HBO, Lampley, Dave Harman discussed on SI Boxing with Chris Mannix
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
When you're spending that kind of money on original programming, you just don't have the money to go after the acquisitions to have a portfolio of rights that HBO used to have. I mean, thank God HBO was able to get the rights that it did early in its history when the competition was in his fierce and the price tags weren't so high. But you can kind of start to see in 2000 the fact is a lot of this money is going to be shifting over to original programming. It's not going to be a priority for us. And as a result, I think you used the right word. I've said it myself and I think it's the subtext in what I write about it. It was sad to see it go, because HBO sports was a big deal. It was a unique creature. It wasn't as vast as ESPN. It wasn't as vast as ABC wilder sports. You know, they had a page from their playbook stolen from them about sports documentaries by 30 for 30. But you still kind of like wanted it around. You know, you still wanted to see what they would come up with. And so they have a much more limited agenda right now. They don't have the lampley's of the world. They don't have the Tyson's other world. They don't have, you know, a lot of things that they used to have. So. Sometimes progress sucks because you know it's just like you want those old days of innocence where you know they were like literally when HBO covered Wimbledon, Chris, they put the tapes on the freaking Concord to get it back in time. So they could show it before anybody else. We had coverage of weekdays at Wimbledon. I mean, I don't know, not to sound like somebody who's nostalgic, but I miss those days. I kind of do as well. And if HBO boxing has a legacy, it's that everything they did was taken and adopted by somebody else, you know, whether it is the 24/7 vehicle, all the stuff they did in the corners. You mentioned the documentaries inside the NFL. Inside the NFL was, I mean, look, no offense against Sunday countdown and all these other shows that are ubiquitous now, but they had that before anybody else. And that was, you know, that was a big deal as one of their longest running shows. In fact, Dave harman worked on it. His father worked on it. It was appointment television for a lot of football fans. And when that went away, that was also a heartbreaker. Well, Dave harman and avid listener this podcast will be happy to know that you approved of his work there. Well, he deserves it all, man. He does. The book is tinderbox, HBO's ruthless pursuit of new frontiers. We only covered a fraction of what's in there. Jim, tremendous stuff, always great to catch up with you and thanks for joining me. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks a lot. When we come back, my conversation with Regis program. Support for this podcast in the following message come.