Big punchers demand a big audience. To this end, Premier Boxing Champions has announced a multi-year deal with Bounce TV to televise live boxing events.
Ambassador Andrew Young is among the principles bringing the Premier Boxing Champions series to Bounce TV.
Bounce TV, the fastest-growing African-American network on television available in more than 85 million homes across 90 markets, will air PBC The Next Round, a monthly two-hour series featuring boxing’s future stars and champions.
The series will premiere in July, with a schedule of fights and on-air talent to be announced shortly.
“I am so glad that Bounce TV is taking part in boxing’s resurgence,“ says Ambassador Andrew Young, one of Bounce TV’s founders, along with Martin Luther King III and others. “I think Bounce TV will provide all the talented stars of boxing consistent nationwide exposure to showcase their talents and introduce them to fans around the country, while also re-igniting interest in this great sport.”
Adds King III: “This series provides future stars of boxing frequent nationwide exposure on over-the-air television, and will benefit the American-American audience who I believe miss watching this great sport on free TV.”
For Young, a former mayor of Atlanta who presided over the city when native son Evander Holyfield fought in the 1984 Olympics, boxing is a family affair.
His father was a dentist in his hometown of New Orleans who would fix fighters’ teeth. Those boxers would then let Young’s sons train with them.
“My dad was a big boxing fan, and he wanted us to learn how to box so we would learn how to use our head,” Young said. “‘Don’t get mad, get smart,’ he would say.
"I learned many valuable lessons in the boxing ring. If you know how to fight, it gives you the confidence to choose non-violent means to resolve things. A non-violent approach comes from inner strength and confidence that comes with knowing how to fight.”
Young sees Bounce TV’s partnership with Premier Boxing Champions as a way to restore boxing to the kind of mainstream popularity that the sport enjoyed when legends such as Sugar Ray Leonard regularly fought on free network TV. After all, boxing is ingrained in this country’s DNA.
“I remember Joe Louis beating Max Schmeling in their second fight, which was right before we went to war against Germany,” Young says. “It was a national event, and when Joe destroyed him, it was a national victory.
"In subsequent years, the nation would get behind our boxers fighting other countries in the Olympics, especially the Russians and the Cubans. Boxing was a way for our country to establish a form of supremacy and efficiency that people got behind.”
Bounce TV joins NBC Sports Group, CBS Sports and Spike TV as television partners for the Premier Boxing Champions series.
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