The Facilitator (Manny Pacquiao vs Joshua Clottey) By Steve Kim, MaxBoxing (March 13, 2010) Special to Doghouse Boxing
Bob Arum and Jerry Jones have been getting along like long lost chums in the recent months. Yes, there is much man-love between these two tycoons, who have struck up quite the business relationship that has centered on this week’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey - dubbed “The Event”- from Jones $1.2 billion football palace in Arlington, Texas. And this won’t be the last time these two partake in “bidness”- as they are apt to say in these parts of town- as Dallas Cowboys Stadium, looks like it will be a regular destination for boxing for years to come.
The man who helped introduce Arum and Jones to each other is a man by the name of Lester Bedford, who has been a part of just about every major show in the “Lone Star” state the past three decades.
"I’m in the sports management and marketing business," says the head of The Bedford Agency. "I manage and market sports events for a living. A lot of what I do is in management and marketing professional boxing events. I’ve worked on maybe a hundred world championship fights, probably a few more. My goal in all this was to bring the parties together, Top Rank and the Dallas Cowboys. I met with the Cowboys over a year ago to discuss what possibilities might be out there for boxing. I visited with the Jones family, some of their staff people. So the ball was rolling on this way, [a] long time ago, over a year ago.
"This has been in the making for quite awhile. The Floyd Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was only the second fight proposed to the stadium,” Bedford added. “Mayweather-Pacquiao is the one everyone knows got away to the MGM. Of course, we got this fight happening here. But before that, the Miguel Cotto-Pacquiao fight almost ended up at the stadium. There was a bid for $8.5 million for that fight. So that was almost the first fight."
Explained his role in “The Event,” Bedford continued. "My job in all this is to work with the Cowboys, Top Rank, in getting everything put together, then helping on both sides as the event progresses."
Arum admits that Bedford was “very helpful” in putting the two factions in touch with each other. As it seemed like the next Pacquiao fight was slipping away from Texas, Bedford worked tirelessly in lobbying to anyone who would listen, expounding all the virtues of having such an event in his home state. The biggest factor was Jones and his love of a big event- and boxing, it turns out.
"Oh, it’s huge," said Bedford, of Jones’ interest in the sport. "I didn’t realize how big of a boxing fan he was. His son was telling me when he was a freshman in college, his daddy made him go to the boxing gym all summer to toughen up because he was trying to play football at Arkansas. [His] daddy didn’t think he was tough enough and the way he was going to do it was by putting him in a boxing gym. But Jerry had promoted before and also had an interest in a heavyweight at one time. So he’s always been a boxing fan." This is also born out of necessity, as Jones can’t afford too many empty days in his stadium. "He’s a sports guy, he’s got a stadium that he’s gotta try to fill 365 nights a year. Now, he’s not going to fill that many nights, but he certainly has the intention of doing boxing and he’s living up to that."
Arum has plans of bringing another card, most likely featuring Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and some of his other Latin fighters, back to Cowboys Stadium in June. As it relates to the future of boxing and this stadium, Bedford says, "I think it’s whatever Jerry Jones wants. He’s got the money; he’s got the arena; there won’t be any kind of experience like it in boxing because who else has a stadium with the capacity that he’s got? And also a video board that’s 60 yards long? It’s 180 foot by 72 foot tall; it’s going to change the way people watch boxing live. Literally, any of the 45,000 people who are going to be at the fight on Saturday, they can see the ring well from where they are and then as soon as that round’s over, they’re going to see replays and everything, right in there face. 72 foot tall fighters."
“They do everything bigger in Texas,” is the saying. When it comes to staging large boxing events, that saying rings true. Back in 1993, over 60,000 fans in San Antonio saw Pernell Whitaker and Julio Cesar Chavez at the Alamodome. Five years later, over 48,000 at the Sun Bowl came out to see Oscar De La Hoya take on Patrick Charpentier. Bedford had a hand in bringing both events to the state.
"I’m always looking for that big event that we can stage and that can create the buzz in boxing and it helps build boxing in the state and, really, around the country," said Bedford, who cajoled both Don King and Arum to mess with Texas."Somebody’s gotta push ‘em because they get so many options with casinos and stuff. My whole thing is, I aggravate people in a nice way until they hopefully do it and that’s basically what it takes, but you gotta find your ways for them to make money and do as well, if they would do it in Vegas. So that was the idea, ’Yeah, OK, we’re interested in Cowboy Stadium, but how are we going to make as much money, if not more money, doing it there?’"
To convince Arum to come to the Sun Bowl with “The Golden Boy,” Bedford put his money where his mouth is.
"I actually put together investors that bought the live gate for the Charpentier fight," recalled Bedford, who proved he is not a guy with just a large hat and no cattle. "We bought the live gate and promoted it ourselves. Bob produced the television broadcast. But basically, the live gate was promoted by a local investment group in El Paso. But what it did, by doing 47,000 people, it sent Oscar De La Hoya’s credibility and his demand considerably higher when the fight was over. He went from doing million-dollar gates, all the way up to three-to-five million in Vegas. So, in that respect, that’s what really launched him into mega-stardom."
Carl Moretti of Top Rank says that, more than ever, non-casino venues are expressing interest in hosting big fights.
"Yes, for a lot of reasons," he explained. "Obviously, the newer buildings [and] if it’s a football stadium, they host eight home games, a couple of pre-season games and they hope to make the playoffs. So those buildings need other events. Boxing doing it outside is unique and different. There’s interest from Cleveland on a Kelly Pavlik fight; there’s obviously this show in Dallas; there’s interest in Giants Stadium in hosting an event, the new one. So clearly a result of what’s gone on with the casino industry, as well as these new buildings looking for all types of events."
Certainly, Las Vegas is struggling, but what’s also a factor- as it relates to Top Rank, at least- is the cozy relationship between their archrivals, Golden Boy and the MGM Grand. Right now, Arum, who lives in the city, isn’t remotely interested in putting on any of his events there. What really miffed Arum was that when negotiations for Pacquiao-Mayweather broke off, he originally offered the Clottey fight to the MGM Grand. Their response, according to the veteran promoter, was that their facility was booked.
"Now go there on Saturday and they’ll have an empty arena," said a bemused Arum, on Thursday afternoon. In addition to this weekend in Dallas, Top Rank will be promoting a fight at Yankee Stadium on June 5th between Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman and Arum says that the folks who run Sun Life/Land Shark Stadium in Miami, Florida, have also expressed interest in hosting a big bout.
More than ever, venues are now becoming more and more reasonable in their financial demands. Moretti says, "I think they want to make a deal and, at the end of the day, if they understand what our economics are and what casinos offer to us, they realize we have to be compensated in some way to make it work. But you also have to have the right type of event for a specific field and everything like that."
Certainly “The Event” has resonated with the general public.
"I think it’s going great; you’d like to have a little stronger undercard but, other than that, I don’t think it can go any better," said Bedford, who might be better known to boxing fans as being the former manager of former junior lightweight titlist Jesse James Leija. He now handles the career of Antonio Escalante."
In the big picture, this isn’t just about Texas being a burgeoning boxing market. It’s about boxing expanding its own marketplace beyond its conventional boundaries.
"What I try to explain to everybody I spoke to in boxing, including HBO, the Golden Boy guys, Bob Arum and whoever else I spoke to about Cowboy Stadium, this is what boxing needs right now, desperately. They need to be on the same stage with the NBA, NFL and the Super Bowl and this is the stage," says Bedford. "This is what boxing needs. We’re on a downslide, we gotta turn it back around. The only way you do that is with stadium fights like these. You gotta fight in L.A., New York and Chicago and Dallas and San Antonio, Phoenix; this is the base of boxing. If we lose that base of that, then there’s nobody to go to the fights in Vegas, except for people from China, people from Asia, who are the gamblers.
"Because right now, that’s what’s going on in Las Vegas and we’ve lost a lot of our base. This helps rebuild that base."
THE DESERT STORM
Thursday night at the Gaylord Texan, the official fight hotel for “The Event,” before I went to the media dinner, I was told that Tim Bradley- who had been a staple on Showtime- would be switching networks and going to HBO on June 26th against Luis Abregu.
The bottom line is pretty simple; Bradley, who holds the WBO junior welterweight title, needs to get in the ballgame at 140. Right now, the games are being played on HBO with the likes of Devon Alexander, Amir Khan, Paulie Malignaggi, Victor Ortiz, Marcos Maidana, Victor Cayo and Nate Campbell, among others.
But I’m assuming the Abregu fight will take place at welterweight.
“HOW BOUT ‘DEM COWBOYS?” FLURRIES
You may not believe it, but I actually worked out on both Thursday and Friday here in Grapevine, Texas. That might be the upset of the year...Is there anyone on the Oregon football team that isn’t being arrested?...The official announcement of the April 17th bout between middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and Sergio Martinez takes place Saturday morning at the Gaylord Texan. So there you go, book your flights and hotels (and cross your fingers)...Once again, not really sure where I’ll be before “The Event” but I am definitely tailgating at Cowboys Stadium. Go to my Twitter page and I’ll give everyone an update on where we will be at Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. Any questions or comments can be sent to k9kim@yahoo.com. We also have a new Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing
