"In the wake of his Las Vegas arrest this past weekend, HBO has decided to cut ties with Chairman and CEO, Chris Albrecht."
Will this have any effect on the UFC deal? I may be wrong but was he the guy who was pushing for the UFC to join the network?
Link
"Albrecht was arrested over the weekend for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend outside the MGM Grand Casino after the prizefight between Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr."
wow
He was just trying to give people a good show since the fights sucked.
The UFC/HBO contracts have been signed, no?
Why would this effect the singed deal? Just because someone separates from a company does not mean the company will all go to hell. Business as usual.
"Deal is on. You cannot hit a woman in public."
But in private it's a totally different matter.
Has it ever been announced that a deal was signed? Last I heard both Dana and HBO said they were still in talks (this was after Dana's "it's a done deal" statement).
"Has it ever been announced that a deal was signed?"
That's a good question - I am not sure if a formal announcement was ever made.
he was the one who was resisting a deal with the ufc, the higher ups made the decision despite his wishes.
HBO was probably too busy with the DLH/Mayweather promotion for any real serious talks with the UFC over the last month or so. Maybe now you'll see more movement from both sides.
"he was the one who was resisting a deal with the ufc, the higher ups made the decision despite his wishes."
Thanks for the clarity.
"he was the one who was resisting a deal with the ufc, the higher ups made the decision despite his wishes."
Thank for the confusing the issue sexualtyranasaur. In fact, Albrecht was the guy who who overruled the resistance to mma on HBO.
http://mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3796&zoneid=13
"The statements made by White on Tuesday would seem to end a period of more than one year wherein the UFC and HBO were close to a deal but had not reached a deal. White has said consistently over the past year that the UFC would be on HBO "very soon," dating back to an April 2006 radio interview on 1140 KHTK in Sacramento, California.
Acclaimed boxing writer Thomas Hauser wrote in an article on the Seconds Out web site in January 2007 that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg had "opposed the UFC deal as vigorously as possible" and was doing "everything in his power not to televise mixed martial arts." In the same article, former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham actually compared MMA to "naked boxing" and said that MMA would tarnish HBO's boxing heritage
In an unprecedented move, HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht veto'd HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and insisted that HBO would air MMA programming at some point, leaving Greenburg only to negotiate the details of such a deal. According to Hauser, this move "represented a marked shift in HBO's corporate culture... in the past, an HBO chief executive officer would not have ordered sports programming over the objection of the sports department."
Still the deal is signed so this incident should have no effect.
The resistance may now rally.
HBO has production control so if they want out of the deal they could just insist that Lampley and Merchant do the broadcast and Dana would be asking for a release from the deal.
HBO may have production control with certain provisions- such as Merchant and Lampley not having anything to do with it.
There has never been any acknowledgment by HBO to the deal w/the UFC.
However, this could have been to not be a distraction from the DLH/PBF fight.
uh Lampley hit a chick...he's still with hbo