ESPN THE WORLDWIDE LEADER? By Aladdin Freeman

As an employee of ESPN I feel I have the right to write on the situation that I'm hearing through the rumor mill. If ESPN does go ahead and drastically cuts its boxing programming it would be doing the sport and itself a disservice. I find it very ironic that ESPN and its executives pride themselves on being know as "THE WORLDWIDE LEADER" in sports television, that doesn't mean just Football, Basketball, Baseball or sports that just generate cash flow. Sorry for speaking my mind, but I could care less about what somebody can do on a bike or a skate board or how many left turns people need to make in a race car event.

I understand there is a lot of skill involved with the X-Games and their athletes and it generates a lot of money for ESPN so it seems like ESPN is putting a much greater importance on these games than say a fight between Eric Harding and Antonio Tarver. It also seems like the network is much more interested in ratings than it is in actually doing the right thing for sports. Which is to televise them on a national scale with solid production and the belief that what they are doing is right for the sport. Too often the only thing that gets reported on ESPN is something negative about boxing or something having to do with the Heavyweight division. To prove what I'm saying notice over the last month or so not a single highlight from the Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao fights other than on "Friday Night Fights."

Lately it seems like the network is more caught up in the idea of trying to be like MTV. How much money would you guess is tied up in making the football series "PLAYMAKERS" which plays to every single age old stereotype people have about football players and doesn't use any creativity or research so it would at least seem to come up with some new ideas? If there were as much effort and money made available to put together a meaningful card maybe the network would do better.

You may not believe me when I tell you this, but I sent an e-mail to my boss back in May of 2000, stating that I thought Arturo Gatti vs. Micky Ward would be a great fight for ESPN to have on either "Friday Night Fights" or on ABC Saturday's time slot where many people who didn't have cable could get to see these two warriors fight. It would have been a great event for the sport and for fan interest. I was told that it was a good idea but "we" (ESPN) didn't have the money to pull it off in "our" budget. What angered me about this reply is that ESPN spent millions of dollars to get Wimbledon on its network and is willing to bid even more money for the Olympics, plus has been pushing hard for TV in High Definition, all the while a sport that goes back as far as the days of the Romans can't be saved on this network because of a licensing fee? I'm not buying it, not for one second and no other boxing fan should either.

I asked another big-wig in the company how come the website is deplorable -that's the nice term for it- and he told me that most people don't care about boxing because there is "only one big fight every 6 months or so and for that reason we put most of our energy on the NFL, so we only have one person working on it (the website)." I was ready to get into an argument about how boring the NFL has become but like his statement, it would have all been my opinion, so it would have been a fruitless argument. However, the troubling thing to me is that this individual does call big shots and if that's his attitude towards Boxing, well... you get the idea. If I were in his position no matter what the sport I'd have respect at least on the surface because everyone is different and some people may actually find a sport like "curling" exciting. This "what can we get out of it" attitude is going to end up hurting many sports and sports television. I've got news for ESPN, the NFL ... the product isn't that exciting as it used to be. There are people like Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens who are a joy to watch, and it's exciting that anybody's team can have a shot to win the championship but the sport isn't what it used to be, neither is the NBA or MLB.

The beauty of Friday Night Fights is that it gave promoters other than Don King, and Bob Arum to name a few, a chance to put on meaningful cards. There are some very talented people in the sport who need the opportunities the "Friday Night Fights" cards provided. For example, I can remember Omar Weis coming to the USA to fight Antonio Diaz in California. Weis did get ripped off but he was so impressive that it lead to bigger fights for him. I can remember the rematch between Jose Luis Castillo and Stevie Johnston in Denver, Ben Tackie knocking out Freddie Pendleton with one big right hand vaulting himself to the top of the 140-pound division and getting a shot to fight Kostya Tszyu. Without "Friday Night Fights" none of the above named fighters would have gotten the opportunity to sparkle on television. ESPN should also be proud of doing the right thing for the sport by giving these fighters a chance to build a crowd and hone their skills on a national stage. Now, however, all that may go by the way side.

I understand that boxing isn't as popular as the big 3 (Football, Basketball, Baseball) in other people's eyes but at its best I'd take an exciting prize fight over any of the above sports any day. I'm not sure many people get a chance to watch boxing, I think the best way to save the sport is to start showing it on regular Television like NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX. Once people get acclimated to seeing some exciting fights the interest in the sport should grow and Boxing will then flourish.

There are enough superstars in Boxing for it to make a comeback with the fans, it just needs the Television exposure and promoters to step up and do something about it. However, as of right now the fans are the ones who will suffer the most if ESPN's arbitrary decision comes to pass.

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