DAZN Offers

There is definitely interest in Ben Whittaker but Matchroom's undercard on Saturday is very poor.

 

Sky has a different agenda these days, new owners and no bottomless pit for mainstream sport that few people actually watch. The annual budget for darts is probably less than a single Joshua purse in the Saudi era and probably draws 3-4x the audience.

The money that's gone into boxing in the last 10 years has definitely made some fighters wealthy but it's completely skewed the market - it makes zero sense for Sky to pay fortunes for Saturday night shows, and they can't be seen fleecing their own customers for PPV more than 3-4 times a year.

Warren will have had two choices - spend less on UK shows and stay with the corporate TV giants who have a lot of people to please and duty to make profits, or go with the venture-backed company willing to take a loss on a small number of sports. No surprise he went with the one that keeps him rolling a bit longer, as he's always done.

If you can give Matchroom credit for one thing - they're long term planners. Hearn Sr was with Sky from the start (Eubank world tour etc) and it seems they're not going far from DAZN. Frank has been with every broadcaster at some stage, including his own!

 

Also how realistic was it at that time that Frank could even go to Sky?

He’s walked out on them twice before so might have burned some bridges there. But then if it suited them, I doubt Sky would hold a grudge.

Given what’s gone on since with the lawsuits, it looks as though Sky wanted rid of Shalom but still keep access to all the fighters they’d spent three years building up by signing with Wischhusen’s new company, so maybe there wasn’t the room then that there is now at Sky.

And of course when the deal was signed, it very much seemed as if Frank had usurped Eddie as Big Turks’ right-hand man, so there may well have been an offer made that he couldn’t refuse.

 

From WBNs website :

Cold Turki Withdrawal: NYT Warns Boxing Hooked on Unstable Saudi Funds
by Phil JayNovember 28, 2025
Saudi Arabia’s financial muscle has rewritten boxing’s landscape over the last two years — but behind the flood of record-breaking purses and supercharged schedules sits a truth the sport has ignored from day one: the entire operation is unstable and unsustainable.
A New York Times investigation into the state of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) — the same money pipeline funding Riyadh Season boxing — adds weight to what industry insiders have whispered privately: the tap could turn off at any moment.


Boxers, promoters, managers — virtually the entire upper tier of the sport — have become conditioned to Saudi-era numbers that do not exist anywhere else:
Eight-figure paydays
Lavish travel to the region
Guaranteed money for fights that would barely break even in the US or UK
It’s a dream world. And boxing has walked straight into it.

The problem?
From the start, it was clear this level of spending wasn’t built on solid ground. Boxing does not generate the revenue required to sustain these payouts. There is no economic mechanism that makes the numbers make sense. The sport has been living off an external subsidy, and the NYT now reports that subsidy to be under severe strain.

The NYT Red Flag: Saudi Projects Bleeding Cash
The NYT reports that PIF’s cash availability for new investments has tightened dramatically, with high-profile Saudi megaprojects running over budget, behind schedule, or in financial distress. According to sources cited in the NYT, the fund is slashing projections and pulling back commitments while restructuring internally.

- If you use these WBN quotes, please link back to the source: https://www.*****.com/saudi-boxing-...BWUH7s-q1scK90xIXU_aem_xMXqFeIMuiLB00qVWwztoA

 

As I posted a few weeks ago on here about Boxxer / Ben Shalom, maybe he has seen ahead of the oncoming curve by joining the BBC with a far bigger audience grasp.

 

Saying that would suggest he went there proactively. He’s only there because Sky binned him off, and DAZN wouldn’t have him. It’s a great platform and showcase opportunity, but let’s not make Shalom out as some sort of visionary genius.

 

No announcements of how many PPV buys Wardley vs Parker or Eubank vs Benn 2 did......I wonder why

 

And next to no money. What a trailblazer.

 

To be fair, I did say "maybe" as it is supposition on my part.

 

Mentioned on another thread but my dad (who barely watches any boxing) just mentioned to me how he’s seen there’s boxing on BBC and he’ll watch. Boxxer could be on to a good thing.

 

And on the flip side to this, I was speaking to a colleague from another department yesterday who i know is a boxing fan (not a hard-core, but certainly not a casual), he didn't know Whittaker was fighting tonight!

 

That’s the main disadvantage of a boxing only channel, you literally don’t watch it for anything else so there’s minimal marketing. Even with the Netflix stuff it’s advertised when you’re just watching films & series on there.

 

All joking and slamming of DAZN aside, Shakur vs Teofimo is exactly the type of fight you want to see getting made. A genuinely elite matchup and a great start to 2026. We’ll still get served up plenty of domestic dross as PPV, obviously, but this one is as legit as it gets.

 

How much do you bang on about Matchrooms free tickets and unsold seats

Ironically didn't Boxxers show look empty? It did to me, why don't you talk about that.

 

This content is protected

Disgrace that being PPV. How is that not part of your UK subscription. Inoue’s last fight was free on Facebook ffs and Sky never tried to rinse us despite him having countless better fights than this one.

DAZN killing the sport.