Boxing Monthly Editorial calls for review of PPV model

I agree with this and it is the main problem.

Every week we've got one of the many promoters over here claiming that their man will fight anyone and it's up to such and such another promoter to agree to a reasonable deal.

And Sky don't help at all. Right now, (bar Premier Sports) Sky are the only ones showing regular boxing and yet they still seem happy to have really bad matchups on most Saturday Fight Nights, apart from the odd main event.

And of course the PPV just follows on from that lead. There's clearly a market for boxing in this country as shown by the hype surrounding several recent fights. But if the PPVs continue to be as **** as Khan-Salita and Haye-Harrison then they should thank themselves fortunate to have any buyers for their next shows at all.

 

Its true.

Sky should say to Maloney and Mick Hennesey if you want Tyson Fury, David Price, John McDermott and Tom Dallas on TV again they need to be fighting each other. If you cannot make those fights we won't show them.

Tell Warren ok if you want us to show John Murrays next fight it needs to be agasint Mitchell, Rees or a world title eliminator. No eurobums.

Tell Maloney if Skykes doesn't defend agaisnt Gary Buckland were not intrested in showing his fights.

This is how HBO used to do it. They wanted Alexander vs Bradley, told the promoters what they were prepared to pay for it and that no other fight from either man would be acceptable.

Hayemaker and Khan desperatley want to be on the Sky platform. Theres no reason why a minimum requirement cannot be set for a PPV fight. Infact the PPV undercard should be in place along with the main event before a PPV is announced.

 

Maybe rather than PPVs it is down to Sky to not give any promoters guaranteed dates but rather fighters and fights they want to see.

Promoters have to bid for fights or make case for alternatives. Work together with other promoters and share money.

ie Sky wishlist for 2nd quarter 2011 Saturday night fights:
Headliners:
Want DeGale-Groves,
Want Macklin-Barker
Want Murray-Mitchell/Rees
Rhodes title shot/eliminator
Cleverley title shot/eliminator
Burns defence
Want Gavin-Theopane
etc

Undercards:
Want Bellew British or Commonwealth fight
Want Fury-McDermott III/Price
Want Choi-Matthews III or similar
Want Dodson-Travis Dickinson (have to use Prizefighter for setting up fights)
etc

Take board out of it.

And guarantee different money for different fights. If you do DeGale-Groves you get 100k. If you do DeGale-Anderson (for example) you get 50k.

Sky giving flat 70k fee for each fight just encourages promoters to make non-competitive matches.

 

There is always the danger that something else might arrive on the scene...think ITV from nowhere in 2005...think Setanta from nowhere in 2008...SKY will always be mindful of acting too tough, trust me. During the period 2005 and 2009 SKY, let's tell the truth, vanished...it was Ricky v the world! Why risk upsetting promoters that can deliver...especially with the 2012 Glory Games just a few hundred days away...

Adios.

 

£70K is that what they give no matter what it is. Commonwealth, British, Euro, World etc???

 

I've said for a while that Sky can have as much power within british boxing as they want. Bar the occasional card on Premier, they are the only regular broadcaster of domestic boxing here, so I think that if they wanted, they could pretty much demand certain fights from the board and the promoters. At the end of the day, british boxing needs Sky a hell of a lot more than sky needs british boxing. Sky would no doubt lose a few subscribers if they dropped british boxing, but would save on buying the fights and production costs etc. Whereas realistically, nobody else in this country is going to be willing to televise a domestic fight pretty much every weekend, and even if they did wouldn't pay anywhere near as much and the sport would die a slow death.

I reckon we need more ultimatums from Sky to see certain fights because as Rob said, it would give us the match-ups we want to see. Threaten Maloney with not showing any more Sykes fights unless he fights Buckland for example, and you can be sure that fight gets made. But bar the odd time when Sky have rejected opponents, they seem to be content with just churning out whatever each promoter gives us on a Friday night with few questions asked. I guess they must think the customers will still fork out £50 a month whether Mitchell fights Murray or not, so it isn't worth the hassle of getting involved.

And the problem with PPVs is fairly simple. It's rare over here when a big fight gets announced, that an undercard is named with it (bar Warren), so when Hayemaker, Khan or whoever see that "Oh, we've sold 8000 tickets in a week without naming an undercard, by the time the Sky hype hots up we won't even need a decent one", they think they can save a bit of money by having a **** one.

And Sky know most people buy a PPV for the main event, so much so that these countdown shows barely offer a passing mention to the other fights on the night, so they aren't bothered.

The whole thing is a shame, but until something drastic happens, nothing will change.

 

But you agree PPV genuinley needs to be looked at? Theres needs to be minimum requirements set?

 

It ALL needs to be looked at. We have about 100 fights that fans want to see in Britain...SOMEBODY has to start delivering them.

Adios.

 

I definitely agree with Sky situation they need to be much more hardline they dont even have to do it to the level that we were talking about with HBO but they need to go Maloney we want Price in with a top 10 UK heavy anything less is unacceptable.

They need to make promoters work for their right to have slots. Hennessey could definitely have put on better cards than some recently staged but because of no contract he has no opportunity to even bid for the slot.

I would also say that whilst Sky show a good variety of fights across the board i wuld also suggest the earmarked fighters with star potential and push them hard to create attractions that people will want to tune in to watch this is what essentially Mick has done with Fury

Imagine is Sky said right we are going to take Gavin Degale Bellew Price Quigg Frampton Smith Murray and push them hard and build them up. It wouldnt rule out other fighters being attractions or in interesting scraps just that it would be a more structured plan of building fighters reputations rather than we will see what fights we get and let them play out and see what happens

 

Not a lot to disagree with here...except (and let's use David Price as an example) some fights would not make any cash commonsense...Frank Maloney would have to pay something like 6-10 grand more for the type of fight that we want to see and if we multiply that two or three times each show then he will go out of business.

Adios.

 

This is where Sky have to get their budget sorted out obviously if they are asking for a certain level of fight the pay package for a card will have to reflect that. If they build the fighters and stage better fights more people will watch.

Also the idea of promoters bidding for slots means that fighters will be forced to fight better opposition otherwise they wont fight and get a payday or progress. For example if Mitchell Murray was a Sat night fight and unless Mitchell takes it he wont be getting an tv on Sky for a fair bit it would incentivise fighters to take the fights because the have to because Sky aren't going to accept Kevin Mitchell v average import. Same again for Sykes v Buckland, Maloney knows that another promoter is also trying to get a good matchup for the date so to assure of getting a shot he needs to put on a dead certain fight that has intrigue.

That in turn makes Sky more money from advertising and the cycle goes on boxing experiences a revival better fights are made higher viewing figures more money all round ultimately maybe not short term. The boxing business is all about managing short term gain with long term benefit