If Burns - Katsidis had been on Sky Sports...?

Yeah, because he's driven some really impressive PPVs so far! Khan's not a money-maker.

 

:deal

Bit like when Khan left Sky it affected his publicity but there were still many casuals that knew about his fight (a bit of promotion helped it).... But boxnation has totally killed all publicity for ******'s fighters.

For now at least.

 

Khan's first PPV was a complete flop and, of course, saw him get flattened in 60 seconds. People only watched him because he was on free TV, something that still appears to be the case now he's on Primetime.

Brut's right: promoters should be doing whatever they can to get on Channel 5 and build some awareness. Sky have been a disaster for boxing.

 

Loads of people know Primetime simply because of Khan and the attention he brings. Its not like its selling PPVs either, you'll just get a few casuals who will give Khan a go then see other world title fights and watch them, and so on!

 

But, Heavy T, he has so far done really poor numbers on PPV. So what if people know what Primetime is or if that's where Khan fights?

He is getting a fraction of the viewership he did on ITV and all for short-term gain. He could have written his own ticket with ITV (or the BBC, I bet if he'd wanted it) and gotten a shitload of sponsorship. Although, considering how inept his management team is...

Frank was just as bad, jumping ship to Setanta as soon as they started offering good money for Calzaghe and Enzo. He seemed to forget that people only bought into those two because of the exposure they got on ITV.

 

Maybe the big british boxing boom in the nineties almost doomed it. I mean, Benn-Eubank-Bruno-Hamed all got so famous and big through terrestrial TV, they smelt the money Sky was waving....

 

My point is, if they could rope the 30 thousand or so casual fans that buys Khans fights into subscribing to Boxnation for 2 months or so instead, then theres the potential to keep a lot of them subscirbers.

 

This is exactly what happened. I'm hoping Fury and soon Eubank Jr. on 5 will be the start of something big on terrestrial TV.

 

My mates all only watch Boxing on Sky, they will watch any fights which are on there and buy PPV's if they know the fighters, ie - Hatton, Calzaghe, Mayweather, Pac.

They didnt even know Burns was fighting at the weekend!

I told them I was having a quiet night in Saturday and that the Boxing was on but because it wasnt on Sky they knew **** all about it until they read the Sunday Mail, .. I assumed they knew Burns was fighting as ****ing Scotsmen!

Honestly, if it is not on Sky or Terrestrial TV, casual fans cannot be expected to dig deep to find out where they can watch a fight because even if it is free on t'internet it is just too much hassle.

If they did decide to get BN I guarantee they will see it as a joke the minute they set eyes on Enzo and Co with those 1980's headsets on!

 

In terms of the long term what needs to happen is an attempt to clean up the sport's image. I know that sounds a bit odd when at the end of the day it's two guys punching each other but all the trash-talk, dodgy politics and bogus world title belts turns off advertisers big time. When advertising revenue goes up so does the incentive for terrestrial channels to show boxing.

Also, we could do with world-title fights involving British fighters becoming protected sporting events like Wimbledon and the World Cup i.e. they have to be shown on terrestrial.

Historically boxing has been a working-class sport with an upper-class element but you really need to attract the expanded middle-classes these days. Look at how football took off with an explosion in financial revenue once efforts were made to get rid of its hooligan problem. And football was traditionally a working class sport. But football is a better sport than rugby so the middle classes took it to their hearts once it became more socially acceptable. Well, boxing is inherently more exciting than football, just as long as you can live with the violence - the sport needs to be sanitised as much as possible.

Ain't gonna happen. The promoters are mainly short-term operators. None of them has both the long term vision and the resources to enact it.

 

The Build up, trash talking, mind games. Is one of the best spectacles, in the sport of boxing. You don't want boxers to be like Football players, where they are not aloud to say anything banterous..? in interviews. I love the trash talking, and all the other debates, and mind games leading upto big fights, thats what boxing is about.

 

I know that wont happen but it would be amazing. Do you think if ****** gave away say Burns fight to be shown this Friday on ITV2, that they would take it?

 

Like many I am torn about Boxnation.

Of course I'll pay the tenner as it is good value but the damage that could be done to the sport is immense.

Ricky Hatton I think fought his whole career on Sky but he is the only big name in recent years to transcend the sport having done so on satellite.

If the Groves and DeGale feud was tucked away on Boxnation without the promotion of Sky Sports and their News outlet would they really have been able to do that many tickets at the 02?

A deal needs to be struck with a terrestrial outfit to get young fighters on a midweek evening slot, like Naz started off with. Scott Quigg, to take a name at random, could build a national following but outside of the North West, is he ever going to shift tickets tucked away on Boxnation? I just can't see it

 

box nation is great for the hardcore, but for the long term growth of the sport its not a good thing.

in the ideal world you would have domestic and european level boxing on a dedicated sport channel like sky and once a fighter gets to the elite level and fights for world titles its on BBC or ITV.

From a pure business perspective and this is from someone that runs his own now, and has sold a business previously i cannot see how it works. not claiming to be off dragons den but i just cant see it working. unfortunatley.