We’re just a few days into 2015 and it is already shaping up to be a big year in boxing. First with the Manny Pacquiao–Floyd Mayweather Jr. bout being speculated to be signed by the end of January and now this, NBC is throwing its hat into the boxing world with its Premier Boxing Champions series.
Announced at an exclusive joint press conference with NBC and Haymon Boxing in New York Wednesday, the series, “PBC on NBC”, inked a multi-year deal to televise boxing on NBC’s main network 11 times this year, five in primetime and six on Saturday afternoons, and nine times on NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) on primetime for a total of 20 shows.
“We are looking forward to presenting the PBC on NBC to develop a new and exciting platform which will be embraced by the millions of boxing fans across the country,” Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC and NBCSN said.
In addition to the fights themselves, there will also be pre-and-post fight coverage on NBCSN, amounting to over 50 hours of live coverage in total this year, showing their commitment to the endeavor.
The legendary Al Michaels will call the fights on NBC, with “Sugar” Ray Leonard being the lead boxing analyst on all shows.
Having Leonard on the team is big because he is such a familiar face in the boxing world, and he brings credibility to the show for the older viewers as they can relate to him even if they don’t really know much about the fighters on the show.
The series will kick off Saturday, March 7 with a co-main events of Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero facing Keith Thurman and Adrien “The Problem” Broner taking on John Molina Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The second show has no site as of yet, but will feature Danny Garcia facing Lamont Peterson in a 140-pound title bout.
All fighters taking part in the series will undergo Olympic-style drug testing and will also be evaluated by the Cleveland Clinic by Dr. Charlie Bernick, as part of his Fighter Brain Health study.
The series will boast improved camera and lighting work and will have Academy Award winning composer Hans Zimmer doing the music for the show.
With all the small things NBC is doing to make sure the show stands out from other boxing telecasts and with the two quality cards that have been announced, it appears that “PBC on NBC” should be a big hit with not only boxing fans, but sports fans the world over.
If they can keep up the quality of fights and put on a great show, which NBC is one of the best when it comes to sports broadcasting, then the series should be a runaway success and hopefully make boxing on primetime network TV a mainstay going forward.
Information was obtained via Press Release and Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole’s Twitter.
