NEW YORK (AP) Undefeated boxer Peter Quillin hasn't fought in nearly a year going into Saturday's prime-time bout at Brooklyn's Barclays Center.
''Could you imagine Jeff Gordon running one NASCAR race a year?'' marveled Jon Miller, the president of programming for NBC Sports, which televises this weekend's fight.
The comparison between those two individual sports is apt because success for each competitor is not just about winning but building a fan base. Yet these days in boxing, it's not unusual for a top fighter to step into the ring only once a year.
Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao can do that and still draw huge pay-pay-view audiences. For most everyone else, the gaps between bouts drain interest. The structure of the sport, though, often made more frequent appearances difficult.
''Premier Boxing Champions,'' the new multi-network series produced by Al Haymon's management company, could offer up the platforms and incentives to change that.
''These fighters, they want to be champions, but they want to be more than champions - they want to be acknowledged, recognized; they want to be famous,'' said Sugar Ray Leonard, the analyst Saturday on NBC. ''That just doesn't happen if you fight once a year. You've got to be on that tube as much as you possibly can.''
PBC aims to showcase boxing to a broader audience by airing fights on traditional broadcast TV, including prime-time bouts on NBC and afternoon telecasts on CBS. It also could boost the sport simply by increasing the frequency that top boxers step into the ring.
''You're going to see these guys fight two, three times a year, which I think is great for the sport and is certainly good for them,'' Miller said Friday.
While Haymon Boxing is funding the series, NBC is putting the full weight of its resources behind it. Marv Albert, Al Michaels and Bob Costas will work together for the first time for Saturday's broadcast, in which Quillin faces Andy Lee and Danny Garcia takes on Lamont Peterson.
NBC is using its Olympics approach, weaving in stories about the boxers' lives in hopes that viewers make an emotional connection. But if fans fall for a fighter then he doesn't return to the ring for another 11 months, that momentum is lost.
''When they win, and then they fight again, you're more invested than you ever were,'' Miller said.
They fight enough times, win enough times, and win fans enough times, then these boxers can move up to pay-per-view.
''We had Adrien Broner and Keith Thurman win on our air in March; we'd love to see both of those guys fight again on our air, whether it's in June or whenever it is,'' Miller said. ''Obviously whoever wins these fights tomorrow night, we want to see those guys fight on our air down the road.
''And eventually one of those welterweights is going to emerge - whether it's Keith Thurman or Danny Garcia or Adrien Broner - and will likely fight the Mayweather-Pacquiao winner at some point. That really is how this thing becomes successful.''
Another way this becomes successful is for Haymon Boxing's television partners - which include ESPN and Spike along with NBC and CBS - to eventually start paying for the rights to televise the fights under a more traditional fee model. The ratings for the first PBC telecast on NBC suggested there is value for the network, with viewership in the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults ages 18-49 up 56 percent from a typical Saturday night.
''We've got a couple years to really build this thing up,'' Miller said. ''Nothing would make us happier, to be honest with you, than at the end of the current term that this thing had become so valuable and such a dependable deliverable that we would step up and change the dynamic.''
