"Sky blocking AJ by paying him more" - Eddie Hearn

DAZN has even not yet made a profit .
and losses over $1 billion dollar a year.
but so what? it is a long term.

& but so why Eddie & his follower care about little £5 million SKY might lose??
this is only the bitterness

 

Nail. Head.

DAZN's biggest supporter on here moaning Sky are losing 5 million (before the fight and PPV numbers have even happened) when DAZN has blown through the best part of a few billion.

 

Agree, aaaaa. I do not understand that some people worry so much about Sky losing money on the rights to Usyk vs AJ II compared to the many billions / millions DAZN has spent on Eddie Hearn / Matchroom USA. Keep in mind that Sky and BT are ready to work together on big boxing events. Are there any in here who believe that a possible mega fight between Fury and AJ ends on DAZN's platform ?

 

No one really cares who loses what but a bit of balance is needed .

Has DAZN lost hundreds of millions , probably , has Eddie lost DAZN all this money , of course not .

But it’s all relative, if Eddie lost £5m putting on a fight a lot of people wouldn’t let him hear the last of it , even though his budget is much bigger than that of Sky boxing.

Sky losing it where they have no dog in the fight and little prospect of having involvement with the winner doesn’t seem to provoke the same reaction.

As for Fury v AJ landing on DAZN , it would be near on impossible for it not to (in some form) when his DAZN deal kicks in. Therefore maybe pretty unlikely to happen at all.

 

Trafford has set out the commercial arguments and in that context I think Eddie Hearn may be right, there could be an element of pique, although there could also be an argument from Sky that the fight is worth more to them than to others because they're more able to effectively monetise it, especially having devoted so much resource over so long a time into building Joshua. They may also want to try and kill UK Dazn off now whilst they're in a vulnerable building phase, burning money i a very shaky economic climate. So it may be that overpaying makes commercial sense in other words?

However I'm not sure Hearn was wise to get involved in this conversation? For starters, there's this:

an obvious clash of interests betwern his DAZN hat and his AJ's promoter hat. He should be celebrating that AJ is worth more and trumpeting that fact but he can't beause of his DAZN connection. You can't be all things to all men Eddie, much as you'd like to...

 

Hearn lost a lot of money on Lomachenko v Campbell. Massively overpaid for it then did 200k PPV buys.

As for the DAZN deal kicking in, it was supposed to have kicked in already - DAZN were prepared to pay £20m for Usyk v Joshua on DAZN - it's not like they've just let Sky have it, they just got outbid like they did with Fury v Whyte.

 

I actually think the proposed Benn/Eubank Jr fight does bigger numbers than Joshua/Usyk on PPV if it’s marketed correctly by DAZN. Ultimately £25 million odd quid is an awful lot of money for any broadcaster to stump up for one fight outside of America.

 

If it was on Sky Box Office it may be able to come within a couple of hundred thousand of buys, but not on DAZN PPV.

 

AJ's DAZN deal starts after the Usyk rematch. This fight was always separate from his new TV deal, for various reasons , DAZN were well aware of this and offered the best deal post Usyk based on this.

 

people say Sky must 'build stable of new star boxer' but this is same thing. why would star potential boxer believe in being on Sky if Sky loss prestige as brand in important big fights stage? Sky is big platform & must keep big fight reputation. why not? Sky has big numbers subscription customer & does not need " start from bottom'.
may be Sky is outdated model. but letting fight go to DAZN is not way to help that.

in UK if you ask man in street of AJ Usyk rematch he will say often "is it on Sky? '

he might guess it is BT.

few will say DAZN

 

There are numerous examples of TV Stations that have lost money on a particular boxer but it has been important for their brand to show that boxer's fights.

 

All the way back to Bruno and Tyson, where Sky at the time said they'd "paid an amount like a telephone number" to secure the rights. No PPV back then either, they swallowed it to try and drive subscriptions.

Or if you keep going back, ITV offering more than was asked for Bruno-Bugner to make sure the fight actually went ahead...

 

That quote wasn't quite specifically talking about Usuyk v AJ.

 

Tyson vs Bruno II (16th of March 1996) was PPV on Sky Box Office.

 

Not just the buys but your forgetting advertising slots etc, prime viewing on mainly a male demographics of a certain age,