Another 'why isn't boxing (Froch) on TV' article-Nice bit on Buncey as well!!!

The late Mike Murphy, who edited Grandstand and Match Of The Day, knew more about sport and TV than just about anyone of his era and used to say there were two bankers in the business: football and boxing. How times have changed.


While the nation froths – quite rightly – over the Ukraine-England World Cup qualifying game going ahead without a single British TV camera of note trained on proceedings, boxing is left to fight on in the shadows, but only hardcore fight fans seem to care. Take the curious case of Carl Froch.
Froch is 32 and in serious danger of disappearing from public view at the height of his career. He fights on the opening night of Showtime's Super Six super-middleweight series against the dangerous young American Andre Dirrell at the Trent FM Arena in Nottingham in the early hours of Sunday 18 October.


So far, so good. But, if you are not among the 7,000 fans prepared to brave the cold at 2am – a starting time to accommodate American television – you will have to pay £14.95 on the day (£12.95 earlier) to a UK channel you will not have heard of before today.


Primetime is the latest venture of Portland TV, the broadcasting arm of Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell, which runs the Express and Daily Star newspapers as well as a whole range of "adult portals" and consumer and gaming cable stations. At noon today, Primetime will know what their channel number is on the Sky platform.


So, a TV channel which signed the deal for this event only a few days ago – and which doesn't open for business until next Thursday – kicks off with a world title fight and a link to a series that Showtime hopes is going to revolution boxing.


Good luck to one and all. They'll need it.
Primetime, which did not exist until recently, still has no commentary team in place (although there are plenty of good people to choose from among the 450 employees made redundant in the collapse of Setanta's British outlet), and no commitment to stay in boxing.
Primetime is not a 24-hour-a-day TV station; it is a one-off, pay-per-view exercise. If the numbers add up, execs there say they may stay in boxing. If not, they will fold their tent and leave town.
Ray Mia, a Portland consultant, says: "We want to put on at least one pay-per-view event a month. We're going to see how it goes. The show will be live from 8pm, including the undercard and Arthur Abraham against Jermain Taylor. From 8 October we will be screening Carl's last two fights as well as the reality series, Access All Areas, about the Super Six tournament, which features six of the top 10 super-middleweights in the world."


It is 15 years since Lennox Lewis fought Oliver McCall in London on Wire TV, and was knocked out in the second round. Wire TV disappeared without trace. Lennox recovered to great effect. His friends hope Froch does not have to go through that sort of experience.


The Super Six series is hugely ambitious. Trying to get two fighters into the ring at the same time is tough enough; keeping six of them on their best behaviour over a tournament that is likely to last two years could be a legal and logistical nightmare.


Primetime are up for night one of the Super Six, but they have yet to negotiate coverage of Mikkel Kessler, the favourite, who fights Andre Ward in the third showdown on 17 November.


So this tournament is not yet totally in place for British fans. Without a long-term domestic agreement, Froch will have to negotiate each time to ensure he is seen at home.


Showtime say they are committed to the project and have the participants locked into contracts with penalty clauses to ensure they fulfil their commitments. Froch, I understand, is guaranteed £1m for his round-robin of fights, more if he gets to the final, and will try to pick up money from other outlets along the way – which is where Primetime came in.


David McConachie, who has worked with Frank Warren and is the managing director of Queensbury Media, helped set up the deal between Portland TV and Froch. The fighter did not have much bargaining clout, though, given the lack of interest from the BBC, ITV and Sky. He even talked to the new internet site, HattonTV. It is unlikely he will be making a fortune from it.


Apart from all that, though, this is a fight that should be on prime-time British TV. Froch is a genuine world champion, with a real belt. He is a dedicated professional who deserves more than the shoddy treatment he has received over the past six months or so.


His last fight, when he went to Connecticut and knocked out Taylor in the final round in the first defence of his WBC title, was a thriller – and that, ludicrously, ended up online.


Showtime, however, loved it, and they will stay in the Carl Froch business as long as he keeps fighting like that. It is a big ask, one that might seriously stretch him, especially against Kessler.


Froch's promoter, Mick Hennessy, a feisty, hardworking type who has beavered away for several years in the shadow of the Franks, Warren and Maloney, talked optimistically the night of the Taylor fight of getting Carl's next defence on a new ITV pay-per-view outlet. It was, he said, the future. It hasn't happened.


Sources tell me there have been tensions in the Froch camp, as he grows more frustrated by the lack of recognition for his ability and with the rebuffs from British TV executives. It is not the way to prepare for a difficult fight against a hungry young prospect such as Dirrell, who is quick and hits very hard.


This is hardly the fighter's fault. He gets in the ring and does the business. It is up to those around him to get him the best deal. Bernard Hopkins supposedly offered Froch £5m for a fight earlier this year – yet he is tied to a contract with Showtime worth a fraction of that to fight three times, possibly four, against the best 12-stone fighters in the game.


Here is an exciting, undefeated British world champion who should be a major sports star reduced to scrabbling about for a TV deal three weeks before defending his title. Something is not right with this picture.
While the England-Ukraine football blackout has incensed the wider football and sporting community, no such concern or sympathy exists for boxing. The whole affair is a scandal.
Bunce still bouncing

You've got to hand it to Steve Bunce. He is a survivor. He was the loud voice of Setanta boxing until it folded, but he was at his resilient best in London's East End the other night, holding forth for two hours on stage at Lee Hurst's comedy base in Bethnal Green.


David Haye lent his name to the promotion, as did Errol Christie, who has a hard-hitting book coming out in March in which he talks about the racism he encountered during his career.


Frank Maloney spoke with some dignity about the death of Darren Sutherland and how he is now embroiled in a legal row with the fighter's family.


Mark Prince, the Tottenham light-heavyweight who hasn't fought since 1999, when he knocked out Kevin Mitchell (no, not that one – nor me), turned up to announce he was making a comeback. He lost only once, to the WBO champion Dariusz Michalczewski, but Mark was 40 in March. That's earning a living the hard way.


And those of us who remember the Cockney Rejects were pleased to see Stinky Turner in the audience, or Jeff Geggus as he was known as a star schoolboy boxer.


Bunce is taking his roadshow where his wardrobe goes – all over the place. Catch him if you can, from the Dockers Club in Belfast on Tuesday night (that should be a quiet evening) on to Cork and all over England.
Maybe one day we'll see the big man back on the box – on Primetime? Stranger things have happened.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/oct/02/carl-froch-primetime-tv-deal

 

Oh...good read though anyways?