Matchroom Boxing sign largest TV rights deal in the history of boxing

Yeah, but they can make huge profits off premier league football as football is the most popular sport worldwide. Boxing is niche like MMA is. I think 740 million isn't a bad deal and it could be a great deal if new stars come out of it like a new ''Mayweather'' type. I think it's just a risk is all.

 

And the 7.8m doesn't include sponsors, commercials or gate money

Forget UFC, this could be like WWF lol

 

I’ve just pointed out that this money will not be distributed equally across the events either. Hearn said 4 big events per year. If he puts 2 million each into the other 12 events per year, it will leave the other 4 events with over 25 million each, which is how I see it going. That’s what will likely get your Deontay Wilder’s. Quadrupling their purses.

 

They may well lose a bit of money to begin with, but it is an 8 year deal. If it takes off, it could be huge. They could easily get 3 or 4 million boxing fans eventually if the price is right.

 

I hope you’re right. We don’t need any more boxers deciding to focus more on business than boxing, after getting a taste of bigger money.

 

Sounds too good to be true...................

 

Be interesting to see what signings he makes.

 

There is a definite chance that this could all blow up in their faces. DAZN are taking a big financial risk here in the hopes of using boxing to break into the US streaming market. Boxing in the US if anything is in decline due to the death of boxing at the grass roots due to lack of funding. Yes you'll get huge events like Mayweather/Pac but they are anomalies in a declining market.

But then again the Hearn's have made a career recently in reviving dying sports in Boxing, darts and snooker.

Not sure how DAZN has done in the markets they have been working in, they seem to have gotten some rights to major sports in these countries and if they have $1 billion to throw about I assume they have been reasonably successful in breaking into these markets, but there's no guarantee they'll have the same success in the US.

Which fighters Hearn signs up will be crucial. It being free for the first month will likely help garner some interest and get some fans to take a chance of signing up just to get a free month of boxing. But keeping those subscribers after that first free month will be hard if they don't have the fighters or match ups to keep the money rolling in.

 

My take is that they’re going after all the major sports. A 1 billion deal over 8 years will likely be a small amount compared to what they’ll invest into the bigger US prime sports.

I’d imagine that the agreements for your NFL’s etc are already running with other networks, but these guys will be bidding next time around. They’ll want the best of all sports, depending on how deep their pockets are. It just so happened that they could tap into prime boxing immediately.

It’ll be interesting to see what other sports they already have the rights to in the US.

 

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How easy is it to get American sports rights? I thought NFL, NBA, NHL all have there own streaming services.

 

It will be expensive. Looking at what they're doing in other territories however: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAZN they may target some other sports.

 

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However casual Eddie appears to be in his regular media chats, there's usually a reason behind his 'off the cuff' comments. Bellew was clearly primed to bring up Ward and Fury as potential opponents. Presumably both of them calculated to drive interest but still be within budget.

Be interesting to see how he plans to use his existing roster and what pairings he could make with potential new talent. He has to give fighters a plausible path to advancement whilst keeping the contests competitive. That gets more difficult the bigger the roster.

Also fascinating to see if or how he can use Anthony Joshua. That's Eddie's best card, but his PPV earnings are too great for one of these events. Is there a way to leverage AJ's star appeal for this new service without blowing too great a share of the budget?

 

You're probably right, this is just their first move into US sports, they'll want to try and grab the rights for the other sports.

But the problem they have is if any of the other established streaming services bid. Amazon already outbid SKY in the UK for the ATP rights after 2018. So it's clear Amazon at least is branching out into sports coverage. I can't see a relatively small outfit from the UK like DAZN outbidding Amazon or Netflix.