Saturday night was the last event Top Rank Boxing aired on ESPN. The network declined to renew its distribution deal with Top Rank after working together for the past 8 years. The last event featured a fight between Xander Zayas and Jorge Garcia for the WBO junior middleweight championship. It was Zayas that became the […]
Showtime
Top 10 MMA Business Stories of 2023 – No. 2 PFL purchases Bellator
The second biggest MMA Business Story of the year saw the end of Bellator and the potential rise of the Professional Fighters League as the second biggest MMA promotion in the industry. Bellator, long thought of as the silver medal in pro MMA to the UFC, became a victim of finances, budget cuts and poor […]
Top 10 MMA Business Stories of 2023 – No. 5 Showtime closes sports division
Although this is more of a boxing story, Showtime closing its sports division meant the end for Bellator. The promotion’s fortune may have been decided independent of the network deciding to cut sports but it ends another outlet for MMA. Prior to Bellator, Strikeforce also was on the premium cable network. Viewers showed scant support […]
Showtime Sports to close at end of 2023
Paramount Global announced on Tuesday that it will no longer be allocating resources to Showtime Sports after the end of 2023. This ends 37 years of Showtime Championship Boxing. Al Haymon’s PBC provided the bulk of events on Showtime since 2013. The last event on the Showtime Boxing calendar at this point is the November […]
Helwani gets own basketball show on Showtime
Showtime Sports announced on Tuesday that Ariel Helwani will host a new show on the Showtime Basketball vertical. Dubbed, “The Ariel Helwani Basketball Show” will cover the NBA will start Friday, March 24 on all podcast platforms. While at ESPN, Helwani served as sideline reporter for the network’s NBA coverage from 2018-2021. When Helwani left […]