Recent History (since October 2005), EMC has headed publicity efforts,
developed collateral and in some instances advertising the following events:
• Roy Jones Jr.- Glen Johnson (9/25/04), event which took place in
Memphis, TN. EMC handled all publicity for the fight which was broadcast live
on HBO’s World Championship Boxing. Produced and coordinated all fight
week events and handled all credentials.
• Trinidad-Mayorga (10/02/04), live on pay-per-view – headed print, radio
and television publicity efforts nation-wide, produced banners, produced a live
weigh-in for ESPN, live satellite media tours for both fighters and distributed
video highlights every day on fight week via satellite.
• “Save Ellis Island”/Budd Shulberg charity event (Oct. 29, 2004) which
took place on the anniversary of Schulberg’s “On the Waterfront.” EMC
produced the video shown that evening and headed publicity efforts.
• November 13, 2004 “Battle for Supremacy” heavyweight extravaganza
that took place at Madison Square Garden. EMC worked on publicity leading
up to the fight, including coordinating conference calls and setting up
interviews with the fighters. EMC produced fight banners and produced and
distributing credentials for over 450 media which attended the event and
handled all satellite uplinks, satellite media tours with the fighters and
produced a live weigh-in via satellite.
• “Heavyweights Across America” was the brainchild of EMC, a day in
which the eight heavyweights held media days in six cities spanning the
continental United States. The following day, six of the “Heavyweights
Converged on New York City” and were in the gym at one time working out. It
was and unprecedented two days.
• November 20, 2004 - Coordinated the press conference for Square Ring
and Goossen Tutor’s signing of Olympic Gold Medallist Andre Ward in Los
Angeles, CA.
• Gatti-Leija (January 29, 2005) took place at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic
City. The vent sold out. EMC coordinated all publicity for the event and
handled all credentials.
• April 23, 2005 - ESPN held its inaugural pay-per-view boxing event. EMC
coordinated all media events and publicity leading up to the fight, produced
banner and wrote and produced a ten-minute “Barker Show”/infomercial sent
out to all ESPN affiliates for them to broadcast promoting the pay-per-view
event. The show, which took place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, sold out
and did 150,000 pay-per-view buys – well above expectations.
• April 29, 2005 – In Cleveland, OH, Roy Jones Jr.’s Square Ring promoted
an event introducing two Olympians making their professional debuts. EMC
coordinated all publicity and handled all credentials for the event.
• April 30, 2005 – World Heavyweight Championship at Madison Square
Garden. EMC handled all credentials for the event.
• May 14, 2005 – Trinidad-Wright, live on pay-per-view. EMC coordinated
all pre-fight publicity, produced banners, made press kits, developed and
coordinated fight week events, including producing a live weigh-in for ESPN
and daily highlights delivered to TV nationwide.
• June 11, 2005 – Top Rank boxing at Madison Square Garden.
Coordinated fight week events and handles all credentials for the event.
• June 25, 2005 – Gatti-Mayweather, live on pay-per-view. Coordinated all
pre-fight publicity, including producing banners and conference calls and
press kits. Handled all fight week events and publicity, including press
conferences, satellite media tours, produced live weigh-in for ESPN and
distributed daily video highlights to all stations nationwide via satellite. The
event did 50% higher than expected on pay-per-view.
• July 13-15 – Celebrity Golf Championship in Lake Tahoe for NBC TV.
Coordinated satellite media tours with Donald Trump, Mike Schmidt, Charles
Barkley, Jason Kidd, John Elway, Dan Marino, Johnny Bench, Jerry Rice and
Chris Webber among others. Coordinated daily highlight satellite feeds. This
was all done to promote the event for television rating and America Century,
the sponsor of the event.
• August 13, 2005 – World Heavyweight Championship in Chicago, IL – live
on pay-per-view. EMC coordinated all publicity for Brewster-Golota at the
United Center, including producing banners, coordinating conference calls
and fight week events, including satellite media tours, press conference and
weigh-in feeds.
• August 20, 2005 – Vargas vs. Castillejo in Chicago, IL. Produced banners
for the event, and assisted in fight publicity including coordinating conference
calls.
• September 3, 2005 – Don King Productions boxing in Cleveland, OH. EMC
assisted in pre-fight publicity and handled all credentials for the event.
• October 1, 2005 – Jones-Tarver 3. The conclusion of this great trilogy
and we were heavily involved in all three, producing press kits and banners.
Coordinated all pre-fight publicity for all three. This fight did 405,000 pay-per-
view buys – well over expectations. Much better than the second fight which
was much better than the first fight. It was unfathomable that this fight would
do better than the second – Jones hadn’t fought for a year and had been
knock out the last two times he did fight. On top of that, Jones only spoke to
the media for a total of 17 seconds during the whole promotion. EMC handled
all pre-fight publicity, including fight week and handled all credentials.
Camacho-Duran. At the press conference to announce Camacho-Duran,
which was to be broadcast live on pay-per-view, a fight broke out between
the two. Two hours later, a Video News Release was distributed nation-wide
via satellite – in the interim, an advisory was sent out to all television stations
and networks in the top twenty five markets. The footage was seen on more
than 100 news stations that evening.
Chavez-de la Hoya. We coordinated an unprecedented 12-day, 23-city coast-
to-coast media tour with Oscar de la Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez, promoting
their epic showdown from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas show nation-wide on
closed circuit. Historically speaking, it was the last fight broadcast
exclusively on closed circuit and not pay-per-view.
Roy Jones, Jr. We developed a video of Roy Jones, Jr. that facilitated him
being signed to a promotional contract with Nike. To this day, Jones has
been the only boxer under contract to the shoe conglomerate.
Rahman-Lewis II. During a press tour to promote Rahman-Lewis II, we were
in the middle of a Los Angeles media day which included eight interviews on
radio and television stations as they sat side-by-side. On the seventh
interview a full-blown fight broke out live on the set of ESPN’s Up Close.
Moments later we placed a call to Associated Press, the story was written
and was in practically every newspaper across the country the next day and
was the topic of conversation on virtually every sports talk radio station
nation-wide. With permission from ESPN, a satellite advisory was sent out to
TV stations and networks in the top 25 markets with instructions for them to
use the video.
Lewis-Tyson. While working with World Heavyweight Champion Lennox
Lewis in London England as he was preparing to defend his title against
Francois Botha, we were doing a series of television interviews following a
press conference. At the time there was a lot of talk regarding he and Mike
Tyson and the fact they would never fight each other because of the rival
networks they were under contract to. Lennox believed that was the case
and reiterated that in his interviews. Myself, on the other hand, believed that
if Tyson wanted to fight Lennox Lewis, Tyson would force Showtime (his
network) to make the fight happen. I pulled Lennox aside and told him how I
felt. He articulated the same in following interviews, calling Tyson out.
Before long, negotiations were taking place for a fight NO ONE in the industry
thought would ever take place.. We did publicity for Lewis-Tyosn, which
turned out to be the largest grossing pay-per-view event ever ($112M).
Gatti-Mayweather. Arturo Gatti was unable to show up at the press
conference announcing this mega-fight to be broadcast live on pay-per-view.
Mayweather was mouthing off about how Gatti was afraid of him enough not
to show up. I handed the Arturo Gatti dais card for a photo op. The photo was
on the wire services world-wide within hours.
Gatti-Mayweather. The day tickets went on sale for Gatti-Mayweather
(Boardwalk Hall sold out in less than two days) we got word there was a huge
line at the ticket window and people were camped out all night. The camera
crew and I went to the box office, shot the line, interviewed the first person in
line who had just bought tickets and produced a satellite feed (TV’s in top 100
markets were notified) a few hours later. It was shown on ESPN that night.
Tarver-Jones 3. Roy Jones, Jr. did not show up to this press conference, so
we did the same with Tarver and Jones’ dais card and got the same results
as above.
At different times, unplanned incidents happen that need to be publicized.
Most of the time, the unplanned incidents are what drives the event.
ESPN entered into pay-per-view boxing this past year. EMC coordinated
press conferences and conference calls to announce their new venture. One
would think that ESPN would produce their own barker show (a ten-minute
infomercial they would distribute to affiliates) to promote their April 23 boxing
event. They were unable to do it in-house, so EMC wrote and produced she
show for ESPN to distribute. The event did 150,000 pay-per-view buys, well
above expectations.
For numerous boxing events over the years (Jones-Tarver, Trinidad-Vargas,
De La Hoya-Vargas, among many others) ESPN was not able to make it to the
event, but wanted to have footage of the press conferences and weigh-in’s
for Sports Center and ESPNews. EMC produces and transmits via satellite
those events for live and/or taped usage in ESPN quality – enough so that they
are confident they will get the programming without having to send people to
the site.
