U.S. Olympian Antonio Vargas signs deal with Top Rank
LAS VEGAS – As it did in 2012, Top Rank continues to sign a slew of Olympic boxers, adding gifted American flyweight Antonio Vargas on Wednesday.
Vargas is the fourth 2016 Olympian signed by Top Rank, following Ireland’s Michael Conlan, Brazilian gold medalist Robson Conceicao and Teofimo Lopez, an American who represented Honduras in Rio de Janeiro.
Top Rank’s Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler was impressed by Vargas at the U.S. Olympic Trials and urged promoter Bob Arum to sign him.
“Bruce is in love with the kid,” Arum told Yahoo Sports. “Bruce said he was the guy at the Trials that he was the most interested in. He’s a young and talented kid and he’s a nice young man with good values. He’s a guy, considering his weight class, we think can become a star.”
Arum said Vargas can go from super flyweight to as high as featherweight as a professional.
For the four Olympians Top Rank has already signed and for the others Arum said he expects to sign next month, where will they fight on television? While talking about Vargas’ pro potential, Arum took the opportunity to take a shot at HBO and Showtime, the premium cable networks who have been constants in boxing over the past 30 years. Arum said Wednesday the premium cable networks are doing more harm to boxing in the U.S. than good.
“For a sport to prosper and really make its mark,” Arum said, “it has to be on commercial television because every major sport, and all of them that want to consider themselves major, are fueled by rights fees which in turn are supported by commercials. In boxing in the U.S. with our reliance on the two premium networks, we’re faced with this conundrum: We sell the ring mats and that is one department of every international company that buys sponsorships. However, we can’t approach the media-buying elements of those companies because we have no media to sell, meaning commercials and so forth.
“That’s where the big money is and that’s where we’re getting killed. We’re going to be doing everything possible to put our product on commercial television, whether it be Spanish language or English.”
Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions tried doing that and Arum was highly critical of it and repeatedly said it had no success.
Pressed on that by Yahoo Sports, Arum said there is a slight difference.
“The reason the PBC didn’t work was because their model was based not on building up their business, but destroying the competition so they were the only ones standing,” Arum said. “In other words, they did exclusive television deals with a vast array of networks for the sole purpose of cutting out the competition. If they had taken that money and used it on one or two networks and gotten continuity and getting people to focus on these fights, where you can see Fighters A, B, C and D and A fights D and then you create interest in that way, on one or two networks, in the same way the UFC has done, it would have been much more successful.”
Arum said he’s excited about Vargas because one of his parents is Puerto Rican and the other is Mexican, and those fit perfectly with Top Rank’s demographic. Vargas is bilingual and Arum said he’ll shuttle between English and Spanish language networks.
He said he expects Top Rank to announce the signings of several more 2016 Olympians, who are from European countries, in January.
“When we finalize this team, which will be global in nature, it will be something special going into the future,” Arum said. “I am extraordinarily bullish on the future of boxing. With what’s happening with this sport around the world, whether it’s China or New Zealand or the U.K., or what’s starting to happen all over the European continent, in Mexico and I really think it’s happening in the U.S. Boxing, starting in 2017, will be exploding all over the world.
“Young, personable guys like Vargas, who can fight and who can connect with people, can all be a part of it. It’s coming.”
