Stephen Espinoza, the former head of Showtime Sports and one of the figures named in Floyd Mayweather’s lawsuit, sat down with Ring Champs hosts to address the legal action and share his perspective on the undefeated boxing legend’s financial situation.
Mayweather filed suit against both Showtime and Espinoza personally. While Espinoza acknowledged limits on what he could say due to active litigation, he was direct about where he stands on the money allegations.
“There’s not a penny that I oversaw that didn’t go where it was supposed to go,” Espinoza said, adding that the suggestion any athlete he worked with at Showtime was shortchanged is “absolutely inaccurate.”
He also expressed disbelief at the scale of what Mayweather is claiming.
“The fact that there could be 300 million dollars just missing,” he said, noting the idea that such a sum could go unaccounted for over a decade strains belief.
Espinoza drew a clear distinction between Mayweather’s suit against Showtime and a separate legal dispute Floyd has with a former personal representative. He suggested the Showtime suit may have originated from outside advice rather than Floyd’s own investigation. “I think someone told him, ‘You should sue Showtime,'” he said.
The other case, involving what Floyd has publicly described as funds misappropriated by a former representative, is a more recent matter and, Espinoza argued, an entirely different situation.
Part of the financial complexity, Espinoza explained, stems from how pay-per-view revenue actually works. Money from traditional cable and satellite providers can take anywhere from six to eighteen months to fully arrive, due to layers of middlemen between local cable systems and the networks. It was not unusual, he said, for a large check to show up a year or more after a match simply because money was delayed somewhere in the pipeline.
Despite the legal friction, Espinoza said he would be willing to help Mayweather if he were not personally named in the suit.
“I would,” he said. “We had a long relationship. He and I always had a great relationship.” He also revealed that the two had spoken since the lawsuit was filed, describing what Floyd said as “surprising.”
As for Mayweather’s finances, Espinoza challenged the idea that he is in serious trouble. “I don’t think that his situation is nearly as dire as people like to think it is,” he said. He acknowledged Floyd had faced real losses tied to a former representative, whose conduct Floyd has publicly described using words like “absconded” and “embezzled.”
But Espinoza pointed to substantial real estate holdings as a significant buffer. “Even with the losses that he’s had because of what happened with his former representative, he’s still, by normal people’s standards, very well off.”
