Showtime boxing boss Stephen Espinoza says he is keen to extend his working relationship with Amir Khan after tonight’s fight with Devon Alexander at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The Alexander bout is the last in a multi-fight deal he’s had with the network and this week the fighter said his team would talk to interested parties before making his next step.
Espinoza, for his part, hopes they will continue to show Khan fights on Showtime.
“The thing abut our relationship with Amir is we signed a contract, put it away and never looked at it again,” he said. “He’s someone who personally I like a lot, as a network executive he’s always entertaining and he’s in a very deep division. I fully expect to be in business with him for quite a while.”
Golden Boy Promotions are also working with HBO, Showtime’s leading competitors, although Showtime might be able to offer something they can’t, the Floyd Mayweather fight.
Showtime have only recently had multi-fight deals with two fighters, Khan and Mayweather, and Espinoza is aware at the risk of building a fighter on Showtime only to lose him down the line.
“The multi-fight deal has it’s positives and negatives,” he explained. “There are definitely some disadvantages with them and that’s why our plan is to use them rather sparingly. But, because we see Amir as a key figure in a very important division, we identified him as someone we wanted to make sure we had under contract so we could invest in him long-term. That’s really the key part of a multi-fight deal. It allows some certainty so we can do long-term marketing campaigns and do promotional investments and things like that and I believe with the big fights in front of him he will continue to be valuable to the network for quite a while.”
He also understands why Khan craves the Mayweather fight over any other. Throughout the week, and moreso after he called out Manny Pacquiao last night, Mayweather has loomed over both Las Vegas shows tonight.
“He’s certainly the face of the sport, both to hardcore and casual fans,” Espinoza continued. “But the great thing about the welterweight division is even if there’s not a Mayweather fight in Amir’s future immediately, there’s half a dozen very, very entertaining, make-able fights that are there. Kell Brook is an obvious one. I’m sure at some point Amir’s going to want a rematch with Danny Garcia… Marcos Maidana…. the list goes on and on. Certainly from a financial standpoint and visibility a fight with Mayweather is the top of the heap, but there’s enough other high level alternatives that there’s still a lot to choose from if the Mayweather fight doesn’t come to fruition.”
