Frank Warren new TV deal: 3 Saturday shows rumoured for September

Sky and ESPN in the US are able to run a weekly boxing show for a season (20 weeks+) as they are specific sports channels with a budget set aside for boxing. they are also working with several promoters. I just think your expecting way to much from ITV.

Sky are the best in the business when it comes to promoting a fight card they just only decide to give a fight coverage when they know theres a story there. Look at Hatton vs Mayweather and Haye vs Valuev, those fights were 10x bigger than any of Setantas big events. Its not just box office, Mitchell vs Katsidis and Harrison vs Sprott were backed heavily on sky sports and I have seen 5-6 adverts this weekend of Fury vs McDermott 2.

When Khan was on ITV he was doing decent figures but kept being pushed back later and later in the evening. Also Warren new when it came down to getting guys like Barrera and Kotelnik over, plus to continue paying Khan, he needed the budget Sky provided.

Remember Ricky Hatton never boxed on terrestrial TV and all of Hayes championship fights were on Sky and Setanta. There the two biggest PPV sellers.

The actual ideal lies somewhere in between. A freeview 24 hour sports channel. This way you get to have the weekly fights, and the big viewers. thats what ESPN is in the states btw.

 

if your paying £35 a month for Sky Sports your getting mugged off mate cos I pay £45 for Sky with Movies, News and Sport and i also get Phone and Internet through them.

Setanta and ESPN you still needed to pay for on free view though right?? i just think the days of 4 channels and then the rest will be over. when BBC3, E4 and ITV2 put something on people want to watch it can get very good viewing figures. When Sky Sports News has the transfer window its gets mega viewers so if theres sport people want to watch it will get viewers on free view.

ESPN are going to have virtually no premiership football next season so we shall see how they get on and what else they invest in. I think the fact they show virtually no boxing says it all, the people running the company are not stupid.

Sky never dropped Haye. His fight with Mormeck was put on a saturday night by Don King in France. Sky already had shows set for the saturday and the fee requested by Don King was far more than they would pay for a world title fight, plus it costs allot to get there team out to France. Sky don't do things on the cheap like setanta having the foreign broadcast on 15 minute delays.

When i went to the Bunce show live he told us that Warren did not buy the rights for Haye vs Mormeck for Setanta so that was just Warren bull **** btw.

What fighters do you think Sky should be pushing that they don't?? This week i have seen plenty of ads for a the fight between Fury and McDermott and when its closer to the fight it will be all over Sky Sports News.

They are not ignoring Froch they are ignoring Mick Hennessy, just like ITV have done. Hennessy had a deal with Sky and he left them, then he goes back to Sky and demands silly money for the Froch fight and wants to put him on Sky Box Office. then he demands double the money to show Froch vs Taylor and Froch vs Dirrell at 2am that he got for Froch vs Pascal??? How comes they were not part of the deal already set up???

I completely disagree that BBC's presentation is better than Sky's but i guess thats just opinion. Khan, Haye and Froch should be fighting on terrestrial TV as there the top level. British title fights are niche and have no place on the BBC. You don't see them showing conference football do you?

Answer me this? Do you think Warren could have got Calzaghe vs Kessler made with ITV money? Could he have made Macceranelli vs Haye, could Maloney have the budget to get Nishioka over from Japan or Militor to fight Booth without Sky money?? No chance. I would rather see the bigger fights than building the big names.

 

cant be true as Football on sky reguarly tops a million homes.