It's done to fill gaps in the diary. See the group stage runs for 3 months so that's some content to fill out the schedule for a good amount of time. The centrepiece is a new 16-team group stage, which will involve four groups of four playing each other home and away between October and December. The top two from each group progress to the knockout phase from March, with the quarter-finals and semi-finals played over two legs, and a one-off final (in Turin in 2022). $8 mil a year is not really much to pay for the broadcaster. Popularity of the women's game not sure but I think it is growing in popularity as Sky also bought rights to the Women's Super League and that's £8 mil a year for 3 years. Chelsea I believe also announced they sold out of season tickets for their women's team for the first time ever. The game has secured a couple of multi year broadcast deals recently and that must mean something.
When I'm deciding on which sports package I would like to subscribe to, Women's football is high on my list. Right next to over 70's bowls and competitive knitting.
I'd part with my £1.99 a month if they had a league where the best women's teams go up against the best schoolboy teams.
The only way to improve the Matchroom boxing cards is to withhold our money until Eh Day sticks on cards and fights that justify another subscription. If we keep paying for this garbage, Eh Day keeps taking and giving us pony. For the first time in years, I have enjoyed the new cards on Sky. I don't think Matchroom are going to be missed at all in the UK unless huge fights are made. There is plenty of boxing on UK TV outside DAZN with the new Sky deal, Frank on BT, Big Mick on Ch5 plus we get good cards from MTK online.
With Top Rank now on Sky and hopefully domestic cards in the future along with C5 there's absolutely no reason to tolerate Eddie's mismatch farce cards let alone pay for them. Would Eddie up his game if subscribers started leaving in significant numbers ?? Dunno in all honesty, EH has got such a paper thin roster that having competitive cards will inevitably lead to house fighters losing more and more often thereby devaluing Matchroom. Eddie is in a tough position IMO.
Looks like Eh Day is simply reinventing the equivalent of Boxnation on a streaming platform and the problems with that are exactly the same as Frank faced. Needs a huge stable to go it alone and he may need a more formal link up with the biggest stable in UK and Irish boxing - MTK Global.
Not really when you consider cards like this were part of your sky subs. No way were sky giving matcbroom 2 quid per sub so the standard should reflect that.
I think we can only really go off Eddie’s relationship with DAZN in the US. As that more reflective of the deal he has with DAZN. In that market we have had Estrada vs Chocolatito, Canelo vs Smith, Canelo vs Saunders, Haney vs linares all within the last 6 months or so. That’s without the other cards like Andrade vs Williams. Can’t really say Eddie does put on competitive fights if the budget allows. Meanwhile people are acting like we’re getting value for our £50 a month from Sky to watch Loma vs knockover, Inoue vs knockover and Mayweather vs Logan Paul on PPV. get those rose tinted specs off.
