ESPN Parting Ways With Top Rank Boxing After Eight Years

Top Rank boxing will be on the move later this year.

ESPN has informed the boxing company it will be moving on after their eight-year partnership concludes in August, sources told Front Office Sports.

Top Rank, whose founder and CEO is Bob Arum, originally signed with ESPN in 2017. The following year, the deal was amended to a seven-year pact for 54 events annually split between ESPN and ESPN+ after Top Rank drew over 1.5 million viewers per show in the first year of the deal. 

ESPN has told Top Rank it could exit the agreement early if the latter finds a new partner, sources said. An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment.

“We are in dialogue with ESPN and many other parties regarding our media rights,” Top Rank’s director of communications Evan Korn said in a statement. “While we never comment on the specifics of those discussions, we place tremendous value in our existing relationship with ESPN and the industry-defining experience we have together delivered to combat sports fans globally for the past eight years.” 

Sources said that Top Rank approached Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery about partnering on a rights deal but that the platforms had no preliminary interest. Spokespeople for Netflix and WBD declined to comment. Top Rank has also had discussions with ProBox TV about putting some fighters on their platform from time to time, as has been done on occasions in the past. 

The boxing business has been in a state of flux for several years. For example, Premier Boxing Champions moved from Fox Sports to Amazon last year. At the end of 2023, Showtime exited the boxing business after 37 years.

The New York Times recently reported that Endeavor’s TKO is exploring a partnership with Saudi official Turki Alalshikh to launch a new boxing league. TKO owns UFC and WWE, whose leaders Dana White and Nick Khan have experience in boxing, as Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel alluded to in an appearance with Pat McAfee last week. TKO and ESPN have been in business together with UFC’s rights deal. Puck’s John Ourand reported this week that ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window with UFC is set to expire in April. 

Over the weekend, Alalshikh announced that Canelo Alvarez had signed a four-fight deal with Riyadh Season, which will include a much anticipated bout with Terence Crawford later this year.