Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinzoa is in the same boat of uncertainty as everyone else in the boxing world because of the coronavirus pandemic. Showtime cards in March and April have been canceled. And no one will be surprised if the same thing happens in May.
Amid the chaos, however, Espinoza sounded a note of optimism about boxing’s eventual return in a recent conversation on the Showtime Boxing Podcast.
“I’m excited,” Espinoza said. “I think we’re going to see an action-packed, jam-packed schedule whenever we return.”
Espinoza believes that an unintended side effect of the coronavirus is that it could potentially boost the quality of boxing cards because of the truncated calendar.
“There’s a lot of fighters that need fights to happen, and I think we could be in for an interesting period of time where there’s a lot of activity in a relatively short window,” Espinoza said. “It’s tough for us competitively to be in that window, tough for anybody in that window to cut through that noise [from other sports].
“We may see [fighters] taking a slightly different tack for picking fights. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll see some really great fights in that short amount of time.”
Showtime was one of the few networks that went ahead with its scheduled show – a Shobox card featuring rising prospect Brandun Lee – on March 13, two days after the sports world began shutting down events. Top Rank and Premier Boxing Champions also canceled their shows that weekend. Showtime decided to move forward with the event — closed off to the public — because its staff was already at the venue in Hinckley, Minnesota, thereby eliminating the need for last-minute air travel that could endanger staff.
Showtime has since joined the rest of the boxing world in the waiting game. With the coronavirus potentially shutting down cards for months, industry people are thinking creatively. One idea is more cards with no spectators. Espinoza believes that could be something we see on a more regular basis.
“I believe that [there] will be some period of time where we’re doing it in the absence of large crowds,” Espinoza said. “Maybe [not for] a few months or a year … but I do think we will find a solution to have crowdless events before we figure out the solution to have a full crowd.
“So when that is, who knows. But when that starts to happen, there [will be] a tidal wave of sporting events that remains to be rescheduled.”
That means the usual venues – from Barclays Center in Brooklyn to Staples Center in Los Angeles – might not be as available to boxing promoters.
“It’s going to be tough to get a venue if all these sports are going to play catch-up at one time,” Espinoza said. “It’s going to be a little strange. At the same time, having said that, it’s going to be a wild ride. There’s a lot to be made up.”
In the meantime, Espinoza plans to make use of Showtime’s vast library of classic fights and documentaries as ways to accommodate its boxing-deprvied subscribers.
“Our goal is fill that gap with a lot of stuff that we have,” Espinoza said. “We have a deep library of documentaries. We are definitely surfacing much more of the archive on demand, and we’ll look at it on linear more regularly. Whether that means a programming slot or an occasional one.”
One example is the possibility of showcasing the first three fights from the four-fight Israel Vasquez vs. Rafael series on March 28, one of the network’s cancelled dates.
“That is typically a three-hour window for us,” Espinoza said. “That’s what we allocate from a scheduling perspective. … That’s a nice opportunity for us. What’s about three hours? Well, we could do Marquez and Vasquez 1, 2, 3. That would fill the hole nicely.
“The boxing audience is definitely still very important to Showtime. We’re going to do everything we can to continue to serve them to the maximum extent that we can.”