Attendances at UK boxing shows

Warrington was very reliable in that regard, and he provided entertaining fights with it that drew casual people in.

Taylor at his peak could draw a big crowd, The Hydro's capacity is about 15,000 and im sure he could still do that now for an appropriate fight.

Nowadays though, I'm not sure.

Galal Yafai is an Olympic Champion but.... nobody outside Sheffield knows who he is which is grim

 

Warrington-Frampton was one of the last purist fights that drew a 20,000+ crowd on merit at a neutral venue, without Sky pushing it hard or being two mainstream household names, and no 'beef'.

I get what others are saying about the era of Froch, Bellew, etc - but Froch became bigger through Sky than he ever was on terrestrial TV and the Super Six. Bellew blew up under Matchroom and Sky. Britain has always had a big boxing following but that was probably the peak - routine big crowds in big venues, effectively in a season of events made for TV.

 

100%, there was so much momentum from 2014 (Froch Groves 2) that carried over all the way to 2019, with loads of big casual PPV nights (All Aj fights, Brook Spence, Brook GGG Haye Bellew 1&2, Whyte fights, some Chisora fights, Khan, Groves, Froch & more, and the 'sky machine' and the peak of AJ off the back of Froch Groves 2 that meant everything was huge, and there was always a massive PPV on Sky coming up which kept the sport growing and the numbers high and people interested which filtered down all the sport to where Matchroom were doing NXTGEN shows at York hall featuring like Connor Benn, Cordina, Okolie etc, as well as world title Saturday night fights nights as well as the big PPV shows, and even IFL TV / Youtube boxing content was at it's peak and numbers used to be huge back then, as well as the WBSS, and PBC shows used to be on Sky too and Boxnation showed the big US fights (Canelo GGG), then the pandemic in 2020 was still big as there was AJ and Whyte in PPV fights, 2021 was the end of the peak, with most of the guys from 2014 - 2020 retiring / coming to the end (Brook, Khan, Bellew, Haye, Degale, Groves, Froch, Whyte), and then Matchroom leave Sky to Dazn which for 2 years no one really knew about until like 2023, that almost reset the Uk market, and in the last 3-4 years since 2020 there isn't any massive new stars, and the 'sky machine' isn't as big as people think, it only works when there is a fight that is actually big, and AJ 2015 - 2020 was the reason it was so big, this sport will be in a terrible place when AJ and Fury retire in 1-2 years, i personally miss those 2015 - 2019 days, even the non PPV fights had good world title fights every month, with the peak of Matchroom, peak of PBC, WBSS, Queensbury doing big fights on BT too (Warrington Selby and Frampton, Gervonta Davis vs Walsh etc), the sport was in a great place and i loved it and i was a proper hardcore from 2015 - 2020, i'm slowly watching less these days as i get older, UK cards are awful now.

 

Warrington vs Frampton was on BT.
Eddie put the Whyte ppv on Sky once he found out josh v Carl was on just to try pi*s Frank off.
I went to that fight in Manchester, it was a brilliant night.

 

I blame Eddie Hearn

He regularly sold the mug public a pup, they woke up and this is the fallout.

Crippled Haye v Bellew was a double poking example.

The ticket prices need to decrease significantly to reflect the current levels of ability and entertainment.

 

Yes the ticket prices are definitely too high.

Better selling all tickets at a 3rd of the price than only selling 10%.

Not only can people not afford the ticket price, they aren't getting value for money.
Who is willing to fork out too drawer for an obvious over hyped fight?

Back in the day Sky would do very well in whipping up casuals for an average fight. But it seems even the casuals are wise to it these days

 

I’d go to a lot more but the prices are ridiculous, it’s the sane price regardless of the quality more or less.

 

They aren’t spoiling football

 

Agree with a lot of these points - lower profile events, too expensive, finishing too late to be able to travel home, etc.

The main reason I don't go now though is nothing to do with these though. Too many cokeheads causing trouble is the biggest deterrent.

The boozed up casual boxing fan was obnoxious enough anyway, but the prevalence of cocaine has made most major events intolerable.

 

It's nothing to do with Hearn and everything to do with ticket prices and the general public accessing them days after general release due to touts. The ufc tickets were a few hundred quid and that was for the gods!

 

That's probably not fo far wrong. We went ringside for main event after one of our fights, ended up going back to hotel to watch it as was astounding how many coked up idiots there talking garbage and falling all over. I dont' think I'd take my children to a show and I've no issue taking them to football

 

Ticket prices & crap cards.

I paid £44 to watch Kell Brook at Sheffield Arena in 2020. The exact same seat in the same venue 3 years later for Wood v Warrington was £118.

 

Warrington v Frampton was bad for that. Dozens keying up in the toilets.

 

Spot on mate. Even the standard Saturday night cards were good. The likes of Fitzgerald v Fowler on undercards. Now we'd be sold that as a massive fight and it would be the only UK Matchroom show for 2 months.