The Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder heavyweight pay-per-view fight is back on and will take place Oct. 9, boxing promoter Top Rank announced Thursday.

The fight, which was postponed from its originally scheduled July 24 date after Fury tested positive for COVID-19, will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, according to Tom Rank.

The first fight in 2018 between the two heavyweights ended in a draw. Fury scored a 7th round TKO over Wilder in the February 2020 rematch.

The fight will be the third major PPV boxing match to take place in as many months, following the Aug. 21 Manny Pacquiao-Errol Spence Jr. fight and the Sept. 18 Canelo Alvarez-Caleb Plant bout.

Also Read: PPV Boxing's Summer Bonanza

ESPN and Top Rank Inc. will bring back live boxing in June with several fight cards beginning June 9.

The fights, which will take place at the MGM Grand Conference Center Grand Ballroom in Las Vegas, will kick off with the Shakur Stevenson-Felix “La Sombra” Caraballo super featherweight bout, said ESPN. Top Rank and ESPN plan to offer multiple fight cards each week through June, with each event to take take place without fans or media. Only essential fight camp members and event staff will be permitted on site, according to the network.

Other announced televised fights include the June 11 Jessie Magdaleno-Yenifel Vicente featherweight fight card on June 11. Top Rank and ESPN did not reveal which ESPN platforms will carry the fight cards.

“I would like to thank MGM Resorts and the Nevada State Athletic Commission for their assistance in helping to bring back world-class boxing,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum in a statement. “We are all looking forward to a spectacular summer of live boxing across ESPN platforms." 

Boxing joins other sports such as NASCAR, the UFC, pro bowling, the NWSL and the NHL that have offered or soon will offer live events since most sports were sidelined in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

ESPN will throw its hat into the pay-per-view boxing ring in April when it teams with boxing promoter Top Rank Inc. for the Terence Crawford-Amir Kahn welterweight championship fight.

The April 20 Crawford-Kahn fight marks the first time ESPN and Top Rank have co-promoted a major PPV boxing card since the two reached a distribution agreement in 2017. It’s unclear how much the fight will cost consumers, or how viewers will be able to access the PPV event.

“Showcasing Crawford-Khan as the first pay-per-view event under the Top Rank on ESPN banner is truly a cause for celebration. Crawford is a world champion, a global phenomenon and perhaps the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport and Khan is a fighter that everyone wants to see every time he steps in the ring,” said ESPN executive vice president, programming and scheduling Burke Magnus in a statement. “This is what boxing needs, more big-name showdowns, and this fight is a perfect example of the vision that we had when we teamed up with Top Rank.”

The Crawford-Kahn fight is the third PPV boxing match scheduled thus far in 2019, following this Saturday’s (Jan. 19) Showtime-distributed Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner fight and Fox Sports’ March 16 Mikey Garcia-Errol Spence Jr. fight. 

ESPN has inked an exclusive TV deal with boxing promotion company Top Rank Inc. that includes as many a 54 boxing events a year through 2025, the companies announced Thursday.

Top Rank will exclusively distribute boxing events on ESPN and ESPN+ -- as well as offer classic fights and studio content – as part of the seven-year deal, according to Top Rank. The deal includes 12 exclusive primetime events and 24 premium events a year on ESPN’s $4.99 per month, direct-to-consumer service ESPN+, said the sports network.

The deal extends the agreement the two companies reached last year, which included ESPN fight telecasts featuring such marquee boxers as Manny Pacquiao and Vasiliy Lomachenko, as well as ESPN+-exclusive bouts headlined by Pacquiao and welterweight champion Terence Crawford.

Related: Manny Pacquiao to Step into Digital Streaming Ring 

“ESPN is thrilled with this new long-term agreement with Top Rank, which represents the most innovative and comprehensive relationship in the world of boxing today,” said Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN President and Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks in a statement. “By creating and distributing significantly more Top Rank events and boxing content, ESPN and Top Rank will jointly cultivate upcoming fighters and fights, creating the stars of tomorrow while providing fans with the sport’s best content in a more personalized manner.”

Top Rank President Todd duBoef added: “This partnership will continue to bring the biggest events and best fighters from around the world to ESPN networks. Our collective ability to integrate live events, classic fights, studio shows, and behind-the-scenes features will raise the long-term profile of the sport of boxing and the athletes.”

Pay-per-view boxing legend Manny Pacquiao will once again step in the ring Saturday night for a fight that boxing fans will have to dish out a fee to watch.  

Yet instead of paying upwards of $50 on PPV to watch Pacquiao go for his 60th career win against hard-hitting Lucas Matthysse, fight fans will only have to pay digital streaming sports service ESPN+'s $4.99 monthly fee to catch the fisticuffs.

Pacquiao is the second most lucrative fighter in PPV boxing history, and his 2015 fight with all-time PPV boxing champion Floyd Mayweather remains the most-purchased PPV event of all time with 4.6 million buys. Even at 39 years old and well past his prime, Pacquiao's fight with Matthysse could have done decent PPV business, especially since the category hasn’t had a major fight through the first seven months of the year.

Yet the Malaysian-based fight—part of a full day of live boxing content that will air on ESPN and the ESPN app prior to the main event – will instead mark the highest-profile boxing match to stream live on the upstart digital service, which launched in March to much fanfare. 

ESPN’s multi-year, multi-media deal with boxing promotion company Top Rank Inc. reached last year will provide the subscription service with several marquee boxing matches to offer in the near future, including last month's Terence Crawford-Horn welterweight title fight. 

Pacquiao's last fight -- a 12-round loss to Jeff Horn in 2017 -- aired on ESPN and drew more than 3 million viewers, according to published reports.

“Saturday’s boxing lineup gives us the ability to own the night with boxing fans, and the Manny Pacquiao-Lucas Matthysse match is a perfect example of the world-class caliber of events we envisioned for ESPN+,” said Burke Magnus, executive vice president of programming and scheduling. “The match also provides us with an incredible opportunity to generate compelling storytelling across all our platforms.”

With new digital sports services like ESPN+, Turner’s Bleacher Report Live and combat sports-themed service DAZN seeking to secure rights to live boxing content along with traditional premium cable services Showtime and HBO, it’s not that far-fetched to question whether the PPV fight business is on the ropes.

The scheduled Sept. 15 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin rematch will be the first major PPV event to be offered to fight fans in 2018 (the bout was initially scheduled for May 5 but was cancelled after Alvarez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs).

The last major PPV boxing match was Alvarez-Golovkin I last November, which drew approximately 1.3 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. That fight, combined with the 4.3 million buys generated by the August 2017 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor PPV fight, made 2017 one of the more successful years in PPV history.

While the PPV boxing category is closely watching the increasing competition from digital sports services, executives say the category remains very viable. PPV boxing historically has been cyclical, and executives say the category is in a downturn right now.

“The PPV industry is only as good as the fighters it can draw, and right now there’s no doubt that there’s a lull with respect to fighters that can carry a PPV event,” said In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi. He also said the industry has been spoiled in recent years by the likes of Mayweather, Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez, who often fought multiple times a year on PPV.

“Even though there are some great fighters in the sport, right now there are fewer PPV draws than we’ve had over the past few years,” Boccardi added. “We’re confident that the  big PPV's will remain tentpoles for the industry in boxing and in MMA.”

Meanwhile, HBO is still bullish on boxing and PPV. The network is confident that fight fans will ante up $74.99 in September for Alvarez-Golovkin despite the lack of marquee PPV boxing events this year.

“I actually think boxing is in great shape when you look at the people who all of the sudden want to be involved in boxing in a big way,” HBO pay-per-view vice president Tony Walker said. 

ESPN and Top Rank have partnered on an exclusive multi-year, multi-platform boxing distribution deal, the two parties announced Saturday in Las Vegas.

The extensive agreement calls for ESPN to distribute Top Rank boxing events across television, streaming, direct to consumer and pay-per-view platforms, including ESPN’s recently announced OTT service set to debut in 2018, according to the parties.

 ESPN and Top Rank will kick off its deal on Sept. 22 with title fights from featherweight champion Oscar Valdez and super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez.

ESPN and Top Rank earlier this month teamed to televise championship fights for Vasyl Lomachenko (Aug. 5) and Terence Crawford (Aug. 19). The Crawford/Julius Indongo main event averaged 1.2 million viewers on ESPN, according to the network.

“ESPN is excited to announce this new relationship with Top Rank, the most comprehensive and innovative media agreement in the history of the sport,” Burke Magnus, executive vice president of programming & scheduling, ESPN said in a statement.  “We believe in a new vision for boxing that will super-serve existing boxing fans and create legions of new fans through the highest quality boxing content across multiple ESPN platforms - 365 days a year. Together, ESPN and Top Rank will build the superstars of tomorrow through unrivaled exposure, original content and cutting-edge technology.” 

ESPN will showcase 18 main events in the first year of the deal, said the network. In addition, ESPN will feature all undercards, select main events, re-airs of all ESPN and PPV events and Top Rank archival fights across multiple platforms.

"Top Rank is thrilled to enter into this relationship with ESPN, the top sports media brand in the world," said Todd duBoef, President of Top Rank.  "This unprecedented partnership offers a 360 approach to the entire boxing vertical, including live world class events, unparalleled coverage as well as access to historical moments in the sport."

ESPN’s live coverage of the controversial July 1 Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn welterweight championship boxing match was a knockout on the ratings front, averaging 2.8 million viewers despite the main event starting well after midnight on the East Coast.

The fight, which ended in a controversial decision win for Horn, was Pacquiao’s first non-pay-per-view appearance in eight years and marked a strategic move by boxing promotion company Top Rank to offer quality, competitive boxing matches featuring high-profile champions on basic cable.

Top Rank in August will offer fights featuring junior lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (Aug. 5) and Terence Crawford (Aug. 19). Both fighters have had the majority of their prior fights air on HBO.

Top Rank president Todd duBoef recently spoke to Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the controversial Pacquiao-Horn fight, the company’s decision to move premiere fights from premium television and pay-per-view to ESPN, and what it means for boxing’s future. An edited transcript follows.

MCN:What did you think about the Pacquiao-Horn decision?
Todd duBoef: I wasn’t in Australia for the fight, but everyone who was there in person thought it was a very close fight. As you know, a lot of times when you’re there in person it feels different than when you watch it on television. From my perspective, watching it on television, I thought Manny clearly won. More importantly, I thought it was dramatic and terrific television.

MCN:Were you satisfied with the ratings performance of the fight?
TD: The numbers were off the charts, especially when you take into consideration that the fight was happening in Australia as well as the time of night the fight took place. Timing-wise the fight was set up for the traditional pay-per-view window and not set up for linear distribution. [The fighters] walked in the ring at 12:03 [a.m. ET] which is not in the primetime window that most big sports events take place. I think it shows how powerful the sport is on a global basis.

MCN:How did Top Rank come to the decision to distribute the Pacquiao fight on ESPN instead of via pay-per-view or on the premium cable channels?
TD: We’ve had different conversations with different people as it related to where our product is best shown. My theory has been that boxing needs a 360-degree television perspective and needs to be presented more on a main sports platform. When I say 360, I’m talking about not just the live event but all the content associated with the live event, and I think what ESPN did was fantastic. I think their promotion in advance of the fight, their post-fight coverage and everything they did actually presented boxing like the major sport that it is. The general sports fans are on the [linear and digital] platforms. They’re not necessarily on the premium platforms.

MCN:With two Top Rank-promoted championship fights scheduled for August on ESPN featuring fighters that have fought most of their careers on HBO, is this a trend for Top Rank, in terms of offering its big boxing events on linear television?
TD: Yes, I would say more of a trend. I think to have that platform — which turns the lights on for the sport — is fantastic. For us to use our assets toward turning those lights on for the sport on a consistent basis, not just once every six or eight months, is important for the long-term health and awareness of the product.

MCN:Having said that, there’s already talk about a rematch of the Pacquiao-Horn fight. Is that a possibility since this was such a gripping fight, and would you look toward pay-per-view distribution for that one?
TD: I think there’s obviously a natural conversation about that. Everybody that watched that fight was entertained. The fight had an ebb and flow to it and it was dramatic. I think people were a little disappointed in the decision, but it got people talking about the sport, which was good. We haven’t talked to Manny — he initially said yes [to a rematch] but at the end of the day he has a real job as a politician so when he’s ready we’ll have that conversation. After that if we go forward, then we can talk about whether we’ll be back on the same platform.

Four marquee boxing and UFC pay-per- view events over the next two months could salvage what has been an otherwise weak year for the category.

After generating more than $500 million in revenue last year — some $400 million from just the May 2, 2015 Floyd Mayweather- Manny Pacquiao welterweight title fight — the live PPV-event category has garnered less than half of that take through the first 10 months of 2016, industry sources said.

Distributors hope a flurry of big PPV events in November and December will help pad the category’s revenue take. The latest addition to the PPV category is the Dec. 30 return of UFC star Ronda Rousey to the octagon, more than a year after her shocking loss to Holly Holm in last November’s UFC 193.

UFC CARRYING THE LOAD

The show joins UFC’s Nov. 12 PPV event from New York’s Madison Square Garden, which will feature popular UFC fighter Conor McGregor. In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi said that the appearance of Rousey and McGregor in two of the final three UFC PPV events -- the MMA outfit will also distribute its UFC 206 event on Dec. 10 -- will cap off what has been one of the most lucrative years for the UFC in terms of PPV revenue, although he would not disclose specifics.

“Clearly, this is a year where the UFC is helping the entire category,” Boccardi said. “Everyone sees that boxing is down — we had no Mayweather and one Pacquaio fight so far [this past April against Timothy Bradley Jr.] — so the UFC’s really strong performance is good for the overall health of the business. The events feature two tentpole athletes for PPV in Rousey and McGregor — the two are by far the biggest UFC PPV stars — and the crossover appeal that Ronda has you can’t overstate.”

Related > UFC: Too Legit to Quit

Two high-profile PPV boxing events will also take place within two weeks of each other in November. This Saturday ([Nov. 5) Pacquiao will step into the PPV ring for a fight against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas, while Nov. 19 will pit Sergey Kovalev against Andre Ward in a battle of undefeated light heavyweight boxers.

Boxing promotion company Top Rank, which is distributing the Pacquiao-Vargas fight, isn’t concerned about cannibalization, given the back-to-back-to-back marquee PPV events, company president Todd duBoef said.

DAILY DOC SERIES KICKS OFF

Top Rank recently turned to the Web to promote the fight. The network last week launched ALL IN: Pacquiao-Vargas, a daily documentary series on Top Rank’s Facebook page and Twitter feed that it said will give boxing fans an inside look at each fighter’s daily preparations.

Related > Building Boxing's Next PPV Champ [subscription required]

HBO will push the lion’s share of its promotional efforts for the Kovalev-Ward fight to the week before the event in an effort to avoid the marketing noise from the Pacquiao-Vargas and UFC 205 events. While there is a concern about potential cannibalization of viewers, HBO vice president of programming Tony Walker said the network is confident its event would appeal to boxing fans looking for a competitive matchup between undefeated fighters.

“There are some [cannibalization] concerns, but we think our fight is of a quality that will make people watch it,” Walker said.

After a relatively quiet year thus far on the pay-per-view boxing front, November is shaping up to be a knockout month for the category with two high-profile events scheduled over a three-week period.

The latest event to join the November PPV lineup is Top Rank’s scheduled Nov. 5 bout featuring top PPV draw Manny Pacquiao against welterweight champion Jessie Vargas.

The fight will take place two weeks before HBO’s Nov. 19 Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight championship fight card.

Further crowding November’s fight schedule is UFC’s high-profile Nov. 12 event from New York’s Madison Square Garden — the organization’s first event in the Big Apple since New York State legalized UFC events as part of a bill signed this past April.

One hiccup in the lineup is that HBO — which has distributed most of Pacquiao’s PPV fights throughout his career — has decided not to distribute Pacquiao-Vargas due to the fight’s proximity to its Ward-Kovalev fight, according to sources close to the network.

HBO officials would not comment on the matter.

Top Rank CEO Bob Arum told the Los Angeles Times last week that he is considering other potential companies, including Showtime, to distribute the Pacquiao PPV fight.

Showtime Sports officials told Multichannel News the network would consider talking to Top Rank about distributing the fight. Showtime and HBO teamed in May 2015 to distribute the Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather PPV event, which set an all-time PPV record with more than 4 million PPV buys for more than $400 million in revenue.

Top Rank president Todd duBoef told Multichannel News could also distribute the fight on its own to the industry as well as via online to consumers though its TopRank.tv website. “I think there are a lot of options for us,” he said. “I think it has a great opportunity for us to explore different creative ways that have not necessarily been looked at in the past.”

Overall, Pacquiao has generated the second-highest level of PPV revenue within the boxing category, behind only Mayweather.

November’s two scheduled pay-per-view fights would add to a 2016 PPV boxing lineup that has already featured HBO’s April Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. bout, its May Canelo Alvarez-Amir Kahn bout and last month’s Terrance Crawford- Viktor Postol fight.

HBO also has a Sept. 17 Alvarez-Liam Smith PPV fight on the docket.

The official end of the fall-winter television season typically leads to a quieter, lighter summer for the industry. Thus far this year, though, events outside of the normal day-to-day business of TV have been anything but normal, and a couple of recent industry-related stories are already beginning to forecast what could be a very interesting and unusually busy summer in the world of television.

The presidential primary season has delivered its share of crazy twists and turns and unlikely scenarios that have driven ratings up for virtually all cable news networks. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger or more unpredictable, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders contemplated debating each other in a very high-profile event.

Hoping to get in on the action, boxing promoter Bob Arum looked to bring the spectacle to pay-per-view. Arum’s Top Rank event promotion company was willing to put up a minimum of $20 million — as well as donate 80% of the net proceeds from “The Heavyweight Debate” between the two presidential hopefuls to a charity or charities of the candidates’ choice — in an effort to promote the show.

Trump ultimately backed out of the proposed debate prior to Memorial Day weekend, but given his penchant for creating media spectacles, can anyone rule out a potentially big, politically-themed PPV event before voters head to the polls in November?

Meanwhile, HBO’s Game of Thrones is one of the most digitally pirated shows on cable, but recently the pay TV service has taken its GoT digital piracy fight to the world of online pornography.

HBO is trying to curtail the uploading of titillating, nudity-laced scenes from its fantasy series to the adult Web service PornHub, according to published reports.

PornHub itself released audience figures that show site searches for GoT scenes and related adult parodies were up 370% on the site in the days prior to the show’s April 24 season six premiere, but the site’s traffic actually drops 4% during a Game of Thrones episode.

For its part, HBO has said in a statement that it is “aware of the issue and is in the process of getting material taken down from PornHub,” according to Business Insider.

Even the world of sports TV isn’t immune to the potential effects of unforeseen developments. The New York Daily News reported last week that some NBC employees are refusing to travel to Brazil to work on NBCUniversal’s massive coverage of the Summer Olympics this August for fears of contracting the dangerous, mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Brazil is struggling to control the spread of the virus, which has been linked to birth defects in children of pregnant women contracting the disease. NBC is expected to send more than 2,000 staffers to Brazil to oversee the company’s unprecedented linear and digital coverage of the games.

An NBC spokesperson told The Daily News that “the safety of our team members is always our first priority,” and that “no NBC personnel assigned to work in Rio will be required to travel if they believe that their personal health or safety is at risk.”

Fasten your seat belts. It could be a bumpy, unconventional summer in TV land.

When pound for pound pay-per-view boxing champion Manny Pacquiao stepped out of the ring and into retirement after his April 9 unanimous decision win over Timothy Bradley Jr., so went the second-biggest revenue generator in pay-per-view event history.

Pay-per-view boxing’s all-time revenue generator, Floyd Mayweather, had already hung up his gloves last year. The retirements of PPV boxing’s two top draws leaves the category with huge shoes to fill as it comes off its most-successful year ever — success due largely to the record-setting “Fight of the Century” between Mayweather and Pacquiao on May 2, 2015.

It could be years before another PPV-boxing match rises to match the performance of Mayweather-Pacquiao, which raked in 4.5 million buys and more than $400 million in revenue. But it might take just a few rounds for the sweet science to crown some new champions capable of consistently surpassing the industry’s benchmark of 1 million PPV buys, boxing observers said.

Up-and-coming champions aren’t just getting greater television exposure from traditional boxing outlets like HBO and Showtime. New distribution hubs such as the Premier Boxing Champions series — which airs on NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN and Spike TV, among other outlets — are affording exposure to young fighters. And digital media, with its reach and immediacy, can help a fighter quickly build a brand beyond boxing circles.

“There’s always going to be the question of who’s next,” In Demand senior vice president of programming and business development Mark Boccardi said. “It’s a cyclical business and since the late 1990s, there’s always been someone to be that guy or those guys, and within the industry everyone is confident there will be a fighter or fighters who can do that.”

Indeed, after such heavyweights as Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis — as well as lighter-weight fighters like welterweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez — dominated the PPV category in the 1990s, there was a lull before Oscar De La Hoya assumed the mantle in the mid-2000s. Once De La Hoya retired, the stage was set for Mayweather and Pacquiao to rule the PPV event business.

STAR SEARCH

The template for building a PPV fighter has already been established, said Bob Arum, the president of boxing promotion company Top Rank. The key now is to find a fighter or fighters who can follow the game plan.

“It all depends on taking a fighter and putting him in a position where he can attract people to spend money on PPV to watch him fight,” Arum said. “That’s easily said and hard to do.”

Arum, a veteran promoter who worked with Pacquaio and promoted Mayweather in his early boxing years, said that in addition to championship in-ring skills, first and foremost a successful PPV fighter must appeal to as many demographic groups as possible — something both of the aforementioned fighters were able to accomplish over the years.

So who’s closest to stepping into the vaunted PPV ring? The consensus among most boxing observers is that Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez is poised to make the quickest move to PPV superstar status. The middleweight champion — who’ll fight Amir Kahn in a May 7 HBO-distributed PPV event — has already participated in the third-biggest PPV event of all time: his 2013 fight against Mayweather, which drew 2.2 million PPV buys.

His last fight, in November 2015 against Miguel Cotto, pulled in more than 900,000 buys, according to HBO.

“Clearly, with Canelo, you have a PPV superstar that can transition into the next great era,” Mark Taffet, president of sports marketing/consulting company Mark Taffet Media, said. “The challenge for the sport, in order to create a regular flow of million-buy mega-fights, is to develop a great supporting crew.”

Other up-and-coming fighters like welterweight champion Keith Thurman, junior welterweight champ Terence Crawford, middleweight titleholder Gennady Golovkin, undefeated former super middleweight champion Andre Ward and heavyweight champions Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua have been identified as potential draws either on their own, or pitted against one another in PPV mega-fights.

Top Rank will look to build a July PPV card featuring Crawford, Arum said, while the industry is hoping to schedule at least one fall PPV mega-event, although it’s unclear who would headline it.

STILL BUILDING FANS

But as good as those fighters are — and as well-known as they are within boxing circles — they still have yet to develop the broad, diverse audience they’ll need to win in the PPV arena, according to boxing observers.

“It takes time,” said Tony Paige, a boxing broadcaster and sports-talk host on New York radio station WFAN. “The fighters will have to build themselves up with big fights over time to become big PPV draws. If you get enough big wins, you’re driving the bus, so to speak.”

Some observers said the development of the Premier Boxing Champions series, which showcases current champions and young fighters on live fight cards airing on NBC, CBS, Spike TV, ESPN, NBCSN, CBS Sports Network and FS1 — along with other networks like BET and truTV from time to time — as a step in the right direction.

“The sport is not only in the transition to see who ascends to the mountaintop next, but I think there’s a great opportunity with the quickly changing television landscape and technology to reach out and attract the next generation of fans to support the next generation of fighters,” said Taffet, who most recently served as senior vice president of HBO Sports. “It’s a challenge promoters and networks must readily accept to insure a very fertile environment for the sport going forward.”

But offering fights on too many outlets could actually curtail the ability to create one or two mega-stars, Paige cautioned. “It’s hard to build up interest in one particular fighter when that fighter fights one month on one network and then maybe three months later on another network,” he said. “It’s hard for fans to keep up with the schedule.”

Developing continuity in the sport’s message to the consumers is critical if boxing is to build its next wave of top fighters into PPV superstars, Taffet said. “It’s important for consumers to regularly be in touch with the sport, the athletes and the storylines, so that in their increasingly busy, media-savvy days they can develop the attachment that leads to true fan support on an ongoing basis.”

One way to get a fighter’s brand beyond boxing’s core fan base is via social media. Digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram give promoters, fighters and sponsors a chance to continuously feed fans’ appetites in ways that have yet to be fully exploited, Taffet said.

Added WFAN’s Paige: “If you don’t get beyond your core followers you’re just preaching to the choir. What always makes boxers and boxing successful is when you get a crossover audience of people that don’t have anything to do with boxing, but are interested in the fighter.”

Getting to that point will take a combined eff ort from several corners, according to executives.

“It’s not just as simple as everyone getting together and saying let’s just create someone,” said In Demand’s Boccardi. “It’s a combination of the promoter doing their job and finding the fighters, the networks doing their job and helping to develop them, and the PPV industry doing their job to help promote those fighters.”

TruTv is the latest cable network to add boxing to its primetime lineup, partnering with Top Rank to create a live Friday primetime series launching May 1.

The new series, in association with Turner Sports and HBO Sports, will launch on the eve of the May 2 Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view fight with a card featuring two title bouts inside The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

The card will feature a lightweight world championship fight between Takahiro and Ray Beltran as well as a NABF welterweight championship fight between Mikael Zewski and Konstantin Ponomarev.

“We’re excited to partner with Top Rank and our colleagues at HBO Sports to bring this high-caliber boxing series to truTV,” said Lenny Daniels, president of Turner Sports in a statement.  “We share a common vision to present these events in a new and inventive way and look forward to offering this compelling content to our viewers.”

Added Chris Linn, truTV president and head of programming: “We see this as a great opportunity to bring more coveted live sports programming to the network and believe Friday night primetime fights will resonate with truTV’s young audience.”

truTV is the latest in a growing list of networks launching live boxing shows. Cable network Spike TV along with broadcast networks NBC, CBS and Bounce TV have announced deals with Premier Boxing Champions for upcoming live boxing cards.