18 Pay Per Views since May 1995 – $871.20
HBO Subscription since May 1995 – $1860
Having Oscar De La Hoya “give back” by fighting on free HBO…Pointless…

Oscar De La Hoya is scheduled to fight Steve Forbes on May 3rd of this year, and the fight will be on regular HBO. The idea is that apparently we as boxing fans should be thankful that Oscar is “giving back” to his fans by not putting this fight on pay-per-view. Is putting one fight on regular HBO count as giving back?

Since De La Hoya fought Rafael Ruelas on May 6, 1995 in Las Vegas, he has been working his way towards being the most bankable figure in boxing history. At that time, Mike Tyson was just getting out of prison, and about to be making millions, but the young Golden Boy was on the rise. The former Olympian was an HBO star, and poised to conquer the boxing world.

At the age of 22, De La Hoya had his first HBO Pay-Per-View in his lightweight unification bout with Ruelas in his 18th fight. Since then, he has fought a total of 25 more times, with 17 more being on pay-per-view. So let’s look at
to figure out just how much he owes us if he wants to give us a gift.

In those 18 PPV’s, 12.6 million people have ordered De La Hoya PPV fights, for a total of $610.6 million in earnings for those fights. Some simple division will tell you that the average cost of those PPV’s comes to $48.40. If we multiply that $48.40 by 18 fights, we end up with a total of $871.20 per person for the last 18 fights in 13 years.

Since only 18 of Oscar’s 26 fights since May of 1995 have been on PPV, that means that another eight were on regular HBO. Being a boxing fan, an HBO subscription is a necessity. At a modest average of $12 a month for 12 years and 11 months, you come up with $1860 in HBO fees since the Ruelas fight.

Granted, there is plenty more on HBO that is worth the price of the subscription, but there are many people who only have HBO for the boxing. So for the sake of argument, I’m throwing all of this under one cost.

That total comes to $2,731.20. That’s how much money a boxing fan has paid to see every Oscar De La Hoya fight since May of 1995. Obviously, I’m not saying that the $1860 on HBO fees are Oscar’s fault, but I am saying that if he feels he needs to “give back” to his fans,
than to fight a tune-up fight on regular HBO.

Why not fight on network television? Golden Boy Promotions has talked about landing a fight on network TV for a while — what better way to make it a success than by having the Golden Boy himself star in the show.

Why not have $5 tickets to the fight?
$600, $300 and $150 for the floor, and $75, $50 and $25 for up above, why not “give back” to your fans who have each done their part to make you filthy rich?

I am a true, die-hard boxing fan. I am not necessarily a true, die-hard Oscar De La Hoya fan, but I’ve nonetheless bought many of his PPV’s. I’d also rather have my water turned off than my HBO or SHOWTIME.

I don’t blame Oscar in any way for making his money where he can, but he should recognize that by saying he is giving back to his fans, he is insulting many of us.

I don’t regret paying for boxing matches, but I also don’t like it. We, as boxing fans, pay to watch fights only because we have no say in the matter. For someone to come out and say he is giving back to us by still charging to watch him (in a roundabout way) is insulting to me. There are real ways for a fighter like Oscar to give back. Other than network television or affordable tickets, how about putting together a decent and/or competitive undercard?

If De La Hoya wanted me to feel that he is giving back to his fans, he would do all of the above. He would say, “you know, I’ve made plenty of money, let’s do something nice.” That would be followed by him fighting on free television, in front of fans who paid reasonable prices to get in the door, all the while making the same amount of money as everyone else on the card. He does not need the money, and to give back would be to sacrifice making more money to make his fans happy. In my opinion, he is not doing that with this fight.

I am the type of boxing fan that buys most pay-per-views, but I never like the fact that I am paying to watch live sports. I think it is terrible for the sport, and setting a terrible precedent for future live sports. I accept that many fights are going to be on HBO and SHOWTIME, and I’m completely fine with that. The reason I am fine with that is that the production value and budgets for those networks far exceed all of the other options. I’d rather pay a nominal fee to HBO and SHOWTIME and get a great product, than not pay to watch Versus and ESPN to get lesser quality, commercials and worse match-making.

But pay-per-views are simply a way to maximize the amount of money that they can make off of a very loyal fan base. As long as we keep paying it, they’ll keep charging us.

I’m not saying that there need to be less PPV’s in boxing (there needs to be). I’m saying that after paying $2,731.20 since Oscar De La Hoya’s first PPV fight on pay-per-views and HBO subscriptions, I don’t want to be patronized by Mr. De La Hoya telling me that this is his way of “giving back” to his fans. Either figure out a way to really “give back”, or don’t say anything at all.

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