"Sky blocking AJ by paying him more" - Eddie Hearn

All jokes aside, do you actually work for Matchroom? Not even taking the mick now. You just seem to know a lot about their business dealings.

 

Maybe Sky are taking a calculated risk by taking a loss on the fight but hoping to get Uysk fighting on their platform in future fights.
If Usyk beats Joshua and fights on Sky/Boxxer cards in future they would consider a 4 or 5mil loss money well spent.

 

Ultimately the rights holders can flog the broadcast rights to whoever they want.

Sky really are going to face an uphill battle to turn a profit on this fight.

 

Sky/Boxxer don't have the opponents though.

Queensberry: Fury, Joyce, Dubois

PBC: Wilder, Ruiz Jr., Ortiz, Helenius, Sanchez

Sky/Boxxer: Parker

I assume if Usyk came out on top his best course of action would be to go fight by fight

 

Trafford how do you know how much Sky bid?

 

His mate at the pub told him

 

Trafford makes some good points.

We all know Sky’s PPV bankrolls pretty much all of their boxing content so a loss making PPV will hit hard.

Boxxer now have a lot of contractual commitments with all the signings they have made , quite a few of whom will not bear any fruit (PPV revenue) for a long time if ever so the pressure will be on Mr Shalom to put together the PPV nights , as we saw with the desperate attempt to make the Joyce v Parker fight.

They can’t sign everyone and better fighters than they have already signed will become available so they can’t throw around the big money forever especially with the financial obligations that have been acquired recently.

 

Usyk without a British opponent would be an even bigger loss maker. If Usyk fights Fury it likely goes on BT. If he fights Wilder for instance that’s a US fight.

Sky would be paying Usyk a minimum of £7-10m a fight for routine defences. He then needs a minimum of 750k buys for them to break even. Again it wouldn’t happen and would be a long shot even against Whyte. Given Fury vs Whyte just did circa 800k buys.


Sky can still go joint broadcast on a Usyk vs Fury fight without the need to have the Usyk vs AJ fight

 

@Trafford - avoiding the question. Isn’t a bad thing if you do, just intrigued

 

It’s out there. Talk to the right people you get pretty much the same answer. They are bidding massive money for fights and fighters currently.
Okolie for instance was offered 3.5x times his last purse. How does that make any kind of sense given he can’t sell a ticket and turns off viewers. Now giving Benn for instance 4x money makes much more sense. Not that it would happen.

I can see what Boxxer are doing trying to buy into certain divisions like cruiser that now have Okolie, CBS, Riakporhe, chamberlain. Some solid fights can be made there. But they should be spending the money getting them easy world title fights like the Makabu fights then having the unifications on Sky. Not throwing £5m down the drain on a pointless AJ fight.

boxxer are also fairly smart in that they know Matchroom at this point are built for profit given they plan to float in the next 5 years so do not intend to make loss producing events or accounting years. Boxxer plan to essentially break even over the 4 year period of their deal. By which time as they have then overspent year on year they should have a business and roster worth something o get the Sky deal renewed.

the bigger worry however is how big the losses will be and whether they hold on to the talent. Matchroom plan to spend big only on the big fights and fighters. For instance Whitaker is earning crazy money for essentially prospect fights for the duration of his boxxer contract. At the end of his deal he will be 10-0 and ready to move in to big fights. If Matchroom still have Buatsi, Bivol, Smith, Ramirez on platform they will pay massive money to Whitaker and have fights for him available which will put boxxer in a ticket position.

 

Haha. I’ve only just seen this. No I don’t. Not do I work for DAZN for that matter.

 

the fight is also at Saudi Arabia & rich Saudi overpay outbid also so no other place can stage event. i did not see Eddie complain of this.

 

Yes essentially. DAZN coming in to the US and the WBSS inflated the purses back in the UK. Which Sky had stalled on increasing for a few years prior to that.

Matchroom had to fight massively for Sky to put the money up for Smith vs Ryder for instance which was a fight that Sky would have zero problem doing now. it was the same when BT entered the market and took Warrington, Frampton and fury. They offered money that Sky wouldn’t back to put on regular non PPV. Now the landscape has changed as they don’t have a stable and there are minimal marquee boxing names due to this being a cross over period. Had this happened 2/3 years ago they could have got BJS and Frampton etc and built a stable. Right now is tough

 

they would not do if it was 'no upside'
this is global event & prestige boxing fight in Saudi. this keeps SKY brand high in boxing & international importance

Usyk is expected a win & SKY believe they can make deal with Fury & BT on unification jointbroadcast deal PPV (same as plan was last year with AJ Fury ).
this is investment

& not massive investment for them

 

To be fair Hearn can’t moan about Sky overpaying when the fight is in Saudi, a country who’ve massively overpaid to have it there. He had no issues when taking his cut from the site fee there.