Sky leaving boxing?

He's crap promoter that promotes crap fights. The end.

@ash234 for some unexplainable reason loves this simpleton.

 

Can't wait to watch Clare Balding talking about misogyny and toxic masculinity in between Lauren Price, Karriss Artingstall and Natasha Jonas fighting dinner ladies.

 

I don’t doubt this, and with the budget Shalom’s working with, it’s inevitable. These cards will be bottom-heavy with women’s bouts — not necessarily because the demand’s there, but because it’s cheaper to put together and ticks the “representation” box for the BBC. Just means we’ll get a lot of filler and lopsided matchups before anything competitive hits the ring.

It’s a shocking state of affairs, and it feels like there was no room left at the DAZN inn. Crazy to think there’ll be no boxing schedule on Sky after all these years. Feels like there’s something bigger at play — maybe Hearn flexing through Matchroom to shut Shalom out, especially with Matchroom renegotiating other sports deals with Sky.

 

Could it just be that Sky have put so much of their money into the Premier League? Seen they have raised the amount of games they are showing by nearly double. That will be eating into other sports budgets and maybe boxing was one they felt they get less back from vs their investment

 

Wouldn’t say love. Just doubt many other blokes in their 20’s starting a stable from scratch, with the added pettiness of Hearn and Warren trying to freeze them out, could do a great deal. British boxing on a whole is on a major decline, just look how many world champions we have. Could be zero if Nick Ball loses Saturday.

He did a great job with CBS. Azim has been matched well and is a bigger name in the UK than Dalton Smith for example (Sky/Mcguigan also played their part). Done good crowds for British title fights like Wardley v Clarke etc.

 

They certainly were getting way less back for their investment once Boxxer got involved.

Pre Boxxer, PPV revenue used to fund the whole of Sky Boxing with the money it made, the good old days.

 

Yup, that’s definitely part of it — but Sky’s also being propped up by the more profitable arms of its parent company, Comcast, and they lost a couple hundred million last year. Cutting boxing is just them streamlining what they see as money pits, especially with the subscriber base shrinking.

Premier League rights might be vastly overpriced, but the demand’s there, and that’s where Sky Sports’ core subscribers come from. Crazy thing is, I’m subscribed to Sky Sports but couldn’t tell you the last Premier League game I watched in the past 5–6 years — I guess I’m in the minority. I did watch the boxing, though, and now I catch the WTA and ATP tennis since they picked up those rights. The big edge Sky has over something like the Fire Stick is the replays, highlights, rewind on live coverage, etc. Without that kind of functionality, half these streaming companies would be out of business.

 

I think it's easily the biggest single factor. Sky have 215 live PL matches this season, it's a staggering amount. They also have the football league, where it seems like near enough every match is available bar the Sat 3pm's and even there I think there were some available on the first week, so maybe the rules are changing on that.

Obviously the rights are going to cost a fortune, but their production costs will be significant also, that's a lot of OB units, staff and freelancers to employ. It may be there's just not much left in the budget after that and so they're happy to shove yet more darts on there and trust that football is the main reason people subscribe so as long as they've got that covered they can get by?

 

Sky got the better end of the deal in theory - the new deal this season barely cost any more than the last, but was sprinkled with more live games to keep the price up. If Sky are losing subscribers then it's quite possible football takes a bigger share of the overall spend but it's not much more in cash terms than before.

 

BBC came out of nowhere. But when you think about it, this particular promoter/stable is the most woke ever in british boxing history, so it's right up the BBC's street.

 

Vidal Riley has left boxxer

 

Billam-Smith was literally the only proven, world class male boxer in his stable. Rest were low level, or unproven prospects that will likely fail at the top (whittaker, simpson,azim, riley)

 

The WBO have ordered Billam-Smith to fight Roman Fress with the winner being named WBO Cruiserweight Interim champion. If it’s agreed then it’d be good if the fight is added to the Clarke-Jeamie TKV undercard.

 

Hopefully banned for using the incredibly cringe word ‘woke’.

 

Thought I was the only one who hates that word...