Top Rank cards coming back to ESPN platforms in June
Bob Arum says his company is ready to get back to business.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has confirmed to ESPN that after a couple of months of inactivity, his company is ready to start staging fight cards again next month. So the good news is that this obviously means we’ll start having live programming on our TV sets instead of the re-runs we’ve been getting accustomed to.
“We are coming back in June. will be shows that will be on ESPN and ESPN+. They will take place during the week and on weekends.”
Arum continues by saying that he’s not going to start with just some low-level fights either, and that we can expect to see some of his world titleholders in action as we’d typically see on both ESPN and ESPN+.
Now with that being said, Arum was clear to temper any expectations that fans might be in attendance for these cards, saying that won’t be an option for the duration of the summer. And if fans are allowed back into venues anytime soon, it won’t be until late in the year. So for now Top Rank will be leveraging their foothold around the Las Vegas area to put on its upcoming shows, using their gym and some surrounding hotels to create a safe environment for the fighters and their teams.
“We have hotels that we [can] be opening up, and there won’t be, initially, a big market of customers for rooms. They will have plenty of rooms available. These hotels have big ballrooms, which we could use to stage an event, and these ballrooms we could take for a two-month period, June and July, to put on events, maybe with an option to take them in August or September.”
Arum would finish by saying that they’ll be closely working with the Nevada State Athletic Commission and medical experts to ensure a reasonable rollout of these upcoming cards, looking closely at California as possible host site in the short term as well.