Boxing Coverage on TV in the UK

Agreed on all accounts. :good

 

Horse racing and golf has the level of activity to support dedicated channels, I don't think boxing does.

 

the problem with doing a boxing only channels is you only could show so much...maybe they could do a channel showing both ufc/mma and boxung

 

Problem is that fights cost lots of money. Most big fights where subscription channels look to make some big bucks (hatton, calzaghe, etc) are in middle of night so fewer new people buy in.
When you look at those figures that Setanta released a bit ago ... it was celebrating that around 350,000 people tuned in to watch Haye v Barrett. But that's less than half of their football audience .... i'm sure they announced their first million audience for some average football match around that time.

 

Also alot of boxing fans or part time fans as some call them are only interested in the bigger fights.

 

If the things you suggest were commercially viable, then someone would do it.

 

It's hard work being a Boxing fan in the UK, but Setanta do there best and are showing Margarito vs Mosley, so it's an absolute must for me. I've been a subscriber pretty much since the Calzaghe/Kessler fight, and it's come to the point where I can't go without it. ITV just shows British fighter who, bless them, are not the best fighters in the world and never have been to be perfectly honest.

 

Its hard to watch fights you know the results of.

 

quite simply all the other sports mentioned get bigger audiences. and you can understand why if you look at things from outside the box. if boxing had 1 world champ per weight, and less weight classes, we would have all big fights on tv.

also boxing is a nightmare for advertisers, most do not wanna be asocitated with the sport because of the violence, and with football, golf, cricket, tennis, you get guarenteed spots, with boxing the main fight could be over in 1 round, then the guy at gillette who spent £30,000 on his 30 second ad inbetween round 5 has to explain to his boss why 5 people watched it and no shaving foam got sold that month.

boxing is now a niece sport and will rarley be on free tv from now on.

think about this as well, how the world cup final be free for everyone to watch, the most watched sporting event, but sky put khan vs presscott on ppv, makes no sense at all.

 

On boxing day i was completely hungover until i seen the line up Nuts Tv the day was devoted to boxing the Benn Eubank series then Eubank Vs Watson Kotv Classics i thought i was still drunk reading the line up... Is Nuts Tv really going away ?

 

A big time boxing fight costs the same as a single Prem football match to air.

TV rights to boxing really isnt expensive in the grand scheme of things.

 

This is absolute bull**** mate, im sorry but why make such a false and stupid comment. sky pay 1.1mil per premiership match, they paid way more than that for Hatton vs Mayweather, probs like 5mil and HBO around the same. now i bet you if you put Man Utd vs Liverpool on BBC1 at 9pm on a wednesday, and Hatton vs Mayweather on ITV1 at the same time, both live, United vs Liverpool would absolutley trounce it in viewers.

the TV money makes up for 75% of the revenue for fights, thats why all the big fights still happen in america because of HBO paying a fortune for it, sure there vegas casinos to, but why would calzaghe and jones fight at MSG and draw 15,000 max when they could get 60,000 in wales, because tv money was so big.

boxing as a spectator sport is probably as popular as tennis or golf. in tennis and golf the day to tournements (the equivilent of a british title fight) are hid away on sky and setanta, but when it comes to the grand slams and majors there on BBC, however with boxing they stick the biggest fights on PPV. because of this the sport of becoming mroe and more unpopular as nobody can bloody watch it. andy murray is a bigger household name than calzaghe because everytime murray has a big match its on bbc1, everytime calzaghe has a big fight you gotta fork out £10 or subscribe.

over the next 6 months the new sports minister is reviewing which sports will HAVE to be on terrestrial tv. remember the ashes cricket was on channel 4, then it got taken of the list (which includes olympics, fa cup final, world cup, wimbledon, the open). which should pertition that any unification world title fight involving a british fighter should HAVE to be broadcast on free to air tv.

in terms of sport on tv were 10 years behind the yanks, if you wanna be a boxing fan in the future dig deep, expect more in subscription channels and ppv.

face facts guys you like a nieche sport.

 

No niece of mine is taking up boxing...