Top Rank’s final fight of an eight-year broadcasting deal with ESPN arrives July 26 with the company’s home-grown product, Xander Zayas, fighting for the vacant WBO 154lbs belt against Jorge Garcia Perez at the Madison Square Garden Theater.
While Top Rank officials have maintained confidence that a new broadcast/streaming deal will come together afterward, Top Rank fighters are being assigned bouts on other promotions in the interim, indicating the expectation of what one industry official labeled as an “uncertain lapse” in the transition.
Top Rank confirmed Wednesday that unbeaten prospects Albert “Chop Chop” Gonzalez, Art Barrera Jnr and Perla Bazaldua have been assigned to an August 2 House of Pain-promoted card at Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, California.
Top Rank’s 60 years in business have enabled the company to build a web of connections with fellow promoters that allow for the steady placement of even champions to remain active.
Unbeaten welterweight champion Brian Norman Jnr defends his belt on a card in Japan Thursday, for instance, and junior-lightweight champion O’Shaquie Foster will stage a unification versus Stephen Fulton on the August 16 Premier Boxing Champions card.
The August 2 placements of Gonzalez, 13-0 (7 KOs), Barrera, 9-0 (7 KOs) and Bazaldua, 2-0 (1 KO), on a club show removes three prospects who would typically be showcased on ESPN undercards, depriving them of valuable promotion aimed at hard-core fight fans.
While Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum has mentioned a plan to place fights with as many as three broadcast/streaming partners, company officials reached by BoxingScene declined to state when Top Rank’s new broadcast deal will begin.
An industry expert who’s discussed the matter with several parties said Wednesday that the expectation continues to be that Top Rank and Warner Bros. Discovery will strike a deal to place fights on Turner Sports, even though the Turner investment is not expected to exceed the yearly value of ESPN’s expiring deal.
The expert said there’s speculation Top Rank’s new deal might not launch until the fall, when NHL and college football games can be leaned upon to advertise the new boxing coverage.
“It’s sort of crazy that [Top Rank] would not engage with DAZN [which offers Matchroom, Queensberry and Golden Boy fights],” the expert said, speculating Top Rank wants to keep control over talent and production. “DAZN could have all of boxing in a few years if it really pushed.”
The uncertainty occurs in a climate of flux, with Major League Baseball, F1 and UFC also parting with ESPN while the FCC has approved and is reviewing media industry mergers and splits.
Amid all that, Top Rank is working on patching together its new broadcast deal.
Whether that leaves Top Rank to more heavily lean on its connections during the next few months to lend talent to shows promoted by Japan’s Teiken, Mexico’s Zanfer or other promotions is unclear for now.
One company official referred to the prospects’ placement on the House of Pain card as “an irrelevant piece” that has prompted “a lot of chatter,” but nothing substantive about what company negotiators have learned about the process that has to factor in fiscal-year spending and improvised plans to keep the Top Rank fighters busy while bridging the company to the finish line of a new TV agreement.
“Many steps have to be taken … [the negotiation] is a delicate thing,” one industry official said.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.