Two of the biggest forces in the world of boxing, HBO and Golden Boy Promotions, have each announced major personnel shake ups over the last day. The two companies have turned into rivals as of late, with Golden Boy taking their business exclusively to Showtime.
However, the changes with HBO and Golden Boy are, at least on the surface, unrelated, although one would wonder about the cause and effect of some recent events in the sport and how they played out here.
At HBO, long-time senior vice president of HBO Sports Kery Davis has resigned after a decade and a half at or near the helm of the organization. At Golden Boy, COO David Itskowitch has left the company after six years. He had formerly been with Lou DiBella and DiBella Entertainment, and of course, DiBella used to run the show at HBO Sports, and in fact had hired Kery Davis. So the tangled webs of boxing keep getting more intricate, it would seem, as these stories come full circle.
After much-maligned (by boxing fans, that is) HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg left the company, Ken Hershman took over the role, leaving Showtime. Since then, Showtime made a power move by obtaining the exclusive services of Floyd Mayweather and the rest of the stars in the Golden Boy stable — including Mayweather heir-apparent, Adrien Broner.
With Manny Pacquiao looking at just a few more fights in his career before hanging up the gloves, this has surely left the network scrambling. Once again though, this is all background to the story, and speculation about some of the changes which have taken place.
Here’s the press release from Golden Boy with more details and how their personnel is changing:
During what most thought would be a normal fight week for Golden Boy Promotions came a surprise when Chief Executive Officer Richard Schaefer called a staff meeting to announce several changes to the Los Angeles based company’s staff. During the meeting, he announced that after six years of service, COO David Itskowitch has decided to leave the company in search of other opportunities and, as a result, boxing’s leading promoter will be making several staffing changes including that current CMO Bruce Binkow will now also serve as COO and that long time Golden Boy VP of Operations Armando Gaytan will assume the newly created position of Deputy Chief Operating Officer and will also be named Senior Vice President of Operations.
Other changes include Chief of Staff Robert Gasparri also taking on the role of VP of Operations, Outside Counsel Arnold Joseph joining the staff full time as General Counsel, Director of Communications and Events Monica Sears being promoted to VP of Operations and Digital Marketing Coordinator Nicole Sparks moving up to Director of Marketing. Assuming the public relations functions that Sears will leave behind will be former Golden Boy staffer Marylyn Aceves who will rejoin the company to take the newly created position of VP of Public Relations.
Said Richard Schaefer: “Given his contributions to Golden Boy Promotions over the past six years, David Itskowitch’s departure from the company is significant and he will be missed, but with the restructuring we have implemented installing Bruce Binkow as the COO/CMO and promoting Armando Gaytan to Deputy COO/SVP of Operations, coupled with the top notch staff that we have in place, we will have a smooth transition that will ensure the continued success of Golden Boy Promotions. I have every confidence that we will grow and thrive in the coming years as we have since the company was founded.”
“It has been an extremely rewarding six years working with Oscar, Richard and all of my colleagues at Golden Boy Promotions, who have become a second family to me,” said David Itskowitch. “However, at this stage of my career, I’ve decided that it is time for me to explore other opportunities in the sports world.”
“I’m extremely excited about taking on the added responsibilities of the role of Chief Operating Officer, said Bruce Binkow. “While Dave is leaving behind big shoes to fill, I’m confident that with the promotions and staff augmentations that have been implemented, we won’t miss a beat.”
Itskowitch will remain with the company until July 31 in order to assist with the transition of his duties to others on the staff.
Aceves will officially assume her position on June 10 while Joseph will come aboard full time on September 1 and will relocate from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.
