I see Hearn said they expect 10-11,000 at the Manchester Arena for Chisora v Parker fight (so prob more like 7-9000 then). This i feel would have sold out with the Sky hype machine behind it. Do people now expect Matchoom crowds to go down (outside AJ) as they are not with Sky?
Conor Benn fighting outside his home town was never going to be great with that undercard. Thar Chisora Parker has little interest even if it was on sky. I’m surprised it’s even done close to 10k tickets. Other than that, Leeds was excellent, Liverpool for Smith Fowler was. 02 was shite after Whyte dropped out (and probably before). Let’s see what the quality of shows are like in the new year and if they sell out.
Covid will also have an adverse impact this month whether through affordability for people or worry about transmission. The answer will be found for Eh Day's next 'huge event' in 2022. Crowds will go up and down with quality of fights and cards.
Matchroom Boxing will not have full focus on the uk in the future. They will primarily go for boxers who can make it globally.
definitely because of losing the sky hype. doubt theres ever been a heavyweight main event from matchroom that hasn't sold out before till now.
This is about normal for this type of fight just before xmas and Covid thrown in. it’s one of the biggest attendances for a fight in the UK this year. People seem to forget low attendances have always been a thing for b level fights. this will have similar numbers to the Taylor vs Prograis card which was a Sky PPV with Chisora on it. Or are we just brushing that one under the carpet?
This is a fair assessment . the cards with lower level fights are selling decent but low numbers the cards with bigger names even if they are not in their hometown are still selling reasonable These attendances. Are still higher than any other events being put in.
didnt parker pull out of that one and was replaced by price? Plus chisora wasn’t headline. Pretty sure if this fight was on sky it would sell much more. Not only is it chisora headline it’s a rematch which gets milked and draws the causals in even more
Well it's a 20,000 seater for Parker vs Chisora. Top tier is totally closed and there is no issue getting tickets still. Not loads left but must be a good 1000 odd.
Hearn said if he was still with Sky this would have been PPV (I have no doubt). That type of event is always sold out i am sure with the heavyweights.
I do think we all overestimate the hype around boxing outside of the mega fights. Going to an arena fight night is expensive. Often the big arenas are hired, but the top tier is closed off. That was the case here, for Benn in Liverpool, and even for Loma at the weekend at Madison Square Garden. There's no question that Sky have a good track record on this, at least for their Box Office cards. The thing is though, according to BARB, Chisora-Parker 1 did 45,000 buys. That was without a live crowd. BARB isn't 100% accurate, only Sky know the real figures. But BARB figures say Povetkin-Whyte 2 did 197,000 buys - over 4x more. That tells me that Chisora-Parker isn't a big seller. The lower attendance this weekend is, imho, more down to that than any broadcast issues.
Yeah it's not a great fight. Chisora is fairly fun to watch, but he's not a massive draw at all. Parker is just known to casuals as someone AJ beat a few years ago.
