Showtime's demise as a boxing outlet further proof the sport needs to evolve

Showtime announced Tuesday its boxing program will shutter at the end of 2023. It has only a pay-per-view event scheduled featuring super middleweights Demetrious Andrade and David Benavidez on Nov. 25, and is considering a Dec. 9 show in Las Vegas. But that will be it for the network that for 37 years brought some of the best fights and greatest fighters into our homes on a regular basis.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler defended his middleweight title in Las Vegas against John "The Beast" Mugabi on March 10, 1986, in the first Showtime broadcast. It will end in Las Vegas with either Benavidez-Andrade or the show at the MGM Grand on Dec. 9, if it chooses to do that card.

It has been a brilliant ride with plenty of thrills, but the fact that it's ending now is gut-wrenching and unnecessary. Paramount president/CEO Chris McCarthy noted in a letter to employees that Showtime would invest its savings in original programming and noted the world is evolving.

The world evolved, but boxing did not and the result is the mess we're staring at now.

The creation of Premier Boxing Champions in 2015 heralded a new, and seemingly better way, of broadcasting boxing. Even as HBO was still calling itself the heart and soul of boxing, PBC founder Al Haymon turned his back on the premium cable networks to launch his new venture.

It would have bumper music scored by an Academy Award-winning musician. It would spread across multiple networks, including all four major over-the-air broadcast networks in the U.S. It hired big-name announcers and celebrated production crews ... and it all fizzled.

From a start that was so promising with NBC, CBS, Fox and NBC all broadcasting bouts as well as several cable networks, PBC's prospects continue its downward spiral Tuesday, along with the rest of the sport, when news broke Tuesday that Showtime was exiting boxing at the end of the year.

That leaves ESPN as the only major player in the U.S. that is regularly broadcasting boxing.

The streaming service DAZN can't rightly be called a major player in the sport any more because of the haphazard way it's run, its focus on ridiculous bouts between celebrities and constant format changes. It can be called major only because its owner, Len Blavatnik, is one of the richest men in the world. According to Bloomberg, he's worth over $38 billion. So he could hire any fighter who comes on the market, and while that will be great for the future of said fighter and his family, it doesn't necessarily help the sport.

Boxing can work on television in the U.S., but it needs to fundamentally alter the way business is done. The biggest problem is that the numbers don't work when the elite fighters are grossly overpaid as they have been for so long.

No one begrudges Floyd Mayweather whatever he is paid because when he was fighting, he generated huge dollars. But so many boxers have been paid $2 million, $4 million or $6 million when they weren't generating anything near that kind of money.

The top 10 percent are being paid obscenely well. They're doing so well that it's hard to put them on even premium cable because it becomes a losing proposition.

Boxing needs an integrated and coordinated game plan. There are plenty of great young fighters coming into the sport and there has been for a few years now. But if the public isn't aware of their existence, it doesn't matter. And just asking reporters or YouTubers if they want to talk to them for six minutes isn't enough to create the necessary awareness.

Matchmaking needs to improve. We need to see even fights, 50-50 bouts, on the regular, not just occasionally. There needs to be rankings with teeth, that carry significance, and that are adhered to by all in the sport. And when No. 10 beats No. 9, we should be looking next at No. 10 maybe fighting No. 8, No. 7 or even No. 6.

We don't need these appearance fights where young stars bludgeon hopelessly overmatched opponents.

The powers that be in boxing need to overhaul their relationship with the titles. The titles are owned and controlled by those specific organizations and they don't necessarily lend themselves to the best matches. If the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO can't agree to work together and make certain that among ranked fighters, the best always fight the best, then they should be ignored and a new organization that gives out a belt is recognized.

Yes, fighters would love to win a title that Muhammad Ali once held, or Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey or Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., or some other legend of the sport. But what the fighters really want is a title that means something and that will stand the test of time.

There needs to be better marketing and more of it. The rules need to be updated to suit the modern game. New, quality officials, both judges and referees, need to be trained.

The latest broadcast techniques should be employed.

There has to be a cohesive effort from top to bottom to bring this once great and proud sport back from the abyss.

Even though there was a time — decades, really — when the biggest three sports in the U.S. were baseball, boxing and horse racing — those times aren't returning. Boxing is unlikely to rebound to those halcyon days.

But it can do a lot better than what it's doing, and that requires all of the stakeholders taking an active interest in its well-being.

Showtime's demise as a boxing broadcast outlet is no time for celebration, unless this means that finally, someone involved in this sport will think globally, think long-term and think of what's best for the sport as a whole and not just in the interest of one's pocketbook.

If those things occur, this could be the start of a great new era for boxing. If they don't, well, we know where this is headed.