Sky can do up to double BT's numbers at £25 a pop. Arum has realised there's a huge UK market for these fights and that market is controlled by sky sports.
When they say BT can match it does that mean they match whatever sky offer. Like could sky come back if BT match it with an improved offer.
This also confirms that any Joshua v Fury fight does not need to be on BT and Sky as Warren was saying. I suppose when you connect the dots in the sense Sky got Wilder v Ortiz then Sky were always looking to get the Fury fight. It was odd that BT didn't get the Wilder fight if they had the Fury PPV locked in.
So the contract with Fury hasn’t run up then, What is actually the contract then? “We can show any Tyson Fury fight unless somebody wants to come in with more money”, seems very bizarre.
Has echoes of Liverpool FC vs New Balance. NB had a similar deal, that they could still be the kit supplier if they matched any new offer but it was decided their offer wasn’t a match as they couldn’t match the number of stores Nike had worldwide or the celebrity endorsements Nike could do. I’d have thought this would be similar in some ways, BT might match the offer in terms of the financials but do they have the same subscriber base to promote the fight to...
BT Sport don't have a bigger reach than Sky Sports. However, BT (the overall company) have a lot more reach than Sky, due to their broadband and EE connection. BT's customer base is 18 million, Sky's is 12.5 million. BT could promote the hell out of this fight, should they wish to. The fight is also on the same week as the Champions League fixtures. Liverpool and Spurs are both playing. For BT, this fight is a must. What's the point of them entering the sports industry, if they can't match Sky Sports? Even if it means running the PPV at a slight loss. This is about their position in the UK market. Fury is the face of BT Sport, if he ends up on Sky, it will be an absolute embarrassment.
it definitely never. I was still getting tickets in my basket 40 odd minutes after it went on sale but only the more expensive ones when I wanted some of the cheaper ones. Most expensive tickets on sale yesterday were $1500 and they were on the side. Not a single floor seat went on sale (which is a significant portion) either. There’s 8 of us going for a mates 30th, I doubt we will have trouble getting in.
I get your point - I'm glad the fight is signed and that it appears like it's going to happen. But you can't just keep going back to 'what's your issue - it's happening' when fans raise pretty normal questions about this announcement being a bit strange. One of the things about boxing is that, unlike football or tennis or golf, there's not that much actual boxing to talk about. I mean, at the level we're discussing, you'll likely get around an hour's worth of actual boxing per fighter per year. It's therefore pretty inevitable that talk will turn to the periphery, whether that be trainers, publicity, television deals, tickets; the whole event start to finish. When you say the sport wins in the end, I don't think that's a given. If you could announce a fight, sit back and watch the cash roll in promoters wouldn't be in gainful employment. They do have to actually promote it. And that's the thing here. It's an unusual time of year for a fight of this magnitude, an unsual time of year to announce such a fight, with an unusual situation regarding UK television, (which according to your own estimates is worth somewhere in the region of £25m), an unusually short period of time for one of the fighters to prepare, and an unusually short (probably non-existent) period of time to arrange a promotional tour. These are all perfectly legitimate questions to raise, so I don't see why you're annoyed by them.