I totally disagree with you here Jeff. Fact is Boxing is not a mainstream sport anymore. Basicly anything but Football is. Its actually the greed of promoters and fighters that has seen boxing leave terrestral tv and become a nieche sport. Think about it, it would of cost BBC or ITV more money to show Hatton vs Mayweather than it would to have shown The rugby world cup final, or Federer vs Nadal, or other major sportig events apart from Football and F1. Is that fair when Boxing could finnish in 1 round, with a football match, a tennis match, a F1 race or most sports your guarenteed at least an hour of viewing, with Boxing your not, plus those events would likley get more viewers. Seriously this fight at the weekend is meant to be huge but, everyone i know, knows that I follow boxing, but noboday has asked me about this fight, only 1 person text me about bloody Holyfield vs Tyson 3. I only have 1 friend that knows who the heavyweight champion (Wlad) is. Perhaps it is different for alot of you and yourself Jeff as you have boxed and still do i beleive, and spend time in boxing gyms and boxing circles. I come from a middle class back ground and so do all my mates, I dont think boxing reaches guys like me. But for those who are no inside the boxing game you realise how un - maintream the sport is. I love boxing and on here and with only one of my mates can i talk about boxing without someone saying "what about UFC" or "is Eubank still fighting" Boxing is a nieche Sport so it belongs on a subscription station, therefore it will get the best fight to keep its subscribers. we would not have seen half the US fights we have seen this year if it wasn't for Setanta.
I'd love to see more boxing on BBC and ITV but if they don't show any (for whatever reason) I am glad that another broadcaster, such as Setanta, have bothered. It's a crying shame the lack of fights shown on British television.
Oh i wonder if BBC will pick the fight up on replay like they did with Hatton and Calzaghes fights???
Rob - Yep that is the point. If a fight of this much importance is cast away to some little scrap heap subscription channel then no matter how many top quality boxers we have in Britain British boxing is still on its arse. This fight had the potential to be really big and to give boxing a kickstart but instead it is only us boxing nerds who are interested. Boxing can still pull huge numbers, especially for the big fights.
At least i don't have to listen to people at work saying things like ' Haye and Macca are the best fighters in the world bar Ali - who was really good' - or - 'Macca and Calzaghe were born in the same mine weren't they'....The **** i heard about Hatton and being from some estate and that he would anihilate Mayweather....At least these people are blissfully unaware of the fight.
I was talking to my dad around the time of the Hatton vs Mayweather fight. This was the only boxing match my dad watched in 2007. He was aware of Calzaghe winning mainly due to him getting sports personality of the year. The last fight he watched before Hatton vs Mayweather was Harrison vs Williams 1. Anyway we started talking boxing and he started telling me about how his dad would wake him up at 5am to listen on the radio to Ali fights, and how he would stay up to watch Lenoard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran, and also how everyone was going crazy for Benn vs Eubank 2. These fights we as big a deal and as big a tlaking points in the street, offices and pubs as the fa cup final, the golf open, wimbledon finals between Bjorg and McEnroe. Then sky came along and bought up all the boxing rights. But Wimbledon, the fa cup, the golf still remained on terrestrial tv. this is because Football, Golf, Tennis are run by governing bodies that look out for the best intrests of the fans and the sport, and boxing is run by greedy promoters. If there was legislation but in place by the BBN that a world title fight with a british fighter had to be on terrestrial TV, boxing would still be the talk of the nation. Now we have a situation where "the biggest fight for 20 years" is going to get veiwed by only half a million people, will have 1 page per newspaper coverage, no tv news coverage. This is not Setantas fault, but Boxings fault for allowing greed to take control of the sport. Boxing allowed the average guy on the street like my Dad, that used to stay up until 5am to listen to Ali, debated for hours about Benn and Eubank, watch all the Hagler and Leonard etc fights without being able to blink, they allowed him to become a guy that watched 1 boxing match a year.
Yep your right Rob - My dad and family are the same, they would all be watching this fight if it was on terrestrial tv but because it is not htey do not pay any notice to it. Still I may have an house party tomorrow night and watch it with every one.
Yeah get on mate its quality.... Boxpicks is awesome... I was global number 2 on tuesday. think i'm about 5 now.
Unworkable. In fact counter-productive. As I said above, Mormeck v Haye was on Setanta. As I recall, they picked it up in the days before the fight. It wasn't not on terrestrial tv because Setanta had it. It was not on terrestrial tv because they weren't sufficiently interested to buy it. And that was a fight for legitimate world titles. Which brings us to the concept of a 'world title' being the qualification for a fight being denied to satellite broadcasters. Rees against Kotelnik is for a world title. As was Elcock v Abraham (don't think anyone wanted to show that though Eurosport might have). Any chance of ITV wanting to show Steve Conway v Mihaly Kotai for the IBO light middleweight title? So you get some big fights which ITV or BBC are prepared to show (but the market price goes down due to the reduced competition and so the fighters get paid less). And then you get a whole bunch of other fights in which the terrestrial channels have no interest. Those may previously have been picked up by Setanta or Sky, but now don't get shown because they're not allowed to show them. Now, there's a counter argument that if they was more boxing to start with on tv, then there would be more interest, and fights like that would be viable. But I don't believe that was ever the case. Sure there was more boxing on terrestrial tv when I was a kid, but there is more boxing on tv overall now. A lot more.
Forget ITV and BBC, they're useless. Sky need to start picking up fights. Millions of people have sky and Sky can hype ANYTHING. Sky are the masters of hype!! If they started getting more fights, there would be a lot more interest in fights.