Frank Warren and Sky Sports 1995

Domestic cricket would be dead right now if the ECB never received sky money. Clubs would have went under years ago.

I do find it funny that people claim that cricket was so much bigger when it was on terrestrial TV. Where are people getting this myth from?

BBC lost England home international coverage to channel 4 long before the ECB decided it would pay TV to bid for home internationals.

That ashes series that England won in 2005 caught on with the public yes and there was lots of buzz but are we seriously gonna pretend that before then, cricket in England was mad popular. Sorry but that's absolute BS.

Oh and before sky ever got involved in cricket where could fans watch England cricket tour test matches? Nobody was willing cover them matches live. Sky brought them tours home to viewers live which was simply unheard before then.

Oh and how about the county cricket game. Before sky decided to support it can someone let me know which free tv broadcaster was helping the county game grow??

 

What channel were the Saturday big fights on in the mid 00's? I could have sworn they were ITV, with Sprott, Audley, Danny Williams etc.

I enjoyed them too, free to air, and no difference in standard to the 'elite' heavyweight fights today.

Parker Vs Chisora anyone?

 

No the British heavyweight clashes from mid 2000s were on sky sports dude. Audley had his own thing going on with the BBC

 

Outside the big fight live with the names you mentioned above. Where was ITV for the smaller domestic fights. Were they throwing there weight behind boxing or was it just the world title fights??

 

They are not desperate. The ECB will take cricket to whoever pays the most. If terrestrial TV pays then the game will go there. The reality is Sky are the only ones who can guarantee that the county game survives.

I have no doubt a bbc or C4 would love to have England games but they don't want the rest of it.

 

No, definitely on terrestrial TV, I used to punish myself on a Saturday night by watching them and didn't have Sky.

 

Don't remind me of that Audley-Skelton-Sprott-Williams era lol. Most of their fights were so boring to watch, the standard of British heavyweights was so poor then.

 

The Danny Williams Audley Harrison rematch was 100% on ITV as I watched it at my folks and they only have Freeview.

 

Yeah, I think Audley's deal with the BBC ended sometime in the early 00's as I remember watching that too.

I also remember watching Enzo Macarinelli on ITV, must have been 2007 ish, and could swear that one of Calzaghes last fights was also free to air, but might be wrong on that one.

Wasn't Eubank Jr also free on ITV a few years back too?

Just goes to show it can be done.

 

Hattons support was local Manchester support from the football crowd.50,000 of them was all he needed to be a local star He wasnt nationally known like a bruno,eubanks,benn,watson or even a honeyghan a decade and a half earlier

 

Lacey- calzaghe was live on ITV in a throwback night it was 1990 all over again.

I think Mac- Haye was on ITV too.....this was that little 1-2 year spell before setanta when warren went back to itv

 

At least two Williams-Skelton fights were on ITV, as were two Harrison-Williams fights, and Harrison-Sprott 1 ......... all on ITV channels.

Danny Williams was defending his British title on BBC around 2001 against Sprott and Potter, I think.
Audley was on BBC for his early fights.
David Haye was on BBC in his early fights, including the fight with Carl Thompson.
Froch was on BBC a few times in his early fights too.

 

Lacy Calzaghe was defo live.

Am I going mad in old age or was it a 4am start even though it was in the UK. To tie in with US TV?

 

Mac Haye was on Setanta.