Eddie life after DAZN?

Sells up

 

The last Matchroom accounts showed boxing at under 25% of the company's activity. As much as we look at boxing here, and Eddie clearly revels in that industry as opposed to snooker, darts, golf and other made-for-TV sport, the DAZN deal won't cause as much bother as we all make out.

 

This...Whilst he'd be disappointed, darts and the other sports match room run are still big business and cover any shortfall in match room boxing. Although in turn for me, biggest mistake he made leaving Sky. Took the gamble on Dazn and streaming and it hasn't paid off. The whole scene was a better play with Matchroom at sky.

 

Fair enough. I just don't think there's anything worth selling in the boxing business, let alone a willing buyer.

 

He'll go back to Sky no worries.

 

When Eddie signed an international deal with DAZN and launched Matchroom USA he was on top of the world. AJ was king, he had a monopoly of UK talent with his domestic Sky deal and it looked like he was only getting bigger with his international ambitions. When it was announced he was cutting ties with Sky to do his own thing with DAZN, I was expecting so much more. Talk of "billions" in investments to make the biggest fights and take over the US, killing PPV, it looked like Matchroom were about to level up.

When DAZN finally aired in the UK at a cheap, what was it £2.99?? they put on some good fights and I thought over time maybe this would work out. The one thing that did surprise me was the total lack of investment in promoting their platform over here. If their ambitions were real, I was expecting non stop advertisement campaigns on radio/TV, magazine and news paper adverts, social media videos etc, a bit like when BT Sport first started up, not just a few IFLTV interviews which is what we got. I was also expecting DAZN to add more sports to their platform, buy the rights for the ever expanding UFC for example .I was expecting good domestic cards every couple of weeks, a major fight maybe every couple of months.

The reality of where they are in 2022 has got to be a bit worrying for Matchroom headquarters. Their main cash cow AJ is on a losing streak and his hype has well and truly been burst. The "PPV is dead rhetoric" quickly evaporated as they have been forced to go against the business model that was the very essence of their marketing strategy, which is so embarrassing considering all the hot air they've been spouting in years of interviews. Connor Benn the "next big thing" has been popped in a scandalous way that makes them look bad even if they aren't the guilty party and they have literally nobody in their stable who can drive subscriptions going forward. Their domestic stable are leaving in numbers to join Boxxer/ Queensbury/Wasserman, and Eddie is starting to sound very bitter about his rivals in interviews.

It's been an an absolute car crash of a year for Matchroom Boxing. Personally, I think they overplayed their hand not realising what it would take to dominate the US market and how important Sky were in their past success in the UK.

 

This. He will make tens of millions, hundreds even, from it.

We, as Boxing fans, think he's failed, but overall he's making major money anyway.

 

Did you watch the boxing on Sky under Matchroom?

It deteriorated big time and the final 2 years were very poor on Sky Sports.

I find Matchroom are no loss at all to the boxing viewer with plenty of good boxing on Sky, BT Sports, Channel 5 and the odd card on Boxnation.

Tonight is a great card on Sky and Hearn would no doubt make it Box Office like he did with any fight of public interest.

 

Eddie Hearn has burned a lot of bridges and painted himself into his own corner.

Matchroom can be happy that boxing is really only a small part of their business

 

Tonight's card on Sky is really good.

I have heard that there is a big announcement coming soon from Sky Sports Boxing. Maybe tonight ?

 

A fight would only be Box Office if Sky wouldn't put up enough in rights fees or Hearn and the boxers wanted too much. Sky is clearly backing tonight's fight card for whatever reasons suit them.

 

And Eddie contradicted himself by moaning about the sky budget in those days to shift the blame and sell the eventual move to dazn

 

By the way :

What happened to Dillian Whyte, Fabio Wardley and Alen Babic ?