Just been thinking were coming to the end of the boxing season on Sky Sports and was wondering what your positives and negatives of Sky's coverage and commitment to boxing. Also what are your wishes for next seasons boxing coverage? Here's my points: 1) Happy that we now have Saturday fight night rather than Friday fight night. 2) Ringside I think has improved throughout the year maybe they could show a little more hightlights from around the world. 3) Definately need more fights from around the world. Sky hae upped their game slightly in this department but we are still missing out on big fights. 4)See more of Jamie Moore he's a great pundit and good to listen to. I can't think of any more points maybe get rid of Rawling as commentator and not employ Newbon as anchor man in the future. I know Dave Clark isn't everones cup of tea but he is good at what he does and gets you excited about fights. Newbon just can't do that and neither can Adam Smith.
Moving Fight night to a Saturday was a downside for me but I understand it and can live with it. Been happy with the amount of international fights to be honest, we're talking about real hardcore stuff if we want more and realistically that's probably just getting greedy. If I could ask for one more thing it'd be a far more comprehensive screening of the undercards at the big fights. For £15 why not show the whole thing? It could be without commentary for all I care but I'd like to see a bit more.
I prefer the Saturday night boxing and also Prizefighter being on in mid-week where it doesn't get put on instead of a "proper" card at the weekend.
I preferred Friday fight night, because I'm normally out on Saturday. Not a massive problem, watch it before going out or record. Ringside started great, turned awful - into just a promotional tool, but seemed to pick up this week from what I caught, Duva interview especially. Like their trips to gyms, interviews etc. I think the fights they have picked up have been quite decent, a few fights they've picked up with Smith which I don't think they would have before - Bradley-Alexander for example, Maidana-Morales & Guerrero-Katsidis.
More fights goddamnit! They need to realise that for boxing to appeal to the masses, they need to show more of it. American, european, mexican, whatever just show it. I dont give a **** about: fish-o-mania angling speedway showjumping netball wrestling so scrap that from the budgets and put it all into boxing!
What would be good if the promoters streamed their undercards online like Top Rank does. It's good that Maloney, Hatton and Fish Eyes put them on YT days later but streaming them online should be straightforward, especially for Hatton who have been streaming all their shows that aren't on Sky lately.
Can't complain at all. They'v been brilliant with the boxing. Ringside has got better and better as the weeks have gone by.
Positives: Ringside - excellent Return of Gary Newbon to studio Sky/Adam Smith challenging quality of fights, under cards and prepared to pull a PPV for quality assurance purposes - a big plus Documentaries on BHOP, Paul Ingle/Watson etc all excellent A significant improvement on the amount of domestic match ups this season Some excellent talented prospects coming through and this should feed into next season's cards Barry McGuigan saying it as it is as a pundit - he has been excellent (but needs to allow others to speak and not have to have the last word - still he is miles better than the others). Richie Woodhall, Ed Robinson, Adam Smith and Jim Watt - all excellent Negatives: Weaker cards should be on Friday nights, only use primetime slots on Saturday night for the big events. Groves-Degale as a PPV for a British Title fight was a rip off. Degale and Groves were mandated to fight for the British Title so purse bids should have not been be aligned to an assurance that it could be paid for by PPV. Standard of refereeing and judging has been poor this season. Terry O'Connor is particularly bad and there needs to be fresh faces next season, the same handful of ref and judges seem to do all the Sky cards. Still no use of Steve Bunce as a pundit or even as a guest on Ringside. Burns v Cook and the reported betting irregularities Nelson and McCrory - both are dead wood - money for old rope is exactly how they come across, **** poor.
Realistically a very small audience would stay up late to watch a card in the US or some obscure fights from Mexico or Germany, so it just wouldn't be worth it for Sky. I don't care about any of those sports either but Sky have to appeal to the widest possible audience, by scrapping all of those sports they would lose a lot of subscribers and only gain a handful by showing more boxing.
Granted, but you have to start somewhere. Maybe with the exception of wrestling (which people stay up til 4am for), none of the other sports i listed have the ability be sold on a PPV platform so sky should consider this in terms of incoming revenue. We all know sky are great at marketing, and if its continually pushed down your throat (people will eventually buy into it - haye/audley as one example.).