Originally Posted by The Difference:
“Anyone know much about the Premier Boxing Champions promotion? Going by what I've read online, the promotion was established by Al Haymon (an adviser to Floyd Mayweather Jr) in order to provide mainstream exposure to up-and-coming fighters who at present wouldn't be in a position to headline the big US boxing pay-per-views on HBO or Showtime.”
You're sort of there with this, although you've missed the key part of the whole PBC deal - Haymon and his associates are buying the airtime on these channels to show the fights. Boxing is an absolute dead duck that advertisers don't want to be associated with in the States - hence why any big fights have been on HBO or Showtime in the last 20 years, and networks such as ESPN and Fox Sports have only had the budget for lower tier fights.
Haymon and co are hoping that these fights on 'free tv' will encourage advertisers, but they haven't started well. If you watch the US broadcast of a typical PBC card, most of the ads are either for PBC sponsor Corona Extra, or short promos for Haymon fighters.
HBO haven't really been affected by the deals, they haven't shown any Haymon fighters for a couple of years now, they've all been on Showtime - who after blindly accepting whatever dreadful fights they've been thrown (particularly in 2014) - such as Garcia v Salka, have now had fights they were forever hyping up ending up on NBC.
Haymon has continued his deal with Showtime now, and there's been a couple of his shows on there since the launch, but these aren't PBC-branded. Useful contract to have, as this keeps a PPV option open down the line.
Finally, I don't think there's any deal for ESPN's fights to air on ABC. There might be the option down the line, but certainly not at the time being. The initial press release said ESPN would hold the international rights, so it may end up on BT Sport/ESPN here - or it may just mean their Caribbean and Latin American territories.
There's a whole range of non-broadcast issues with PBC (bizarre catchweights, and the angling towards 'PBC titles', but that's for another day!