDays on ESPN.
Payout Perspective:
“Fight Day Now” will go directly against pre-UFC on Fox hype on Fuel TV so we’ll see which pre-show wins out. Honestly, if HBO ran Marquez-Pacquiao I and II prior to the PPV, it would be sufficient as in my opinion those fights (which are airing on the Audience Network) are the best vehicles of hype for this fight. The live show should capture the fan support for each fighter. Its an interesting programming move to sandwich the show between 24/7s. I think its a good move for those that love the 24/7 series. They’ll get the live show in between. However, not having the show on the main HBO channel might hurt viewership.
On another note, with most of the pre-fight hype shows, how much do they help with viewership. There’s only so much you can talk about with Pacquiao-Marquez. On the UFC side, one might argue that there is reason to have an extended pre-fight show considering the number of casual viewers that may give the UFC a try Saturday night. But, how much is too much?
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