To all the lovers and the haters of ppv boxing (this one's for you)

the sad truth is haye vs harrison will of got at least 5x the number of buys that the Mag 7 got. people buy the PPV's for the main event. None of the mainstream media were complaining about only seeing 4 rounds of Hall vs Davies.

in this months BM Smith and Nelson both defended the value for money fans got. Admited they were looking to please the casual.

what they don't seem to understand is that the best thing to sell boxing....is boxing. For the Mag 7 they should of has the first 2 fights for free to entice viewers in. also more exposure for DeGale and young fighters. Mag 7 and Dec 11th are great but should guys like DeGale, Gavin, Cleverly, Brook be building there careers on PPV's watched by 100,000 people?

Also not that impressed with Dec 11th. Only 2 of the fights are 50-50s

 

im not either, pretty **** poor for his BIG 30th anniversary show

 

Good article and I agree with a large majority of what you say. I personally feel that December 11th is value for money, but agree with others that the likes of Degale and Gavin are being given to much PPV time and that is hurting them in the long run as everyone has forgotten about them.

 

Surely Smith must have tried to get the Marquez Katsidis card if he is such a big boxing fan?

ITs not like they are short of a few bob after ripping off 700k people the other night.

 

I guess Smith will be working to a budget but picking Pac-Margo over Martinez-Williams and Saturdays card is a strange one from a purely boxing point of view.

I don't think Sky will regard the profits from Haye-Harrison as being "spare" money they can lavish on fights for us boxing fans though....;O)

 

Froch-Abraham definitely deserves to be on PPV if much lesser fights can be on it. Will someone fill me in on why SKY don't give any attention to Froch?

 

They have a big fat reason:-(

 

Smith doesn't control the budget or what US fights get bought. He will have an input but not the final say. It call comes down to cash.

Smith has said he would of like Froch vs Abraham and Marquez vs Katsidis on sky but the sports department is putting all its focus into the cricket right now. Plus the budget must be maxed out after Haye and Pacquiao.

If Froch and Marquez had been in October we would of had a better chance of seeing them.

Also you can't blame Sky for not putting Froch on. Hennesey wanted silly money for the Taylor fight, and he wanted Dirrell and Kessler on sky box office. Sky can only do a certain number of Box Office shows a year. Hennesey has said Carl makes more cash from Primetime than what sky would offer for a world title fight on regular Sky.

At the end of the day its not skys fault there the only game in town. If there was another tv network that bought boxing these fights may get shown. sky are the only game in town you can't expect them to give the sport more attention than its viewing figures provide.

plus if everyone that comes on here subscribed to premier sports instead of going on ilegal internet streams or downloading the next day, they would have a bigger budget and we would see more fights. we only have ourselves to blame if a new station fails to work.

Still I do not understand the logic behind Cleverly and DeGale on PPV's every year. These are 2 of the prospects that could legitimately become PPV fighters in the future but if nobody is watching them fight they get no profile. theres allot of factors that have made DeGale less of a name than Khan but a major one if none of the public have seen his fights.

 

Come on. Pac is one of the greatest boxers of all time. Everytime he fights it's worth watching and Margo was just about the toughest opponent he has ever faced (he has wins over Clottey and Cotto for starters).

 

On another note, I'm not sure Adam Smith's appointment is anything to get excited about. He always strikes me as being all too happy to toe the Sky party line and pick up his paycheque. His handling of the Booth-Boente debate did not suggest he has a very incisive mind either as he let all the bs slide (it was only ever unpicked by either Booth or Boente arguing against each other). I imagine him going to Sky for more dosh for a good fight and being told something like, "Sorry Adam, we're showing cricket that weekend," and Adam Smith shrugs and goes home quite forgetting that Sky have 4 sports channels.

Still, I'd much prefer him to prove me wrong.

 

I do too but I doubt he will be saying anything other than 'yes' to Sky. :verysad