Anybody who wants to put on a professional boxing match in California has to navigate 128 pages of regulations, many of them designed to ensure the health and safety of boxers as well as to promote the integrity of the sport.
But when reality TV producers from Hollywood came calling earlier this year, state officials agreed to bend a couple of those rules.
The producers of Fox's "The Next Great Champ" and NBC's "The Contender," bitter rivals in most respects, had one thing in common: Both were so eager to keep their shows' outcomes under wraps prior to broadcast that they sought and received approval from boxing commissioners and the California attorney general's office to circumvent a state law requiring immediate public disclosure of bout results. Both series are counting on the secrecy to help them build dramatic suspense as they seek to find new champions from fields of unknown athletes.
What's more, both the "Champ" and "Contender" producers negotiated lower-than-normal state taxes on the license-fee payments mandated for boxing broadcasts. Representatives of both shows successfully argued that they should pay tax only on the portion of their shows actually devoted to boxing matches -- typically just a few minutes in each episode. Other promoters described this arrangement as highly unusual. In the case of "Champ," the amount and timing of the tax payments was sharply questioned by the then-chairman of the California Athletic Commission, which regulates boxing.
Although state boxing laws have entered into a bitter court fight between the two shows, the special deals given to both shows have remained out of public view until now.
Until recently, Hollywood's great boxing standoff had focused more on accusations of idea theft than on meeting state boxing standards. Executives from DreamWorks, which is producing "Contender" with reality guru Mark Burnett, and from NBC, which will air the show starting in November, have complained for months that "Champ" ripped off their concept.
Then last week, they filed an unfair business practices and fraud lawsuit against Fox Broadcasting in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that "Champ" broke state laws in a scramble to get on the air. A hearing on a request by DreamWorks and Burnett for a preliminary injunction against airing "Champ" -- which is slated to debut Sept. 7 -- is set for Friday.
