Boxing viewing figures in the UK

Somebody has posted in the TV thread that this is on ESPN Classic.

Result if so, Classic is 'free' with Sky Sports and not one of the channels you have to pay extra for.

 

some of you lot have the rose tinted specs on. royal has posted clear facts that boxing is not getting impressive viewing figures. PPV is the way forward.

 

Well done to Royal for doing the leg work here :good

Excellent news on the Bunce classic shows

 

Of course, because if no-one is watching for free or on Sky, then the best thing to do is to charge for itatsch

 

Boxing has a large hardcore fan base but can only gain a large amount of viewers for marquee events which happen every few years.

The sky money will get less and less and to keep the quality up PPV will have to be introduced. the same thing happend in the US 30 years ago. Boxing used to be terrestrial, then cable, then PPV.

 

I disagree with you there Rob there are very few actual PPV's in the US apart from the big big fights, they do have primtetime type deals for some more fringe interest fight Klitschko etc.

As pointed out by Royal they have and established system and payscale for different levels of fights. Boxing does do decent figures imo when its put on at a decent time with decent fighters it does comparable viewing with any other sport on that particular channel.

To ensure this happens promoters have to put on better qulaity fights and probably for less money but you are advocating for them to charge more/make the sport further niche

Your plan is prticularly short sighted and would possibly work short term but eventully support would drop off as there is little/no platfrom to get interested in the sport without paying extortionate amounts of money. How popular would darts, snooker or even F1 be if they were PPV?

 

Mate i think your a good poster and i normally agree with your posts. But on this you are so so unbelievably wrong. PPV is a poor platform to raise public awareness and a bad way of marketing as a whole.

Khan is a ppv fighter due to his itv past. Degale and gavin will struggle to.emulate khan or indeed earn the same paydays, solely due to the fact joe bloggs on the street doesnt know who the hell they are. Why would you pay £15 to watch something you have little or no interest in.

My nan for example doesn't like football. However she will watch man utd, liverpool and england if they're on tv and thats terrestrial btw. Boxing is similar in the fact folk only care about champs ala the top4 in football terms. The difference is man u and liverpool have had 100 years to build their names up and every season they get a clean slate.

Degale has 10 years if he is lucky, he needs max exposure straight away. Build a name, then fight on ppv when he is a champ. A couple of loses and before you know it he has faded away.

Imagine if khan got ko'd by prescott and was unknown by the public similar status to a david price. Do you think he would have earned the same money or even have had a title shot soon after the loss had it not been for his reputution and public profile? I dont believe so.

 

First of all your wrong about there being very few PPV cards in the US. Theres pretty much 3-4 PPV's a month, and its not just for the big fights. Duddy vs Chavez Jnr is PPV in a few weeks over there!!!!

How much does it cost to put on 2 hours worth of the comparible sports, because we have seen TV execs interviewed before and say that the problem with boxing is that its to expensive. If Boxing is more expensive than others sports then its not comparible.

Also its not all about viewing figures for ITV, its about selling the ad space. Many advertisers do not want to be associated with boxing.

I tend to agree with what allot of you are saying but someone needs to play devils advocate here..........you could put a re-run of Birds of a Feather on ITV1 at 9pm on a wednesday and it would get 8million viewers.

The people to blame our the promoters, simple as that.

 

You only have to look at Tyson Fury to see what regualar fighting on terrestrial tele can do for a fighter. Keeping busy having a bit of a personality/selling point and being excting will get exposure and get people talking. What other prospect of Fury's pedigree has got half the column inches that he has?

People started talking getting excited through word of mouth/ability to watch. Building the name quickly and early by keeping the fighter active and fairlyaggresive marketing will get the pay days and coverage back. In the space of eight fights he was in national papers fighting for the headlining a main event for the English title in front of thousands in attendance and I suspect a few morehundred thousand on tele and probably for a decent purse.

David Price has had 6 fights so far and has the better pedigree having beaten Fury in the ams and having competed in the Olympics and winning a bronxe medal. does he get any column inches? Will he be headlining his own show in 2 fights time? Will he be drawing thousands to watch him? the answer to all these questions is NO.

The reason why he has been inactive at times he has not been matched aggresively and he has not been marketed correctly

 

ok how about we do a little bit of role play here (don't get to excited)

I will be a tv executive for a terrestrial channel. Come to me with anything about why my channel should show boxing, and I will be able to come up with a reason why it shouldnt. Simple as that.

 

Khan is not a PPV fighter. His viewing figures on PPV have been extremly poor. Thats why Sky turned down his last fight.

I agree with you but what is the top 4 in Boxing?? David Haye is in a class of his own in terms of intrest, way bigger than Khan. Mayweather vs Mosley got less viewers than Lenny Daws. Ricky Hatton had never been on terrestrial TV. His name was built up through great promoting.

 

Not true
The people to harangue are the tv networks. ITV 1 Khan live peaked at near 500,000 at 4.30 a.m. which equates to 43% of total audience. Replay 10.30 a.m peaked at near 1.5 mill, average 1.1. (FA Cup final re-run 350,000). BBC no interest, disgracefully. ITV 1 and ITV sport run by former BBC men. Could there be some connection?

Terrestrial TV networks should realise people like me loath Britain's got Talent and Strictly with a passion. But, if I were the head of a TV network I would not be so arrogant as to bin them, because there is clearly an audience. They should be looking at Germany, whose audience demographics are very similar to the UK, and realise that Klitschko, Abraham etc are doing huge numbers and that boxing would do the same here if only they invested properly in the product.

Frank Warren remains the best promoter in the country, by a mile. He has a stable of young boxers who could dominate in years to come, and knows how to put on proper shows rather than leisure centre dust-ups that seem to have become our staple diet. One of the networks needs to do a deal with him, and then we might begin to enjoy the sport in the manner that we deserve, and big audiences would be attracted back.

By the way, am I alone in noticing that the Kltischko baiting seems to have cooled. Classic promotion .... talk about the danger man, and then avoid him (or them in this case). I guess we can all look forward to Haye v Harrison. The same Harrison who was comprehensively outboxed by Michael Sprott.

 

Just checked the figures for Fury Mcdermott 1 got 162 000 on SS2 which was the fifth highest watched show that week

 

lol your deffinatley not alone in noticing that. go on the general forum.

 

remember when people used to laugh at the sad scfi anoraks with their bring back Doctor Who petitions ?