DAZN PPV will distribute YouTube star Jake Paul’s next foray into the boxing ring against former UFC and mixed martial arts champion Nate Diaz in an August 5 pay-per-view boxing event.

Paul, who most recently suffered a split decision loss to Tommy Fury this past February, will look to rebound against Diaz, who is making his boxing debut after a decorated combat sports career. 

“We are incredibly excited to have this mega fight on DAZN around the world,” DAZN North America CEO Joe Markowski said in a statement. “One of the biggest names in boxing meeting one of the biggest names in MMA makes for a truly unique matchup on a global scale.”

The event is the latest in a busy PPV boxing schedule that has already featured three PPV boxing events in the first quarter of 2023. Also, Showtime has an April 22 PPV bout scheduled between undefeated fighters Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia. 

In addition, a much-anticipated bout between welterweight championship unification fight between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence is slated for June, according to published reports. 

Live sports event streamer FITE will add an exclusive Metallica concert to its pay-per-view offering of event producer Triller's Nov. 27 Triad Combat event, one of many perks the PPV event aggregator hopes to score from its new parent company.

The event from Triller -- which purchased FITE this past April -- will debut the company's Triad Combat franchise, in which participants fight under boxing and MMA rules within a triangular ring. The legendary rock band will perform several songs as part of the main Triad Combat event, as well as play an exclusive concert featured only on FITE, according to FITE COO Mike Weber. The event retails at a suggested PPV price of $19.99. 

“You have some boxers and MMA fighters involved as part of the Triad Combat event -- and Triller is marketing the heck out of the event -- so we’ll see how it goes,” Weber said. “Metallica is a major hook to bring people in to see something that they’ve never seen before.”

Weber added that Triller brings additional resources to the FITE TV brand, which offers as many as 20 PPV events a week from around the world. In addition to the new Triad Combat franchise, Triller produces PPV boxing events such as last year’s Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. exhibition fight as well as high-profile events such as the VERZUZ franchise, which pits music performers against each other in a battle format.

“While we’ve been a successful company, Triller brings deeper resources to us which will help us on some projects that we’re working on,” Weber said, although he would not provide specific details. ■

The July 24 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder heavyweight championship pay-per-view boxing match has been postponed after people in Fury's camp tested positive for COVID-19, according to ESPN.

The fight — the third between the two boxers — will most likely be moved to October, said ESPN. The two fighters fought to a draw in their 2018 bout, while Fury scored a technical knockout over Wilder in 2020.

Also Read: PPV Boxing's Summer Bonanza

Fury had planned to unify the heavyweight division with a summer fight against Anthony Joshua,  but an arbitrator in May ruled that a rematch clause in the contract for the second fight forced Fury to meet Wilder in his next fight.

Former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson will return to the ring for the first time in 15 years in a September pay-per-view exhibition fight against former champion Roy Jones Jr.

The eight-round fight will be the first for the one-time PPV boxing champion Tyson, 54, since a 2005 loss to Kevin McBride. Jones, himself a former heavyweight champion and PPV draw, last fought in 2018.

The fight will be distributed by multi-media company Triller on social media and by In Demand via linear PPV, although no details were released on a suggested retail PPV price for the event. Along with the Tyson-Jones fight, the event will also feature undercard fights and musical performances, according to Triller.

The fight is the first event of a series produced under Tyson’s "Legends Only League," a sports venture owned by Tyson and Eros Innovations which has partnered with Triller on all future boxing events, according to Triller. 

The Tyson-Jones Jr. fight comes on the heels of the announcement of two other PPV boxing matches this fall from Showtime, including a Sept. 26 card featuring world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo in separate bouts,and an Oct. 24 event featuring a Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz championship unification bout. 

Basketball fans will get some pay-per-view hoops action before the NBA returns to the court in a new tournament set to premiere July 19.

The inaugural 5 Tournament will feature several former NBA players participating in a six-team, three-on-three elimination tournament that will take place from The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, NV, according to Doug Jacobs, president of Integrated Sports, which will distribute the PPV event.

The 10-day tournament will debut July 19 with the first of five tournament rounds before the semi-finals take place on July 27 and the Finals on July 29, said Integrated Sports. Teams will be based in New York, Chicago, Miami, Sacramento, Toronto and Texas and will feature such former NBA stars as Mario Chalmers, Mike Bibby, Jermaine Taylor, Brandon Rush and Carlos Arroyo.

FITE TV will distribute the 5 Tournament's early rounds at a suggested retail price of $12.95 per round, and the semi-final and final rounds for $19.95. In Demand and DirecTV will also offer the $19.95 semi-final and final rounds, said the company. 

The UFC has postponed its April 18 UFC 249 pay-per-view event on the advice of its television partner ESPN, according to both parties.

The mixed martial arts organization had planned to stage the event at a California location, but decided to postpone the event and all future UFC shows for the foreseeable future.

“While the organization was fully prepared to proceed with UFC 249, ESPN has requested the postponement of the event and subsequent bouts until further notice in light of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the UFC said in a statement Thursday.

[embed]https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1248378632113803270[/embed]

ESPN released its own statement, saying that the network “has been in constant contact with the UFC regarding UFC 249. Nobody wants to see sports return more than we do, but we didn’t feel this was the right time for a variety of reasons. ESPN expressed its concerns to the UFC and they understood.”

The decision comes less than a week after the WWE held its two-day WrestleMania 36 PPV event on April 11-12 at its Orlando facilities. 

ESPN on March 23 will telecast a replay of the Feb. 22 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder pay-per-view boxing match, the network said Sunday.

The fight, in which Fury defeated Wilder via a seventh-round TKO, will air as part of the four-fight PPV event card co-distributed by ESPN and Fox Sports.

Related: Fury Defeats Wilder in Big PPV Fight

The four-fight special will be preceded by the Dec. 2018 Fury-Wilder I bout, which ended in a draw. The entire Wilder-Fury II PPV broadcast will also become available for replay to all ESPN+ subscribers beginning March 23, said the network.

A third Fury-Wilder fight is expected to take place either later this year or in early 2021.

Related: ESPN, Fox Sports Lace Up for Fury-Wilder III

Wilder-Fury II will be part of ESPN’s week of library programming, including a replay of its 2016 30 for 30 documentary O.J.:Made in America from March 24-March 26. Streaming service ESPN+ will continue to offer classic fights from the Top Rank library, including Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier III, Ali-George Foreman, Joe Louis-Billy Conn, Mike Tyson-Larry Holmes, Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney, Max Baer-James J. Braddock, and Ali-Sonny Liston I & II.

The WWE said Wednesday it will add a second day to its April WrestleMania 36 event, which will take place in Orlando without an audience.

The event, which earlier this week was moved to the WWE’s Orlando practice facility from Tampa Bay due to coronavirus fears, will stream on the WWE Network April 4 and April 5, said the company.

The event, which will be hosted by former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, will also be distributed via PPV. WrestleMania will take place without an audience, said company officials.

The WWE is also originating its Monday Night Raw and SmackDown live telecasts from its Orlando facility. 

World champion boxer Tyson Fury established himself as the king of the heavyweight division with his dominating win over Deontay Wilder Saturday night, but it's still unclear if the much-anticipated fight will finish as the pay-per-view  buy champion in the heavyweight division.

The undefeated Fury defeated Wilder in the seventh round after Wilder’s corner threw in the towel. Fury battered the previously undefeated Wilder for most of the fight in winning the World Boxing Council heavyweight title.

While PPV buys were not available at press time, industry executives believed going into the fight that the event could generate at least 1 million PPV buys. The fight -- a rematch of the 2018 bout between the two fighters that ended in a controversial draw -- was backed by an unprecedented marketing campaign created by co-promoters ESPN and Fox Sports that featured promotional spots in both the January College Football Playoff Championship game and this month’s Super Bowl.

RELATED: ESPN, Fox Sports Give Wilder-Fury a One-Two Punch 

Showtime distributed Fury-Wilder 1, which generated a reported 325,000 PPV buys. 

Prior to the fight, Top Rank Inc. promoter Bob Arum in published reports predicted Wilder-Fury II could generate 2 million PPV buys in what was described as the biggest PPV heavyweight fight since the 2002 Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight. That fight, in which Lewis stopped Tyson in the eighth round, generated 2.7 million PPV buys -- a record for a heavyweight boxing match.

Fury-Wilder II reportedly drew $17 million from live tickets sales, surpassing the 1999 Lewis-Evander Holyfield II as the biggest gate ever for a heavyweight championship fight, according to published reports.  

Fox Sports on Saturday will conclude its 2019 pay-per-view fight schedule with the Deontay Wilder-Luis Oritz heavyweight championship rematch fight. The event, which retails at a suggested price of $75, will be Fox Sports and its partner Premier Boxing Championships’ inaugural foray into the heavyweight division after three welterweight PPV main events. 

The first fight between the two heavyweights in 2018 -- won by titleholder Wilder in a 10th round knockout -- aired on Showtime.

I recently spoke to Fox Sports Executive Vice President and Head of Programming and Scheduling Bill Wanger about the marketing and promotional effort for Wilder-Ortiz, as well as Fox Sports’ PPV boxing plans for 2020. The edited transcript of the interview appears below.

What makes the Wilder-Ortiz rematch bout a pay-per-view event, given that the first fight aired on the Showtime premium channel?

I think the heavyweight division is back with a vengeance, and there are a lot of interesting fighters and storylines emerging. Deontay Wilder is as big as they come in the heavyweight division both literally and figuratively, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase him on PPV. We schedule these PPV events strategically to have some of the best ones in the fall where we can take advantage of our promotional machine within NFL, the baseball playoffs and college football. The fight came together and here we are.

How much promotion are you putting behind the fight?

Promos for the fight have been running for a couple of weeks, and we have produced more than 10 hours of shoulder programming. Our countdown show debuted (on Nov. 9) delivered close to 700,000 viewers. We are also producing four Fight Camp episodes, and the first episode of that series, which aired after an NFL telecast [on Fox broadcasting], delivered 2.2 million views.

Do you expect this fight in the heavyweight division to perform on par or better than your first three fights, which were all based in the welterweight division?

I think this fight will be right in the neighborhood of some of the past fights we’ve done. We’ll get a better read on that next week, but we have every confidence that this is going to be right in line with how we’ve been doing. I don’t see the difference in terms of the marketability of the divisions. They are all kind of equal in terms of stature so to speak.

Having said that, how many PPV buys do you predict for Wilder-Ortiz?

As you know, we don’t comment on those numbers.

How would you characterize your partnership with Premier Boxing Champions one year into your multi-year agreement with the boxing promotion company?

We’re just completing our first year of the deal and its all systems go. We have a great relationship -- we’ve really built a boxing infrastructure within Fox Sports over the last year, and we’ll continue to hone it. We’re really looking forward to 2020 -- there could be some epic fights coming up.

Looking ahead to 2020, will you continue to same pace of scheduling a PPV fight each quarter for the year?

I think the four to five in the calendar year is the sweet spot for us. There are some real interesting things that could be happening both in the heavyweight division and the welterweight division. Outside of that you have the 154 pounders and the 168 (pound fighters) where we’re looking to have some strong unification bouts -- some of which will be on the Fox broadcast channel.

Showtime on May 18 will telecast heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s bout against Dominic Breazeale.

The fight, for Wilder’s WBC title belt, will the champion’s second fight following his January PPV bout against Tyson Fury, which ended in a draw. That fight drew a reported 325,000 PPV buys.

RELATED: The PPV Event Category Ends Year With a Fury

“It was critical for Deontay, for the sport and his fans, that this fight be available not on pay-per-view, but on Showtime,” said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime president of sports & event programming in a statement. “Showtime is where this fight belongs. We’re the home of the biggest fights and best talents, month in and month out. This is where a heavyweight title fight belongs.”

ESPN and the UFC shifted the pay-per-view event landscape Monday when the two parties announced an exclusive, multi-year deal to distribute all UFC PPV events on the ESPN+ streaming service.

The deal delivers a major body blow to linear PPV event distributors who will not longer be able to count on the UFC’s monthly PPV event revenue, which had been stabilizing the event category while boxing continued to build its next generation of PPV champions.

The move is similar to the WWE’s decision in 2014 to move all of its PPV events to its WWE Network streaming service, allowing pro wrestling fans to watch Wrestlemania and other monthly WWE PPV events as part of the service’s $9.99 per month fee. The big difference is that linear distributors like In Demand and DirecTV have the option to distribute the WWE’s events if they choose.

With the new two-year extension of ESPN and UFC’s three-year, $1.5 billion distribution deal that launched in January, only ESPN’s $4.99 streaming service ESPN+ has the rights to distribute UFC PPV events, beginning with the April 13 UFC 236:Holloway vs. Poirier 2 event.

New subscribers to ESPN+ can pay $79.99 for access to one year of the service as well as UFC PPV event, while existing customers can buy the events for $59.99 each.

Prior to the new deal announcement, ESPN and UFC executives said they were pleased with the early performance of PPV events both on the ESPN linear channel and on the ESPN+ service. ESPN executive vice president, programming and scheduling Burke Magnus said the UFC was one of the primary engines to get ESPN+ to 2 million paid subscribers earlier this year. Nearly 570,000 subscribers signed up for ESPN+ in January prior to the streaming service’s first UFC telecast.

“The UFC has certainly been an enormous part of that trajectory for ESPN+,” said Magnus. 

On ESPN’s linear channel, its telecasts of preliminary fights leading up to the three PPV events, as well as other UFC fight cards, averaged 1.4 million viewers -- more than double what FS1 was averaging for similar UFC event telecasts last year.

“We’re really happy … we’re ahead of expectations on both sides of the equation,” said Lawrence Epstein, UFC chief operating officer.

The departure of the UFC makes boxing the default, undisputed champion of the PPV event category for In Demand and other linear distributors, as well as major source of revenue. 

This past Saturday the PPV event category welcomed Fox Sports into the ring sports arena with its first ever pay-per-view event as boxing fans watched undefeated welterweight champion Errol Spence dominate multi-division champion Mikey Garcia. While PPV buy numbers aren’t in yet for the fight, Fox says it could distribute as many as five PPV boxing events this year.

ESPN and Top Rank will offer an April 20 Terence Crawford-Amir Kahn welterweight championship fight, marking the first time ESPN and Top Rank have co-promoted a major PPV boxing card since the two reached a distribution agreement in 2017.

The key for the linear PPV industry now is to find other sports and event properties to fill UFC’s major shoes. Turner Sports has said it would look to do events similar to last November’s Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson golf challenge. The UFC’s departure could open the doors for other sports event providers to step into the PPV ring. 

Showtime this Saturday will air a replay of the Dec. 1 Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight pay-per-view boxing match.

The fight, in which World Boxing Council champion Wilder and former heavyweight champion Fury fought to an entertaining draw, was the first Showtime-distributed PPV event of 2019. PPV buys for the event were not available at press time.

Showtime will jump back into the PPV ring in January with the Jan. 19 Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner welterweight championship fight. 

ESPN Sunday announced its lineup of UFC events for the first three months of 2019, with the first event debuting in January.

The events – part of the network’s exclusive five-year TV agreement with the mixed martial arts outfit – will run over 11 consecutive weeks in the first quarter. ESPN+ will showcase more than 36 hours, with ESPN linear networks airing another 18 hours of UFC content, said ESPN officials.

The UFC kicks off on ESPN Jan. 19 with a live UFC on ESPN+ Fight Night card, with main card bouts streamed live on ESPN+ and preliminary fights shown on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. ESPN’s first distributed UFC pay-per-view event will air Jan. 26, according to both companies.

Date                               UFC Event                                                     Location

Jan. 19                    UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                              Brooklyn, NY

Jan. 26                   UFC 233 –Pay-per-View event                         Anaheim, CA.

Feb. 2                     UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                               Brazil

Feb. 9                     UFC 234 – Pay-Per-View event                        TBD

Feb. 17                   UFC On ESPN Fight Night                                  Phoenix, AZ

Feb. 23                  UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                                TBD

March 2                UFC 235 –Pay-Per-View event                          Las Vegas

March 9                UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                                TBD

March 16              UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                                 London

March 23             UFC On ESPN+ Fight Night                                  TBD

March 30             UFC On ESPN Fight Night                                   TBD

Turner Sports’ Nov. 23 Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson pay-per-view golf match highlights what has been a very unique and successful fall for the PPV event category.

The Capital One’s The Match: Tiger vs. Phil event – the first live, head-to-head golf event ever carried on PPV -- will retail at a suggested price of $19.99, according to Turner executives. Turner is treating the event, in which the winner will receive a $9 million prize -- like a big, boxing match. It has commissioned sister premium service HBO to offer its 24/7 sports documentary series – which is usually associated with marquee boxing matches – to follow the two iconic golfers leading up to the big event.

Golf fans can buy the match through traditional companies like In Demand and Vubiquity, as well as through new entrants like Turner’s Bleacher Report Live streaming sports service.

Tiger vs. Phil adds to what has become a very fruitful period for the PPV event category.

For the first eight months of the year, the pay-per-view event industry hadn’t had a lot to cheer about. Then in September, Canelo Alvarez and Genaddy Golovkin stepped into the boxing ring for a rematch of their highly controversial November 2017 fight, which ended in a draw. Along with being an action-packed fight -- won by Alvarez in a close decision -- the rematch drew approximately 1.1 million PPV buys, according to ESPN.

The Oct. 6 UFC 229 Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov fight will be remembered mostly for the wild, post-fight melee that took place both inside and outside the octagon. Yet the event is trending to become the most successful PPV event in UFC’s history with more than 2 million buys, according to published reports.

Showtime will step into the PPV ring Dec. 1 with its big heavyweight championship fight between Deontay Wlder and Tyson Fury.

Looking ahead, the PPV category will certainly face some challenges beginning in 2019 as upstart streaming services like ESPN and DAZN compete for mid-sized combat sports events. DAZN’s deal to stream current PPV boxing champion Alvarez’s next 11 fights is a major body blow to the category.

But for now, the PPV category is enjoying a very event-filled and lucrative end to 2018. 

SES Video and InDemand are teaming to offer a 4K feed of the first Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) set for June 2 at 9 p.m. from the Cheyenne Ice Events Center in Wyoming.

SES said the 4K event, produced by Multivision Media, will be available nationally to cable and IPTV service providers that are signed on for its pre-packaged 4K offering.

RELATED: New Combat Franchises Vie for Pay-Per-View Buys

Based on those partners, the following MVPDs would be eligible to provide the 4K feed of the bare-knuckle PPV card: Armstrong Utilities, Aureon Network Services, Dish Network, enTouch Systems, EPG Chattanooga, Foothills Communications, Guadalupe Valley (GVTC), Highlands Cable Group, Hotwire Communications, Jackson Energy Authority, KPU Telecommunications, Sjoberg’s Cable TV, Buckeye Broadband, Margaretville Telephony Company, Marquette Adams, Midco, Midwest Video Solutions, Oneida Cablevision, Service Electric Cable TV, Skitter Inc., Wherever TV, and WideOpenWest. Verizon Fios and Frontier Communications are also testing 4K TV with SES.

RELATED: SES Touts 4K Progress

SES didn’t announce which MVPDs are on board for tomorrow’s 4K offering, but noted that the 4K version of the event will be delivered on the SES Events channel, one in a lineup that is hosted on the SES Ultra HD platform. SES has used that channel to deliver other sporting events in 4K, including Bellator: Sonnen vs. Silva Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and select coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games from PyeongChang.

“The SES Events channel is readily available for live events to virtually every Pay TV operator across North America,” Steve Corda, VP of media platforms, SES Video in North America, said in a statement.

Brian Ricco, executive producer for MultiVision Media, told Multichannel News R. Thomas Umstead that all major cable distributors, as well as DirecTV and Dish Network, will offer the event. “This is not an underground event; this is going to be in big arenas featuring full-blown productions,” he told Umstead.

The BKFC’s first card, featuring 12 bouts, is retailing for $29.99. SES has been asked if the 4K version of the PPV event will be offered for the same price.

“Events like the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship are immersive building blocks toward an exciting future in Ultra HD television,” noted John Schultz, VP of broadcast operations for InDemand, which is co-owned by Comcast, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications.

Other channels in SES’s pre-packaged Ultra HD lineup include Fashion One 4K, NASA TV UHD, 4K Universe, Insight TV, C4K360, Funbox UHD, Travelxp 4K, Nature Relaxation 4K, The Country Network, UHD1, and the SES 4K channel (a developmental incubator for emerging content producers). 

Two new combat sports franchises will step into the sports television ring in June in an effort to reach young fight fans.

The Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) will distribute its inaugural event via pay-per-view on June 2, while the Professional Fighters League — a mixed martial arts league in which fighters must compete in scheduled regular-season and postseason bouts to advance to the championship — will debut on NBCSN June 7.

BKFC will look to draw young fight fans — as well as older boxing fans — when it launches its first fight card Saturday on PPV. The fights, which harken back to the late 1800s, when grapplers such as John L. Sullivan and Gentleman Jim Corbett fought sanctioned fights with no gloves, will take place in Wyoming, the only state thus far to sanction the sport.

“It’s very safe, it took us years and years to develop it and we’re going to present it in a way that’s at a high-class level,” said Brian Ricco, executive producer for MultiVision Media, the PPV distributor of the event. “This is not an underground event; this is going to be in big arenas featuring full-blown productions.”

Much like UFC in its early days, BKFC will use PPV as its distribution pipeline to fans. The fight card, featuring 12 bouts, will retail for $29.99, and all major cable distributors including In Demand, DirecTV and Dish Network will offer the event, according to Ricco.

Over-the-top combat sports service FITE TV will air the event via the web. Ricco added that the fight would be distributed in 4K, a rarity among combat sports PPV events. The fights will take place in a squared ring with four ropes. Most bouts will consist of three two-minute rounds with a referee both inside and outside the ring. The combatants will be bare-knuckled, although they can apply tape on the hands below the knuckles, according to Ricco.

Ricco added that he’s not concerned about potential negative feedback from critics who may lament the violent nature of the event. “There’s a lot of history here with bare-knuckle boxing, dating back to John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett, and we’ll tap into that,” he said. “I believe people will be intrigued by this.”

BKFC founder and CEO David Feldman would not predict how many buys the event would generate, but said the event has already generated high social media interest.

“It’s like the forbidden fruit — it’s something that you couldn’t see before because it’s always been underground,” he said. “What they will end up seeing is a very professional event.”

BKFC will look to distribute quarterly PPV events, with the next two shows tentatively scheduled for September and December, according to Ricco. He added the PPV model best suits the organization as it looks to build and grow its audience base.

“The first punch ever in bare-knuckle boxing will be on PPV, and as this grows we’ll see what distribution platforms makes sense,” he said.

The Professional Fighters League will feature a roster of 72 fighters from 13 countries competing in a seven-week regular-season league format that will air on NBCSN beginning June 7.

The season launches with 12 athletes in each of six different weight classes who will compete for a spot in the playoffs. During the playoff round, fighters will have to win two fights in one evening to advance to the championship event.The six eventual champions will receive a $1 million prize, according to officials.

NBCSN will air weekly, live PFL matchups as part of its new MMA Night in America show through the end of August. Events televised by NBCSN will also stream on NBCSports.com and on the NBC Sports app.

Showtime and UFC’s Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view event drew 4.3 million buys, falling just short of the all time industry record, Showtime confirmed Thursday.

RELATED: Record In Sight For Mayweather-McGregor

The fight, which pitted undefeated former boxing champion Mayweather against UFC MMA champion McGregor, finished second behind the 4.6 million buys garnered by the May 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, but dwarfs the 2.48 million buys garnered by the May 2007 Oscar De La Hoya-Mayweather fight, which in now in third place. 

The Mayweather-McGregor buy count includes purchases from traditional television distribution as well as buys from online portals from Showtime and the UFC, said Showtime.

(Video) Showtime's Stephen Espinoza says Mayweather-McGregor Positive For Boxing

Globecast said it has inked a deal to provide In Demand with fiber and uplink disaster recovery services that include playout and PPV services for In Demand’s live content and event channels.

In Demand, co-owned by Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Comcast, distributes major PPV events and out-of-market sports packages such as MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass and NHL Center Ice.

Under the deal, Globecast will provide continuous channel origination and uplink services of select PPV channels for AMC-11/3 and SES-3/13 satellite transponders, as well as terrestrial connectivity of three multiplexes from In Demand’s primary origination facility for uplink to AMC-11/3, SES-3/8 and SES-3/13 satellites. 

They said the plan originates from Globecast’s Media Center in Los Angeles, which uses a Media Factory technology that manages ingest, media logistics, transcoding, and order/schedule management for linear and VOD content to satellite, fiber, cable headends, CDN, IP and OTT distribution points.

“The combination of its Media Factory solution, cable satellite distribution and extensive fiber network infrastructure was the best fit for our disaster recovery needs,” John Vartanian, In Demand’s CTO, said in statement. “We are confident that Globecast is the ideal back-up service to safely automate and manage our PPV channels if the need arises." 

On Saturday (Sept. 16) HBO will distribute the much-anticipated Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin middleweight championship boxing match via pay-per-view. As with the mega Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor PPV fight, Alvarez-Golovkin will be offered to fight fans both through traditional cable and satellite subscribers as well as on digital platforms through Ring.com.

The hope for cord cutters and sports fans away from home looking to catch the fight is that Saturday’s fight doesn’t suffer some of the unfortunate technical glitches that have plagued other high-profile sports events over the past few weeks.

Much has been written about the technical snafus that sabotaged the streaming of Mayweather-McGregor through the newly-created Showtime PPV app, as well as via UFC.TV. UFC president Dana White placed the blame for its website's ordering issues with tech company NeuLion

Statement from @DanaWhite: pic.twitter.com/ErvWRnjnVe

— #UFCPittsburgh (@ufc) August 29, 2017

Both Showtime and the UFC have said they will offer refunds to consumers who paid $99.99 to the digital sites but due to technical issues couldn’t access the fight – which will approach the all time record 4.6 million PPV buys set by the 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout.

Other, less publicized struggles afflicting the streaming of live sports events on subscription-based OTT services – including some FuboTV subs who couldn’t sign in to the highly anticipated Sept. 5 Honduras-United States FIFA World Cup qualifying game, and digital streaming service PlayStation Vue’s reported confusion surrounding NFL blackout rules leading to the unnecessary blacking out of several Fox-televised NFL games in a number of markets this weekend – have arguably dampened the enthusiasm for purchasing live sports content over the web.

“I don’t think it’s done the category any favors,” said Michael Weber, chief operating officer for sports streaming service Fite.TV.  “Because there is some negative publicity out there, I think people are slightly hesitant to make a purchase because of a previous problem.”

For Fite.TV, which is providing the technological and marketing backbone for Ring.com’s streaming of Saturday’s Alvarez-Golovkin fight, streaming live PPV sports programming has not been an issue. Weber said The company, which recently secured right to stream UFC’s PPV events beginning with the Sept. 9 UFC 215 event, has already streamed 500 live and live to tape wrestling, boxing and mixed martial arts events over the past 18 months without any major problems.

As more viewers migrate toward watching video content on mobile phones, computers and tablets, the demand from sports fans for access to high profile sports events will grow. But its not enough for distributors to just offer those events digitally; the user has to have a positive experience -- from ease of ordering to watching a technologically uninterrupted event featuring the best picture quality possible. 

A positive takeaway from Saturday’s Alvarez-Golovkin PPV fight could go along way in further building viewer confidence in the category.  

Sling TV, coming off its carriage of the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view boxing event, will offer its fight fans the upcoming Sept. 9 UFC 215  and Sept. 16 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin PPV combat sports events, the network said Wednesday.

Sling TV customers can now purchase the UFC 215 mixed-martial arts event -- which features as its main event the Demetrious Johnson-Ray Borg fight -- as well as the Alvarez-Golovkin boxing event, which retails at $79.99, said Sling TV officials.

Both pay-per-view events will be available for viewing across all Sling TV-supported devices, according to the company. 

The two events follow Sling TV’s carriage of the Mayweather-McGregor fight, which is on pace to matching or surpassing the all-time PPV buy record of 2.6 million buys set by the 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao PPV event.

The heavily hyped Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view boxing match proved to be worth the wait for both distributors and fans, and industry executives said they hope it boosts future pay-per-view boxing and UFC events.

Showtime last Friday reported that the fight, in which boxer Floyd Mayweather improved his record to 50-0 with a 10th round TKO over the game UFC/mixed martial arts champion McGregor — is expected to draw in the “mid to high” 4 million PPV buy range, which would potentially knock out the record 4.6 million buys generated by Mayweather’s 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao. It could also eclipse the $450 million generated by the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout.

“We consider this a huge success,” Showtime Sports and Event Programming executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza told Multichannel News. “We could very well break the record — we just haven’t seen enough of the data to definitively say that — we’re either over the record or very close. Even if we don’t break the record, it’s still a massive success.”

Some MVPDs were reportedly overwhelmed by a flurry of last-minute fight purchases, to the point where Showtime officials said the Mayweather-McGregor main event was “slowed down” to allow distributors to complete orders. Espinoza, though, said there were no major distributor problems regarding buys. “We didn’t even experience the level of technical issues that we saw on Mayweather-Pacquiao,” he added.

Espinoza also called reports that the network’s new Showtime PPV app suffered major technological problems during the event “exaggerated,” saying that the network only received a “limited” number of complaints, which were quickly addressed. Showtime will provide refunds to those who were unable to see the purchased event, he added.

UFC’s website UFC.TV also struggled to keep up with demand, prompting the company to issue several post-fight statements regarding the issue. UFC said it is reviewing each consumer complaint on a “case-by-case basis,” adding that it was “disappointed by the technical difficulties that were experienced … We are working with our vendor NeuLion to assess exactly what happened.”

UFC president Dana White also said in a statement: “Nothing is more important to the UFC than our fans. They’ve always been incredibly loyal and supportive, and we’ll always take care of them.”

Some 3 million viewers watched the fight illegally, according to video security company Irdeto. Espinoza admitted that it was nearly impossible to totally eliminate illegal viewing of the fight given its magnitude.

“Like all events with this kind of appeal, we’re going to have people who will try to view it illegally,” he said. “We took, along with our partners, unprecedented action both before and during the fight to block and remove as many of the illegal streams as possible. ”

Despite the online problems, most industry observers said the fight inside the ring was better than expected, with UFC champion McGregor holding his own in his first ever boxing match, and will easily finish as the year’s most lucrative PPV event.

Former HBO head of pay-per-view Mark Taffet said the fight will generate significant momentum for both the PPV boxing and UFC categories. Both sports have PPV events scheduled over the next two weeks: The UFC will distribute its Sept. 9 UFC 215 pay-per-view event featuring Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg, while HBO will offer its Sept. 16 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin bout.

“Mayweather-McGregor clearly exceeded fans’ expectations, and that is great news for both boxing and UFC,” Taffet said. “It bodes well for both sports, and I think it’s one of those great instances in which everyone comes out a winner — boxing, MMA, McGregor, Mayweather and the fans.”

HBO is not worried about the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight undercutting what it hopes will be a blockbuster on Saturday, Sept. 16, featuring middleweight champions Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin.

HBO pay-per-view vice president Tony Walker told Multichannel News that Mayweather-McGregor was more of an event, whereas Alvarez-Golovkin should appeal more to traditional boxing fans. HBO even hopes to piggyback on the Mayweather-McGregor hype, having marketed its event during the run-up to that Aug. 26 bout, in which boxer Mayweather defeated mixed-martial-arts specialist McGregor.

“There’s some distance between the two fights,” Walker said. “I fully expect a lot of people who purchased [Mayweather- McGregor] to come back and buy [Alvarez- Golovkin] on Sept. 16.”

In addition to the hard-core boxing crowd, more Hispanic viewers are expected to buy the HBO fight, due to Alvarez’s popularity among those viewers. Walker said the Aug. 26 premiere of HBO’s 24/7 Canelo-Golovkin preview show drew an impressive 350,000 viewers despite going directly up against the Mayweather-McGregor PPV event.

HBO will run promotional spots for the fight during high-profile sports events like National Football League, Major League Baseball and college football games.

Walker would not project how many PPV buys HBO expects to generate from Alvarez-Golovkin, but said he thinks it could surpass Alvarez’s best PPV performance. Alvarez’s May 6 fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. generated 1 million buys, according to fight promoter Golden Boy Promotions.

NeuLion said it live stream the upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight for several global rights holders, including the UFC, Sky Sports, Sky New Zealand and Eleven Sports Network.

RELATED: Gearing Up for a Pay-Per-View KO (subscription required)

Those partners will use NeuLion’s Digital Platform for the live streaming of the four-fight Showtime PPV event, set for Saturday, Aug. 26 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

NeuLion said its platform will handle authentication and purchasing of bout for each of the four partner offerings, including UFC.TV, Sky Sports Box Office, Sky Fan Pass and the Eleven Sports Network’s OTT service.

RELATED: Sling TV to Offer Mayweather-McGregor PPV

NeuLion, which will deliver and monitor the live event from its technical operations centers in New York and London, said it also designed and developed the consumer experience for its respective streaming partners.

Fight fans will have to dish out as much as $100 to watch the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view boxing match.

The fight, which pits recently unretired, undefeated boxer Mayweather against UFC mixed martial arts champion McGregor, will carry a PPV suggested retail price of $89.95 for a standard definition feed, according to fight organizers. Like most PPV events, distributors will most likely add another $10 to the price to watch the fight in high definition.

The price point matches what many distributors charged for the 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout, which drew a record 4.6 million PPV buys. The Maywether-McGregor SRP is much higher than the $69.95 expected to be charged for HBO’s Sept. 16 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin middleweight championship PPV event.

Showtime Sports executive vice president and general manger Stephen Espinoza said the high premium price won't turn away fans from buying the event. “For a rare event like this, a truly unique spectacle, we are confident that the market will bear the price,” Espinoza said. “We are clearly looking at a once-in-a-lifetime type of event and we believe that when you have a premium product, the consumer is willing to pay a premium price for it.”    

The boxing match many sports fans fantasized about but never thought would happen is now a reality. Showtime PPV will distribute the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing match, a unique matchup between Mayweather, an undefeated 40-year old boxer and McGregor, a 26-year-old UFC mixed martial arts champion.

The 12-round fight, which will be fought at a 154-pound limit – well above Mayweather’s typical 147 fighting weight but near McGregor’s natural fighting weight – is expected to draw a lot of attention and millions of dollars in pay-per-view revenue.

Spearheading the fight’s distribution is Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports, who spoke to me Wednesday night to discuss the big event and its potential to break all PPV event performance marks. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Tom Umstead: How did this fight finally come about?

Stephen Espinoza: Not sure anyone would have predicted this a year ago, but what started as a bit of bravado and a challenge thrown out between two mega stars has all of the sudden turned into a main event.

TU: Any suggested retail price for the PPV event?

SE: It’s still being discussed. That’s one of the ironies of the fight: the fighter’s deal got done so quick that was finished before the particulars of the event.

TU: What is the appeal of this fight?

SE: In a sport that’s often filled with hyperbole there really is no exaggeration to say that this event is truly unprecedented – its unprecedented in the nature of the competition: its unprecedented in its magnitude and the attention that it is receiving and will receive; and its unprecedented in the types of personalities that we have participating. Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor have taken the art of self-promotion and backed it up with excellence in the ring and elevated into an art form. We’ve certainly had colorful characters in boxing and in MMA before, but to get arguably the two most talked about athletes in each sport taking aim against each other in the same competition adds exponentially to the appeal of the event.

TU: Can this fight break the record of 4.6 million PPV buys set by the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight? 

SE: After that [2015] event I think we all said it would never happen again. I can’t say that it will happen, but what I can say is that the demand for this event and the attention that it has already received are easily on par with Mayweather and Pacquiao if not bigger. This has the advantage of drawing not just from the boxing and the MMA fan bases, but also from the universe of people who have never paid attention to either a boxing match or MMA event before. Due to the nature of the personalities and the nature of the competition, there’s a whole awareness and curiosity that far surpasses any boxing or MMA event – even an event like Mayweather-Pacquiao. So you never say never – if there is something that could break the Mayweather-Pacquiao record, it seems this event could be it.

TU: What do you say to some of the detractors who say the fight makes a mockery of both boxing and MMA?

SE: Combat sports are something that you really can’t predict. The fight could end at any time and it doesn’t matter how far someone is behind – one punch can change everything in one instant. In that context, I don’t think anyone can reliably say what’s going to happen in this fight. Mayweather has been two years away from the sport and is 40 years old, and he is fighting a young, strong MMA champion in the prime of his career in McGregor. He’s 27 years old and he’s significantly bigger than Floyd. Is it unorthodox? Absolutely, and I think that’s part of its appeal. Conor McGregor has made his entire career of proving his doubters wrong.

TU: Do you have enough time to effectively put together a blockbuster PPV event given the Aug. 26 date?

SE: We have three more days than we had for Mayweather-Pacquiao and that turned out OK. The reality is the media market is very different that it has been traditionally, and with the advent of digital marketing providing the ability to reach people much more quickly, I think the days of 90 to 120 days of marketing as a necessity are long gone.  

Canelo Alvarez made easy work of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. during last night’s big pay-per-view boxing event, setting up a September mega PPV fight between Alvarez and undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

Alvarez, arguably the industry’s biggest PPV draw, defeated fellow Mexican fighter Chavez Jr. in a lopsided unanimous decision Saturday night. Alvarez outclassed Chavez Jr. from the opening bell, winning every round on all three judges’ score cards in running his record to 49-1-1.

After the fight, the undefeated Golovkin (37-0) entered the ring with Alvarez to announce their much-anticipated fight set for Sept. 16, although the fight’s venue was not announced. Suggested retail pricing for the PPV event was also not available at press time.

The Sept. 16 Golovkin-Alvarez fight would mark the fourth PPV boxing event for HBO in 2017 following Saturday’s Alvarez-Chavez Jr. fight, this past March’s Golovkin-Daniel Jacobs bout, and the scheduled June 17 Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight championship rematch.

Showtime Sports has been at the forefront of televised boxing for 30 years, taking a sport that for a generation was the purview of the broadcast networks and effectively promoting, marketing and distributing some of the most successful and lucrative fight cards in the history of the fight game.

Showtime and HBO’s co-distributed May 2015 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view fight remains the biggest pay TV event of all time, drawing more than 4.4 million buys and more than $400 million in revenue. Boxing has become a staple of Showtime’s programming offerings, and both on its premium channel and via PPV, the network has showcased arguably the biggest names in the sport, including Tommy Hearns, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Lennox Lewis, Canelo Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather.

Showtime Sports and Event Programming executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza talked about the impact boxing has had on Showtime and vice versa over the past 30 years — as well as what the network is doing to ensure its future success with the sweet science — with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead.

MCN:How infl uential has boxing been to overall development of the Showtime brand?

Stephen Espinoza: It’s fair to say that boxing has been critical to the development of Showtime. It has provided another genre of programming that is completely consistent with the network’s overall brand. Showtime has become known for provocative, high-quality entertainment, with compelling characters, and there is nothing more provocative and there’s nothing more provocative and compelling than characters like Mike Tyson, Holyfield and Mayweather. Although it’s a much different type of programming in that its live sports as opposed to scripted dramas and comedies, its value to the network is the same — delivering unique, compelling, provocative programming at the highest level of quality.

MCN:How has Showtime enhanced the viewer’s experience of watching boxing on television compared to the broadcast television networks?

SE: I think there was a certain consistency in presentation that premium television offered to boxing. The ability to stay with a fight between rounds without going to commercial break is something that greatly enhances the presentation of the sport as a whole. The ability to do things without really needing to take a break in the action and to present [uncensored] content to an adult audience, in some cases, were really things that premium television could offer, so I think the experience of professional boxing on premium television was qualitatively different than anything else.

I also think the technology has impacted how the sport is presented and how we market, distribute and deliver the bout. We were covering the events with 15 cameras to be able to deliver the bout that mimics as close as possible the in-arena look and feel of the event. The advent of HD, Dolby 5.1, were also critical pieces of delivering that feeling of a live event. More recently, going to a 4K camera, which we started using three or four years ago, added another layer of detail of the visual presentation. Equally important was marketing and advertising the event. The advent of social media and digital marketing in general have been critical in being able to reach fans.

MCN:The premium category over the years has also been criticized for hurting the sport by taking its biggest stars away from broadcast television and forcing fans to pay to watch big fights. Do you think that is a fair criticism?

SE: I don’t think premium television hurt the sport per se. The shift to premium television was a significant change, but that was really more a factor of premium networks stepping into the void created by a decrease in networks televising boxing. There was the death of a fighter in the ring during the [1982 CBS-televised] Ray Mancini-Duk Koo Kim fight, and that caused some broadcasters to reconsider their commitment to the sport. It was a result of several factors that allowed premium television to become more active.

We can certainly debate whether [boxing’s move to premium cable] was a positive or negative development for the visibility of the sport. In an ideal case, having regular exposure of boxing on a broad, over-the-air platform is something that would have helped the sport overall historically. But overall, I think we have been good stewards of the sport and the sport has done wonders for the network as well.

MCN:Looking ahead, is the sport currently flourishing on Showtime?

SE: It is. The entire media market is undergoing changes, and that’s true for premium television, as well as boxing. There’s uncertainty as we undergo those changes, but there’s huge opportunity as well. For Showtime, our investment has been in the heavyweight division with such stars as [champions] Dante Wilder and Anthony Joshua are two investments that will provide us with hours and hours of great fights. More generally we are developing the largest pool of young, talented fighters that are going to lead the post Mayweather era. That includes Leo Santa Cruz, Keith Thurman, Sean Porter and Danny Garcia.

MCN:Who is the most impactful fighter to fight on Showtime?

SE: I’d say in terms of impact I’d say it’s a three-way tie between Tyson, Holyfi eld and Mayweather, with a close second being the fighter that’s appeared more than any fighter on Showtime, Julio Cesar Chavez.

MCN:What was the most memorable fight on Showtime?

SE: The one that immediately jumps to mind is the 2005 Diego Corrales- Jose Louis Castillo fight which, during my lifetime, is the best fight that I’ve ever seen and was later named fight of the decade.

If pound-for-pound Pay-Per-View boxing champion Manny Pacquiao is indeed retiring, he’s leaving the sport of boxing on a high note, earning a unanimous victory over Timothy Bradley Jr. in last night's big PPV bout.

Pacquiao, in the industry’s first major pay-per-view boxing event of 2016, knocked Bradley down twice during the 12-round fight, garnering a 116-110 decision on all three judges’ scorecards for his 58th victory.  The win comes nearly one year after he lost a unanimous decision to now retired undefeated champion Floyd Mayweather in the most lucrative PPV fight in history.

Pacquiao, who won two of three PPV fights against Bradley, said both before and after the event that he is retiring, adding that he will now focus on running for a Senate seat in his home country of the Philippines. He is currently the second-biggest revenue earner in PPV boxing history behind Floyd Mayweather. 

HBO distanced itself from star boxer Manny Pacquiao’s recent anti-gay comments, but said it will still distribute the fighter’s April 9 fight against Timothy Bradley Jr.

In a statement released yesterday, HBO labeled Pacquiao’s published statements last month saying that same-sex relationships are “worse than animals” as “insensitive, offensive and deplorable.” The network added that it has an "obligation" to distribute the April 9 Pacquiao-Bradley PPV bout – the third fight between the two fighters. Pacquaio has since apologized for his comments.

Pacquiao is one of the most successful fighters in PPV boxing history. His May 2015 fight against Floyd Mayweather is the most lucrative PPV event of all time, generating more than 4.4 million PPV buys and $400 million in PPV revenues. 

HBO's full statement is as follows: “Next month Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley Jr. are scheduled to meet in a Pay-Per-View bout.  We have an obligation to both fighters and, therefore, will proceed to produce and distribute that event.  However, we felt it important to leave no uncertainty about our position on Mr. Pacquiao's recent comments toward the LGBTQ community.  We consider them insensitive, offensive and deplorable.  HBO has been a proud home to many LGBTQ stories and couldn't approach this event without clearly voicing our opinion."

HBO will distribute a May 7 Canelo Alvarez-Amir Kahn pay-per-view boxing event, the network announced Tuesday.

The fight, for Alvarez’ World Boxing Council middleweight championship, will be the network’s second PPV boxing event in as many months. HBO also has scheduled an April 9 PPV fight card featuring the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. welterweight championship bout.

Alvarez most recently defeated Miguel Cotto in a Nov. 21 PPV boxing card to win the WBC middleweight championship.

Undefeated multidivisional boxing champion and undisputed pay-per-view champ Floyd Mayweather answered a few questions via email (posed by Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead) about his legendary boxing career, as well as his enduring popularity both inside and outside the ring.

MCN: Congratulations on becoming the first-everMultichannel Newsmale Athlete of the Year.

Floyd Mayweather: Thank you. I’m honored.

MCN: You have transcended boxing to become a multimedia, multiplatform star. What’s the secret to your popularity both inside and outside the ring?

FM: It is no secret that I retired undefeated, The Best Ever (TBE) to lace up the gloves. I worked hard throughout my whole career to not only be the best in the ring but also maximize my potential outside of the ring, too. I always say hard work and dedication, and that is what it took to become the multimedia, multiplatform star during my career.

MCN: How important is it for you to be known as the biggest pay-per-view draw of all time?

FM: It is very important. It is my legacy. No one can touch the numbers we put up. Millions and millions of people spent their hard-earned money to watch me fight over the years and that means everything to me. Without the fans, none of this could have been possible.

MCN: What role has social media played in your popularity, and why is it important for you personally to be as active as you are in talking to your fans on social media platforms?

FM: I also live a fortunate, fun life that I like to show my fans on all of my social-media channels such as Shots, Instagram and my Facebook page. It helps to have your own company too, which for me is TMT and Mayweather Promotions, and both of those are very active on social media as well. All of us working together makes it fun for the fans because they feel like they are a part of my life and lifestyle.

MCN: What, if anything, would it take for you to come out of retirement and pursue your landmark 50th win?

FM: Nothing. I’ve retired to make room for the young fighters making a name in the sport. Many of them are in the Mayweather Promotions stable. I’m committed to developing the boxing talent and others in the sports and entertainment industry.

Time will tell whether or not boxing champion Floyd Mayweather will go down as the greatest pugilist in the history of the sport.

In terms of champion sports brands, though, the 38-year-old Mayweather — who won 12 world titles in five different weight classes before announcing his retirement in September — is currently the undisputed, pound-for-pound titleholder.

Read R. Thomas Umstead's Q&A with MCN's Male Athlete of the Year.

Earlier this year, Forbes named Mayweather as the world’s highest-paid celebrity in 2015. The boxer generated a record $300 million this year, obliterating the previous high of $115 million earned by professional golfer Tiger Woods in 2008.

Much of what Mayweather earned this year was generated by his much-hyped May 2 fight against Manny Pacquiao, which set pay-per-view industry records for buys (4.4 million) and revenue ($400 million), destroying the previous record of 2.47 million buys generated by the 2007 Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight and the $150 million in revenue earned by the 2013 Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez fight.

Mayweather’s Sept. 12 fight against Andre Berto completed his unprecedented six-fight deal with Showtime, which generated about 10 million buys and $800 million in PPV revenue over its three-year span.

COTTAGE INDUSTRY

“There are entire sports leagues and corporations with hundreds of employees who would love to have the economic impact that Floyd has had over the past few years,” Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports, said.

Mayweather, who earns the inaugural Multichannel News male Athlete of the Year Award, has been in the top echelon of boxing since he won the super featherweight title in 1998. Mayweather would go on to amass a record of 49-0 over his 19-year pro boxing career, winning championships in five different divisions against such formidable opponents as the now-retired De La Hoya, Pacquiao and current middleweight champion Alvarez.

“He’s faced everybody and he’s beaten the best in the game,” said Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, the fighter’s boxing and entertainment promotion company. “He’s beaten these guys in their prime and makes very good fighters look ordinary. Name me one athlete in any sport who is the best at what they do at the age of 38.”

Mayweather’s 2007 fight with De La Hoya, his 2013 bout with Alvarez and this year’s fight with Pacquiao serve as the only PPV events ever to break the 2 million buy mark.

Read about MCN's Female Athlete of the Year, Ronda Rousey.

Mayweather’s brand extends beyond the ring. He took full advantage of the emergence of social media to further perpetuate his personality and persona. Mayweather has more than 12 million Facebook fans and 6.5 million Twitter followers. Observers say Mayweather has used social media effectively to talk directly to his fans and sell his fights as has no other professional athlete.

Over the years, he has also appeared in numerous high-profile media events, from WWE’s WrestleMania to ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, building more awareness for himself, the sport and the brand.

“No one has exploited social media like Floyd Mayweather,” HBO Sports senior vice president Mark Taffet said. HBO distributed several Mayweather PPV events in the 2000s and co-promoted the record-breaking Mayweather-Pacquiao fight with Showtime.

“Floyd has worked very, very hard to achieve the PPV figures that he achieved,” Taffet added. “It was no accident.”

Of course, Mayweather is not without his detractors. They criticize the fighter’s somewhat action-deficient defensive boxing style, as well as his often abrasive personality. But In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi said that criticism has worked to Mayweather’s advantage with regards to his PPV fight performances.

POLARIZING FIGURE

“Whether he was ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ Mayweather or ‘Money’ Mayweather, he created a legion of fans that wanted to both see him win and lose, and there’s a large segment of PPV buyers who bought his fights to see if someone could really beat this guy,” Boccardi said. “What he really did was create both those camps — the pro-Mayweather and pro-Mayweather-opponent camps — and that’s why he was able to generate the PPV buys that he did.”

Added Showtime’s Espinoza: “There are a lot of different opinions on his personality and the image that he portrays publicly. Regardless of those opinions, everyone in the sport has benefited. The sport would not have received the level of mainstream exposure, awareness and worldwide media attention without him.”

As for the future, Mayweather said he will remain retired, and Ellerbe added that the fighter is content to leave the sport behind after a phenomenal career. “He’s done everything he can in the sport of boxing, and he’s ready for the next stage of his life.”

Others however are not convinced, and hope to once again see Mayweather in the ring.

“There are a large number of people who secretly, and not so secretly hope he comes back including TV-distribution companies and Las Vegas touring companies,” Espinoza said. “We’re patiently waiting to see what develops.”

Canelo Alvarez took a big step in becoming the next big pay-per-view boxing draw with a unanimous decision win over middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in last night's PPV boxing card.

The HBO Sports-distributed fight, held in Las Vegas, saw the bigger Alvarez throw an accumulation of effective power punches against a smaller Cotto to win the middleweight championship and extend his record to 56-1-1 with 32 knockouts.

The win now sets up a potential mega fight between Alvarez and undefeated middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin.

HBO Sports will replay the Cotto-Canelo fight this Saturday (Nov. 28).

This Saturday (Nov. 21), HBO Sports will look to put the icing on the cake of what has already been a record-setting year for pay-per-view boxing when it distributes the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez fight for Cotto’s World Boxing Council middleweight championship belt.

The bout comes six months after HBO and Showtime’s historic PPV boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, which generated 4.7 million buys and more than $400 million in revenue. While Cotto-Alvarez isn’t expected to match Mayweather-Pacquiao’s lofty performance, industry observers have said the fight between two marquee champions will finish as the second-most lucrative PPV event of the year.

The Cotto-Alvarez fight also marks HBO’s last under the tutelage of HBO Sports president Ken Hershman after three years at the helm. Hershman, who prior to joining HBO served as executive vice president and general manager for Showtime Networks, overseeing that pay service’s boxing events, will leave HBO at the end of the year. A replacement has not been named.

Hershman and Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead discussed Saturday’s fight, as Hershman reflected on his time at HBO Sports and looked ahead at what’s next for the PPV boxing category.

MCN: The pay-per-view boxing category has already broken every performance record heading into Saturday’s Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez fight. Put into perspective how big this year was for boxing and the PPV category.

Ken Hershman: It was clearly a record-breaking year. Clearly, when you do 4.7 million buys for one event, it signifies that boxing is far from dead and it’s a strong category. I think the handing off of the baton from Mayweather-Pacquiao to Cotto-Canelo is the perfect transition to keep the sport vibrant and thriving.

MCN: What are your expectations for Cotto-Alvarez from a PPV performance perspective?

KH: I think it will clearly be the second-biggest fight of the year — and under ordinary circumstances, it would have been the biggest fight of the year. I never predict buys, but I know that this is an extraordinarily compelling matchup, with the new leader in the sport in Canelo Alvarez against one of the biggest names and most impressive fighters in terms of career success and longevity in Miguel Cotto. It will be a great night for all involved in the event.

MCN: What are the PPV boxing prospects for 2016?

KH: I think fighters will continue to emerge, and the mantle — it’s just inevitable. When Michael Jordan retired people said, what’s going to happen to the NBA? And then you had Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal come along, and now you have LeBron James. There’s always someone to replace the former biggest star of the sport, so that will happen. Canelo has a bright future, Gennady Golovkin [International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Association middleweight champion] has a great future, Sergey Kovalev [WBA, IBF and World Boxing Organization light heavyweight champion] and Andre Ward [former WBA super middleweight champion] are in the mix. There are plenty of great names to take the mantle.

MCN: Is the Cotto-Alvarez fight a bittersweet one for you, given that it’s your last big PPV event as head of HBO Sports?

KH: Look, it’s been a great experience, and I had a great 20-plus years in and around the biggest fights and the biggest boxers in the sport. I really feel very blessed to have had an amazing career being a part of all the great content over the years. This is a nice way to go out — it’s a special event and it will be a special night, and I’m going to love just sitting there as a fan and not really worrying about the business underneath it. That’s a nice place to be.

MCN: What’s next on your career horizon?

KH: I’m working on a number of things that I’m not ready to talk publicly about yet, but there are a lot of exciting things for me in my new chapter — I have a lot of career left in me and I’m looking at some exciting things. Right now I’m focused on the Nov. 21 Canelo-Cotto fight.

Pound-for-pound boxing champion Floyd Mayweather generated a flurry of pay-per-view buys for his Sept. 12 fight against Andre Berto but failed to deliver a knockout PPV performance.

The event, which Mayweather won in what he says is his last fight, averaged around 500,000 to 550,000 PPV buys, according to sources. That’s well short of the 1 million buys that Showtime executives said the fight had the potential to generate and far below the 4.4 million PPV buys Mayweather generated this past May in his fight against Manny Pacquiao.  

While Showtime executives would not confirm the PPV numbers, the company did say that it is satisfied with the fight’s PPV performance. The fight marked the last of a six-fight PPV agreement with Mayweather, a deal that featured the industry's two biggest PPV events -- the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout and the September 2013 Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez  fight.

“We are happy with the performance of the September 12 pay-per-view event … we witnessed four entertaining fights plus a historic moment as Floyd Mayweather announced his retirement from boxing,” said Steven Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports. “In all, we couldn’t be happier with our partnership with Floyd Mayweather.  In just two and a half years, across six PPV events, we generated more than 10 million domestic pay per view buys, totaling nearly $800 million in gross revenue.  We set all-time pay-per-view records on two separate occasions, the second of which is not likely to be exceeded in this generation, and we gave fans a wealth of entertaining and compelling shoulder programming.  In short, the Mayweather deal has far exceeded our expectations.”

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World Wrestling Entertainment will lean on social media and pay-per-view promotion to help pin down viewers for its Aug. 23 WWE SummerSlam event, its second-biggest pay-per-view event of the year after Wrestlemania.

WWE will also expand the live on-air hours for SummerSlam — which airs on the over-the-top WWE Network, as well as via pay-per-view through cable distributors for a suggested retail price of $44.99 — to four hours to three hours to accommodate what it believes is a strong lineup of matches, Brian Flinn, WWE senior vice president of marketing and communications, told Multichannel News.

Additionally, a one-hour pre-show will lead up up the PPV telecast.

To promote SummerSlam, Flinn said, the WWE is placing heavy marketing emphasis on social media sites like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter in an effort to activate its 525 million social media followers.

The wrestling outfit will exploit Facebook’s new “live” app to stream activities surrounding its WWE Superstars leading up to Sunday’s event, Flinn said. WWE will also offer Snapchat followers a live, ongoing narrative revolving around SummerSlam prior to to the live telecast.

“With these live look-ins, we are bringing fans from around the world into all of our events live leading up to SummerSlam,” Flinn said.

Flinn said the event would also receive traditional PPV marketing support from MVPD distributors — although he said satellite-TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network will not carry this event to their combined 34 million homes. Neither provider has aired a WWE PPV event since the company began airing its monthly PPV shows on WWE Network in early 2014.

To help draw viewers to the WWE Network, now in 1.2 million homes, the WWE in July began offering new users a rolling 30-day free trial regardless of when they signed up. Previously, the free trial had concluded at the end of each month regardless of when the signup occurred.

Flinn said SummerSlam, which will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a five-year run in Los Angeles, will feature as its main event a match between popular WWE superstars The Undertaker and former mixed-martial-arts star Brock Lesnar, which it hopes will draw both hard-core and casual wrestling fans.

“It always starts with the attraction, and this is event is the perfect example of us providing compelling content to our fans [that is] deserving of their passion,” he said.

The WWE will also develop several community-based activities in New York through out the week before the event, including an Aug. 21 interactive experience for fans to meet with and get autographs from WWE “Superstars.”

Taking full advantage of its digital distribution rights, Universal Sports Network has launched an exclusive over-the-top, pay-per-view offering that will stream all 48 matches of Rugby World Cup 2015 in high-definition. 

Universal Sports, through a partnership with multiscreen video platform specialist 1 Mainstream, said fans can buy the full tournament package for $199.99, or purchase individual matches for $27.95 each. Matches purchased online will be available for delayed or replay viewing following RWC 2015 until December 1, 2015.

The full tournament package will offer about 110 streaming hours of live matches in HD format, and will be offered on several platforms, including Web browsers (at RWC2015ppv.com), select connected TVs, iOS and Android smartphones, and Roku players and Roku TVs. Universal Sports is offering the OTT package in the U.S. and in U.S. territories.

The six-week tournament kicks off September 18 as host England takes on Fiji in London. The tournament final is slated to kick off Saturday, Oct. 31, at noon ET.

On the traditional broadcast side of the TV ledger, Universal Sports Network will air seven matches, and NBC will air two. Individual matches also will be available live on a residential TV pay-per-view basis from cable and satellite providers. Television PPV affiliates and availability will be announced in mid-August, according to USN, a partnership NBC Sports and InterMedia Partners LP.

“Universal Sports Network will offer more access points to watch the Rugby World Cup in the United States than ever before,” said Scott Brown, president of Universal Sports Network, in a statement. “This new over-the-top product enables us to deliver one of the biggest sporting events in the world across multiple platforms allowing fans to follow every minute of the action from England.”

Universal Sports Network acquired multi-platform media rights to the Rugby World Cup in a multi-year deal with World Rugby prior to the 2011 edition in New Zealand, which drew a cumulative global TV audience (207 territories) of about 3.7 billion. 

The Grateful Dead's successful trio of pay-per-view concerts over the July 4th weekend continued what has been a strong showing from an invigorated PPV event category in 2015.

While cable, satellite and telco distributors are still counting buys from the July 3-5 Fare Thee Well final tour from the legendary rock band, estimates from executives close to the event say the PPV buys will most likely range between 120,000 and 150,000. If the numbers finish up on the higher end, the concert package will reach rarified territory within the PPV music category.

It has been more than 16 years since a PPV music event has approached a similar six-figure buy mark, when a 1999 Backstreet Boys concert generated 160,000 PPV buys.

Add to the Dead's figures an approximate additional 200,000 online buys of a streaming package including the three PPV concerts plus two other Dead shows, and together they will most likely measure up as one of the most successful PPV music events of all time.

That would go hand in hand with the record-breaking performance of the May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao PPV boxing event, which obliterated all PPV event records in generating more than 4 million buys and $4.4 million in PPV revenue. Distributors are still counting buys from that event, which could push those totals even higher.

The UFC, coming off a successful UFC 189 PPV event this past Saturday (July 12), is also in the midst of pinning down one of its best performing PPV years ever.
The combination of quality and -- in the case of the final Grateful Dead shows and the much anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao bout -- once-in-a-lifetime events, along with a strong marketing push from affiliates, has yielded a successful one-two punch for the PPV event category.

Industry executives are hoping to continue the momentum with a number of possible fall music and ring sports events being discussed, although one major PPV fight may go by the wayside.

The industry had been preparing for a Sept. 12  Mayweather PPV event -- the sixth and last fight for the pound-for-pound champ as part of his deal with Showtime -- but recent reports point to Mayweather fighting his next fight on broadcast network CBS.

Mayweather has not officially announced who he's fighting in September. The PPV industry generally needs two to three months of lead time to market and promote a major PPV event, so the longer Mayweather delays in making an announcement, the greater the chance the fight will end up on free TV.

Still, the lack of a September Mayweather fight won't take the shine off of what has been a terrific year so far for the PPV event category.

For the past 11 years, United Kingdom expatriates in this country and other fans have been able to keep up with the popular BBC soap EastEnders via a $9.95 monthly pay-per-view offering on Dish Network. 

That lifeline to the goings-on around the fictional Albert Square in London's East End has been cut off, at least for now, as Dish and the BBC have discontinued the PPV offer. The cut-off apparently took effect on Sunday, when four half-hour episodes normally would have been available, according to Larry Jaffee, who publishes a U.S.-based fan newspaper about the show, called The Walford Gazette.

Dish and BBC Worldwide said in statements that “The EastEnders TV series is temporarily unavailable as a new distribution model is being finalized by Dish and BBC Worldwide. We regret any inconvenience and remain committed to promptly returning this content to our customers.” Neither Dish nor BBC Worldwide would elaborate on the statement. Dish now operates a streaming pay-TV service called Sling TV.

The discontinuation, even if only temporary, has caused a bit of a stir among fans of the show, including Bobbie A. Camp, who said in a Twitter exchange with the @Dish_Answers account, "EastEnders has been on PPV since 2004 through Dish, and to just cancel it without a word to viewers -- tsk, tsk."

The show does air on public television stations around the country, but those episodes are nearly a decade old. Interest in the show spiked this past February with stunt programming around the 30th anniversary, including a week of live telecasts.

MultiVision Media will look to revitalize the pay-per-view concert category with this weekend’s distribution of the last three performances by the rock band The Grateful Dead.

In Demand and other PPV event providers will offer the Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” concerts from Chicago on July 3, 4 and 5, according to Brian Ricco, executive producer for MultiVision Media, which secured the PPV rights.

In addition to the three five-hour PPV events, each of which will retail at a suggested price of $29.99, Ricco said a concert preview show will also be available for viewers.

“The Grateful Dead will no longer perform after the July 5 concert in Chicago,” Ricco said. “There’s been so much publicity surrounding it that there was demand from the industry for the event.”

In Demand will support the event with free-on-demand content, including an interview with Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann as well as backstage documentary footage of the band. In addition, the concerts will reply on both VOD and PPV through Aug. 3

“Grateful Dead: Fare The Well is a significant moment in music history, which presents a unique multi-day pay-per-view opportunity for programming distributors,” said Mark Boccardi, In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development. “The iconic band’s “Fare The Well” tour has already generated an enormous amount of excitement and publicity because of the huge influence they have had on music.”

Its official: The May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao ‘fight of the century’ is the greatest performing pay-per-view event ever, generating a whopping 4.4 million buys, fight co-promoters HBO and Showtime announced Tuesday.

The fight, which was projected to break all PPV records, also garnered more than $400 million in PPV revenue, according to HBO and Showtime. The numbers bested the 2.48 million PPV buys generated by the 2007 Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya bout, and the $150 million earned by the 2013 Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez fight.

“The 4.4 million buys could not have been achieved without the promotional support and early order initiatives put in place by distributors across the country,” said Mark Taffet, HBO Sports senior vice president.

Mayweather defeated Pacquiao in a 12-round unanimous decision which many observers felt fell short action-wise of the massive hype surrounding the event.

Floyd Mayweather defeated Manny Pacquiao by unanimous decision in Saturday night's big boxing event, but at the end of the day it will be the pay-per-view industry that ends up the ultimate winner.

Mayweather used his quick hands and long jab to keep the more aggressive Pacquiao at bay for most of the 12-round fight, winning comfortably on all three of the official judges’ scorecards. Two judges saw the fight 116-112, while a third judge saw the fight 118-110 for the welterweight champion.

Mayweather remains undefeated at 48-0. He said after the fight that he will return to the ring in September in the last of his six-fight deal with Showtime.

HBO and Showtime will simultaneously air a replay of the fight next Saturday at 9 p.m. HBO will pair the fight the Canelo Alvarez/James Kirkland live boxing match, while Showtime will premiere its Inside Mayweather vs. Pacquiao Epiloge speical, said representatives from both networks.   

The highly anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is expected to break all PPV buy and revenue records. Prior to the fight, numeorus subscribers complained of having trouble accessing the fight feed, prompting Charter to send out a Tweet acknowledging the outages by saying, “we are working to resolve as soon as possible.”

The main event was even delayed for approximately 30 minutes to allow last minute PPV orders to be processed, according to fight announcers.

 HBO Sports senior vice president Mark Taffet said earlier in the evening that a record number of orders were being processed so fans should be “patient” as distributors processed the orders.

HBO officials are asking fans to be patient as pay-per-view orders continue to come in in advance of tonight's Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight.

Time Warner and Charter consumers in particular have taken to social media to complain of ordering issues surrounding the fight, which is expected to surpass the record 2.4 million PPV buys generated by the 2007 Oscar De La Hoya-Mayweather fight.

Earlier this evening Charter posted a message on Twitter saying: "We are aware of the issue impacting the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao feed. We are working to resolve s soon as possible."

HBO Sports senior vice president Mark Taffet told Multichannel News to be patient as operators process a record number of orders.  

“There are a record number of orders being placed. Fans should be patient and distributors will process their requests in an orderly manner,” he said. 

Dish Network has thrown the UFC out of its pay-per-view ring by choosing not to distribute the mix martial arts organization’s live PPV event Saturday night, the UFC said Wednesday.

Citing “contractual issues,” the UFC said that Dish Network will not offer its April 25 UFC 186: Johnson vs Horiguchi PPV event. According to the organization, Dish Network has chosen not to renew its distribution agreement with the UFC for distribution of its PPV events whereas all other US provides “have come to an agreement on renewal terms.”

The event will be carried by all cable, satellite and telco distributors, according to the organization.

“We have enjoyed a strong and productive relationship with DISHC over the years, and while we’re disappointed with their decision, we are confident that our fans will be able to enjoy this weekend’s cared through several other viewing options,” the UFC said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached with DISH in the near future, but remain committed to ensuring that all fans have continued access to UFC events through multiple distribution options.”

Dish subscribers can watch the PPV event on XBOX 360, XBOX One, as well as through Roku players and at select restaurants and bars.

Today’s consumers often complain about the rising cost of a pay TV package, costing an average $75 for roughly 300 channels.

Yet two weeks before the blockbuster May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view event, sports fans don’t seem too upset about dropping a C-note to watch the most anticipated boxing match in decades.

With a record $89 suggested retail price set by HBO and Showtime  -- $99 charged by some distributors to watch the fight in high definition -- Mayweather-Pacquiao is the most expensive ever for consumers, costing upwards of $25 more than any previous event.

Some operators initially suffered “sticker shock” at the record-setting price point, but most are dealing with it within the scope of the massive interest the fight is generating, said Mark Boccardi, senior vice president of programming and business development for In Demand, which negotiates PPV licensing and marketing deals for most cable distributors.

“The price point has been in the marketplace for a while, and I haven’t seen any real groundswell of opposition with it,” he said. “What you’ll end up seeing is, you’ll have more and more groups of people getting together, and the commercial business for the fight will be off the charts.”

While the fight is almost a lock to knock out the $152 million PPV-revenue record, some observers believe the phenomenon of watching in groups — whether it’s 20 people in a house or 100 in a local bar — could jeopardize the fight’s ability to match or surpass the record 2.4 million buys generated by 2007’s Mayweather-De La Hoya fight.

Yet so far, the price doesn’t seem to be affecting early buys. Showtime Sports executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza said some operators are already experiencing Mayweather-Pacquiao purchases at numbers comparable to those that usually come in two or three days before other huge PPV fights, a phenomenon also confirmed by several distributors.

And that’s before the lion’s share of Mayweather-Pacquaio marketing campaigns begin this week.

“We think there’s an enthusiasm that’s been pent up for many years for this fight and an awareness that this is a premium event,” Espinoza said. “It is slightly more expensive than a typical PPV, but then again, what the consumers are getting is not a typical PPV either.”

For boxing fans anticipating for more than five years this fight between arguably the two most well-known and popular fighters in the sport, the steep price tag could end up being well worth the money.

ESPN will bring bolwers and batsmen to U.S. fans with its live and on-demand coverage of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

The 49-match tournament, running from Feb. 13 through March 29, will be available via subscription streaming service, ESPNcricket2015.com, which bows on Feb. 3. All of the matches will be available live and on replay for $99.99, in both English and Hindi. ESPN is only selling the package on a full subscription basis.

Additionally, ESPN has reached agreements with Dish Network, Mediacom and Time Warner Cable to make all 49 matches available live and in the high-definition format to their subscribers via each company’s pay-per-view platform. The disributors will set their own pricing structures and their packages include all 49 matches in English, plus ESPN’s flagship 30-minute pre- and post- match studio program ESPNcricinfo Match Point .  Fans can subscribe by contacting the operators or ordering through their set-top box.

The ICC Cricket World Cup from Sydney, Australia comprises a 14-nation pool competing in One Day International matches.  The schedule is available here.

ESPNcricket2015.com will launch live and begin taking subscriptions on Feb. 3.  Fans subscribe online, and can then watch matches on ESPNcricket2015.com or download and watch on the ESPN Cricket 2015 app for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, launching on Feb. 11.

For ESPN's $99.99 subscription fee, fans receive complete coverage including all matches with English and Hindi-language commentary streams, full and condensed (60-minute) replays on-demand and the ESPN’s flagship pre-, post- and mid-innings studio program ESPNcricinfo Match Point. ESPNcricinfo’s Match Point will be televised three times daily from on-site overlooking Sydney Harbour. Each show will  range from 15 to 30 minutes, and will be hosted by Isa Guha and Raunak Kapoor. Joining them will be a panel of international experts including Michael Holding, Jonathon Trott and Ajit Agarkar.

“The Cricket World Cup is a unique event and we are excited to deliver it to fans in a new and unique way with the launch of ESPNcricket2015.com and our agreements with Dish Network, Mediacom and Time Warner Cable,” said Russell Wolff, executive vice president, ESPN. “As a complement to our core networks and the value of the multichannel environment, the launch of ESPNcricket2015.com is a dynamic way for us to deliver this event while continuing to explore with new ways to reach tech-savvy consumers and develop new expertise and agility in a dynamic media environment.”

In Demand has reached a renewal with Zuffa LLC to continue to distribute UFC pay-per-view bouts to more than 50 million households across the U.S., while affording a host of new options for affiliates and consumers.

The multiyear pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, follows the recent expiration of the parties' contract. The new agreement, coming shortly after UFC 182 (pictured) not only ensures that the UFC's biggest events remain available to residential pay--per-view households, but for the first time affords affiliates electronic sell-through rights of the cards, as well as the ability to proffer subscription service UFC Fight Pass to their authenticated video subscribers. 

In addtion, the deal will see InDemand play a greater role in helping affiliates sell UFC PPV cards to commercial establishments in their territories.

In Demand said it will deliver every UFC PPV event and purchasers will enjoy longer viewership windows via video on demand and TV Everywhere.. In Demand said TVE availability will vary initially, depending on when affiliates add UFC action to the platforms.

All events are offered in both standard- and high-definition formats, plus a separate Spanish-language feed.

“We have been proud to be a part of UFC’s growth from their launch on PPV to their current status as the gold-standard for Mixed Martial Arts, worldwide,' said In Demand executive vice president of proramming and general counsel Michael Berman. "This new deal ensures that we will continue our long-term relationship by not only distributing their core PPV events, but we will also be an intrinsic part of their next generation of growth through subscription and digital ownership of the UFC’s compelling content.”

Noted UFC chief content officer  Marshall Zelaznik:: “It is great to continue our rewarding and long-lasting relationship with In Demand. The ability of UFC to deliver our best and most meaningful fights and events to so many fans in the years to come is great news for our sport, our brand and our partners. This partnership will allow us to continue to be the world’s leading PPV content provider.” 

For upcoming schedules, click here.