Should Eddie Hearn Be Given Absolute Control Over Professional Boxing In The UK.

If you look at where Frank was 3 years ago, and where Matchroom were in terms of Boxing they were completley different. Frank had the Sly deal, was doing PPV's, loads of Sky dates.

He could have re-signed or kep Burns, Groves, Rees, Brook, Bellew & Lee Selby....he says he chose not to. He could have signed Barker, McCloskey, Frampton, Froch when they were free agents.

 

Great post and while I agree that competition is normally healthy in any aspect of business I would like to see what Eddie can do if he becomes truly dominant.

Monopolising (is that a word?) the UK scene will only be a bad thing if the people in charge **** it up. As for the international scene surely it would benefit UK fighters if all the promoters world wide know that when you are dealing with a British fighter exactly what the score is.

I may be massively wrong but I reckon this is what boxing needs, the fights just aren't getting made and have not been since forever - worst case scenario we end up exactly where we are now........ loads of promoters with loads of channels and loads of **** cards.

 

Pisses me off when people call The UFC a sport. Worth realising theres a 20 other MMA promotions worldwide that make a healthy profit.

 

Yeah, but boxing in the UK is so healthy that there is competition between UK fighters too. Real competition for big money, not just pretend competition for peanuts. A monopoly would not be in the interest of many top British fighters.

Also, Burns for example decided to move to another UK promoter because he thought he'd be better off. If FW were the only promoter in the UK (like it seemed for a while), would things be better for people like Burns? The only reason people praise Hearns is because he stopped FW's de facto monopoly on the big-time scene.

But once Hearns becomes as dominant at FW used to be, he'll do exactly what FW did... **** cards, etc - i.e. what every monopolist always does once he reaches his position - he will start milking it big-time!

I still think that the way things are at present, competition is still the best way.

 

F1 has Ecclestone as the head, but how many teams are there that a driver can move to? Plenty. Ecclestone does not control Ferrari, Mclaren, the commercial aspect of generating advertising revenue, yes, but not directly controlling the teams who a driver works for.

Tennis and Snooker, a player is essentially an independent contractor. He has no team, apart from his management who he can replace at any time without an adverse affect on his ability to participate in major tournaments.

If Hearn wants to base a model on F1, that is fine. But he should not be given control of television rights and be allowed to participate as a promoter in that sport, as it's puts him at a massive advantage compared to other promoters and is a huge conflict of interest.

 

The examples Richard gave are not monopolies.

 

You may be right, however if the UK scene is so healthy why are promoters struggling to make money and why are fighters affiliated to the (former) no1 promoter not being paid??

I'm of the opinion the game in this country could do with a kick up the arris.

 

Good points! :good

The trouble with a monopoly in boxing is that boxing is first and foremost not a sport, but show business, so how do you divide pay?

If you had to have one promoter and two British fighters competing, how would you divide the pay between them, if they're team-mates, in effect? In tennis, it's easy, the better you are, the more money you make, but in boxing, your star power is more important than how good you are.

 

NO, thats when trouble really starts and it's the boxer's who lose out!!!

there are far too many good fighters who can't get anywhere because "ownership" of other fighters will not let them in. Even some good fighters that end up in "the Right camps" often times don't get the fights needed and just fall away.

thats why Champion's careers should always be thoroughly looked at, because many of our champions are not the best at their weight and some are even quite low in comparison to a good few fighters they never fought!

 

Forgetting the conflict of interest issue, just who is Eddie Hearn to be given such an important position.

How long has he been involved in the sport? How did he get started? Is he self-made, like his father and Ecclestone?

He has had everything his own way so far. Fr@nk has been very complacent, this is why he is in this situation right now. Any fool could of done what Eddie has with his resources and the circumstance he found himself in.

Eddie would be reaching for the cyanide right about now if the shoe was on the other foot and he were in Fr@nks position.

 

I don't agree with you on this. I think Matchroom have a different ethos on promoting sport to Frank. They understand the importance of a returning customer, they look at things with a long term view. Thats why they have always been succesful. Also the climate has changed, fans are more knowledgable. Even a casual fan can look an opponent up on youtube.

Saturday Nights show was bad based on why we have come to expect and been promised from Matchroom. But if you compare to every other promoter in the past 10 years its way above average!

Competition is the best way but that doesn't mean giving opportunity to undeserving promoters, which is what would have happened if Sky renewed Hatton & Maloneys contracts, and what will happen if Frank gets a deal with BT.

 

I can't disagree with anything you have said, there are so many pitfalls etc in boxing and like you say can't really be compared to other sports as it is more showbiz.

I just wanna see what could happen if sky/matchroom had a go.

If you like golf you get sky job done... if you like yank/hbo tv shows you get sky job done...if you like f1 you get sky job done... if you like tennis you get sky job done... football, rugby etc etc.

Boxing fans are ****ed as it is so what's to lose (for the fans anyway) by sky and Eddie tying up the UK scene, im sure in time the other promoters will form an orderly queue and find they're niche in some way.

 

It comes down essentially to two trains of thoughts for promoters.

They either choose to protect their fighters and build them up cherry picking their match ups hoping to guide them to an alphabet world title somewhere down the line, thinking that they'll make plenty of money along the way and that having a British alphabet world title holder will grow the sport in the UK.

Then there's the other school of thought which basically none of them follow although Hearn is starting to a little bit, where you just make the best fights you can. Forget the unbeaten records and padded boxrec stats, just put on the fights that the fans want to see at domestic level and world level. Good, entertaining, competitive fights on a consistent basis WILL make the sport bigger and nothing else, no one cares about belts.
There are so many fights that could have been made that haven't been in the UK alone in the last few years, we've missed out on so much. Take the politics out of the equation and just make the fights happen.

 

Frank was just taking the **** out of Hearn because 3 of his fighters lost in southern area title fights on saturday.