Sky Sports was the cause of the boom period we’ve seen in British Boxing and now it’s set to be responsible for the decline and the shite we see on Saturday Fight Nights and PPV. How much do you think Sky actually give Eddie Hearn for Saturday Fight Nights ? Sky being selfish with the purse is what causes PPV and Poor headliners on Saturday Cards. For example American broadcasters like Showtime/HBO give out $3-4M in Licence fees for their Saturday Cards. In comparison Sky seem to give out between £200-300K. Despite Eddie Hearn admitting Boxing is Sky’s second most viewed/rated sport cumulatively on Sky Sports. Just look at how many subs Sky Sports Boxing Youtube channel has. So why is that Sky are so greedy ? That’s why bums like Dillian Whyte are now PPV Fighters. Bellew is another one who the Sky/Hearn conmen mugged us off with
Are Sky greedy? Sure, so is Eddie Hearn, so are the boxers, so is everyone. They all want to get paid / pay as little as possible as its business. As such, it's also a business subject to commercial pressures. Most of it probably only tangentially related to boxing: Hard pressed customers moving from subscription tv to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Freeview. Streaming becoming more mainstream with 'dodgy boxes' pubs showing overseas broadcasts of domestic football. Competition from other broadcasters pushes up rights fees. Shelling out a fortune to retain Premier League, Formula 1 etc. What's more likely happened is that boxing was on its arse here and the US. Then it picked up here with the post Olympic boom, Haye, Froch Groves, AJ etc and Sky were able to air good shows at a reasonable rate. Now US competition has upped the price and something, either quantity or quality has to give.
