HBO Sports VP Dishes on Mayweather, Pacquiao-Cotto, PPV Fights

Mark Taffet, Senior Vice President of HBO Sports Pay Per View, said Floyd Mayweather "clearly has proven his star status by generating the kinds of pay per view numbers that very few men in the history of the sport have ever generated."

FanHouse spoke to Taffet, the man in charge of HBO's Pay Per View, as he addressed Mayweather, the Nov. 14 megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, the cable giant's "hunger to go younger" initiative geared toward drawing America's youth to the sport of boxing, and how the organization determines which fights are deserving of pay television status during this exclusive interview.

FanHouse: Is there a formula for determining which fights are best for HBO premium programming and which are compelling enough to deserve to be sold on Pay Per View?

Taffet: Job No. 1 at HBO is to provide the best live fights that we can to the subscribers of the HBO premium television service.

Those are fights like Shane Mosley-Antonio Margarito, Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz, Vitali Klitschko-Cris Arreola, and, coming up on Dec. 5, Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams. Those are A-level fights that have been or -- in the case of Pavlik-Williams -- will be shown on the HBO premium television service.

Now, those fights which are clearly megafights are viewed on HBO Pay Per View. It's our goal to make sure that the fights on HBO Pay Per View clearly are Super Bowl-type of mega fights that fans would expect when they are being asked to pay to watch them."

FH: Then can you clear this up for everyone: Why is Floyd Mayweather, regardless of his style, considered a pay per view draw?

Taffet: Floyd Mayweather is bona-fide superstar in the ring and out of the ring. Floyd has proven to be the No. 1 attraction in urban markets across America, and, over the past few years, Floyd Mayweather is also a major attraction across all demographics.

The facts speak for themselves. Mayweather has participated in the biggest fight in he history of the sport -- Oscar De La Hoya-Mayweather, which generated 2.4 million buys. Floyd just generated with Juan Manuel Marquez over one million buys on Sept. 19. [Only the fifth, non-heavyweight fight to reach seven figures.] That's rarified air.

Floyd Mayweather also generated 920,000 buys against Ricky Hatton in 2007. Mayweather clearly has proven his star status by generating the kinds of pay per view numbers that very few men in the history of the sport have ever generated.

FH: How many of the 24/7 series' have you produced?

Taffet: The first 24/7 series was Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather in 2007. There have since been Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton, Manny Pacquiao-Hatton, De La Hoya-Pacquiao, Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones, and, most recently, Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez.

And there will be a 24/7 series for Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto, which begins on Oct. 24 and leads through Nov. 13 leading into their Nov. 14 fight.

FH: How effective has the 24/7 series been for HBO's boxing production and programming?

Taffet: It's changing the face of boxing both literally and figuratively. It presents the sport in a new way. It puts the athletes and their stories first. It creates a personal connection between the athletes and the fans, which, then, usually leads to the fans wanting to see the athletes do what they do best, which is get into the ring and box.

It's really about the athletes and their stories and it creates a real, passionate connection between the athletes and their fans. It appeals tremendously to younger fans.

When I say that it changes the face of boxing, it is making those faces younger. It is the most impactful means of reaching the next generation of fans that we have been able to identify in the past 10 years.

FH: Was the initial intent of 24/7 to reach younger fans?

Taffet: HBO Sports prides itself on telling stories. Anytime we can tell stories, we want to do so. The 24/7 series was a way for us to get our arms around the reality programming, the new generation of television, and to tell stories to that new generation of fans. We are seeing great success with it.

FH: What exactly does that mean?

Taffet: The last part of that is the boxing itself. Young people play video games in huge numbers for large amounts of time. The Fight Night Round 4 video games sells millions of units to young video gamers around the country.

I speak to my son, who is in college, and I say, 'What are you doing on Saturday night?' And he says, 'Everybody on our floor plays the Fight Night video game.' And I say, 'Well, do they watch boxing?' And he said, 'No most of them don't watch boxing -- but they love the video game and they play it.'

They're playing boxing, and it features all of today's stars -- De La Hoya, Mayweather, Pacquiao, Cotto, Hatton -- they're all there. Fight Night has arrangements to use all of the likenesses of those boxers and they sell it.

FH: So what are you doing specifically in conjunction with the video gaming culture to attract younger boxing fans?

Taffet: We have what I call 'A hunger to go younger at HBO Boxing.' It's critical for the sport to identify the next generation of boxing fans and to reach that next generation of fans in new, innovative ways, and to find out where and how they consume their media. We have put a tremendous emphasis on digital marketing.

During the Mayweather-Marquez promotion, we reached out to new outlets all across the digital platform -- from HBO On-DeMand, to HBO's YouTube channel, iTunes, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, latino websites, urban and African-American websites and general market websites.

We had, not only marketing arrangements, but also, we provided short-form programming. We learned very quickly that young fans don't simply want advertising messages, but they want programming. They want to consume your video and your message, and not just view it as a sales tool.

FH: What does that mean?

Taffet: We produce and provide, during the course of a fight promotion, a large number of short-form videos -- anywhere from two-to-five minutes long -- about fighters. We have the HBO 24/7 series, we have interviews with trainers.

We provide them in all of those digital platforms so that younger fans can have a connection to the athletes and the sport in order for them to get closer to the athlete and the sport. We believe that that's the best way to convince the next generation of fans that they should be following boxing on a regular basis.

So we produce and distribute many of these short-form videos -- all types of videos about the fighters and the fight and the HBO 24/7 series. We've had tremendous success and a large, large number of views.

FH: So is that how you arrived at the decision to bridge your programming of the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight with Major League Gaming?

Taffet: What this company, Major League Gaming, does is that it allows people who have the video game at home to play other people online -- connecting through their computer to Major League Gaming's online site.

They create tournaments for the millions of people who have the Fight Night video game at home to play online against other gamers in a tournament style that creates opportunities to win prizes playing against one another.

We went to Major League Gaming and said, 'We'd like to create a promotion for the upcoming, Paquiao-Cotto fight and HBO's 24/7.' What they did is they took their normal video game tournament format, and instead of being able to choose any of 30 boxers, the video gamers who play choose either Pacquiao or Cotto for this tournament.

They then play online from their home against as many people as they want, and they create a Pacquiao versus Cotto tournament. The tournament will be played Sept. 30 through Nov. 2.

You go to the following site, www.gamebattles.com/HBO247, and you register for the tournament for players all across the country. The person who scores the highest as Manny Pacquiao, and the person who scores the highest as Miguel Cotto win the 24/7 VIP experience to Las Vegas. [link up to HBO, MLG Partner Up for details]

Source: http://boxing.fanhouse.com/2009/10/06/hbos-mark-taffet-calls-floyd-mayweather-a-bona-fide-superstar/