If Canelo Alvarez Splits From DAZN, Showtime Will ‘Be Very Aggressive’ In Courting Him

In his leadup to becoming the biggest PPV star in the world, Canelo Alvarez fought on Showtime and produced impressive numbers. He lost to Floyd Mayweather on Showtime PPV in 2013 but helped generate a $150 million PPV gross, his win vs. Josesito Lopez in 2012 compelled more than 1 million viewers to tune in to the cable network telecast and his victory vs. Austin Trout attracted more than 40,000 fans to San Antonio’s Alamodome.

With all the current trouble Alvarez has had with DAZN and his promoter Golden Boy—Alvarez is now suing the streaming service for $260 million because of alleged breaches of his $365 million contract—it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that the Mexican star is looking to latch on to another broadcaster. His lawsuit said as much.

According to his suit, Alvarez “repeatedly” asked his promoters to find another broadcaster who would televise a fight for him in the fall of 2020 and that Golden Boy “failed to put forth a single alternative plan by which it would pay Alvarez the $35 million it had promised him for each of his fights.”

Though Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza told me on Tuesday that Golden Boy hasn’t approached the network about hosting an Alvarez event, he didn’t rule out a possible reunion in the future.

“We’d love to. We’re proud of the time we spent with Canelo,” Espinoza said. “We did some important fights in his career, and we helped launch him as a PPV attraction in the U.S. We’d love to be in business with him again. We’re obviously going to respect his existing contracts. We’re not going to run afoul of that. If there’s a time when he’s available, we’ll be very aggressive. We have a lot of offer. But the time to pursue that is only after it’s clear he’s contractually able to do so.”

Alvarez left Showtime and moved to HBO in 2014 for a multi-fight deal where he’d take on Gennadiy Golovkin, Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Alvarez then journeyed to DAZN, where’s he fought Rocky Fielding, Daniel Jacobs and Sergey Kovalev and where he makes about $35 million per fight. But it’s looking more and more likely that Alvarez won’t be competing at all in 2020 because of his contractual struggles with DAZN and the two sides’ inability to agree on an opponent for him.

Even at the rate of paying him tens of millions of dollars, Showtime would be interested if there’s a split between Alvarez and DAZN.

“There haven’t been any conversations,” Espinoza said. “As soon as there’s some clarity, we’d love to have the discussion.”

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