Streams will be watched regardless. A post on a message board won't change anyones mind. If I had no access to sky and a stream was available you would expect me not to watch? I'm not made of money pal. I'll be watching streams regularly (and have been) and I think you'd be surprised to hear of some of the high profile people who regularly watch streams.
Fine.. pal. But I am afraid you therefore surrender your right to comment on the quality of boxing in Britain.
Why does he ?
Explain, why not subscribing to Sky Sports, makes this person's opinion worthless or takes his away his right to free speech, on a subject he cares about ?
The quality of boxing in this country is down to individual people taking up the sport, who have raw talent, good amateur programs, top trainers and excellent gyms..
fluxstuff wrote:Because the price for watching domestic boxing is too high for the amount of boxing content they actually show.
Setanta offered a good deal for what they showed. £10 a month and they had big international fights, some domestic stuff and some good euro stuff - as soon as I had it, do you honestly think I looked at a stream again? Better quality, frequent replays, no stuttering and no changing stream when someone's girlfriend wants to watch E! Tonight
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, no-one is forcing you to pay.....
And you get a lot more than just boxing by the way.
But if you do opt out, you are a hypocrite to then watch it illegally and are actively preventing the sport from improving.
I cannot put it more obviously than this...........
All you lot might not think that a meal in a West End restaurant is worth £50 a head.
Therefore you choose not to pay.
You don't then go into that restaurant, eat a meal, and run off without paying the bill.
WRONG !!
In your "meal" situation, there are plenty of other restaurants to choose from, who serve good food at value for money prices. With boxing, Sky have the monopoly, and therefore there is nowhere else to go.
Sky has a price and say "take it or leave it", akin to the restaurant being the only one in town and forcing those who want a meal to pay their inflated prices. When itv3 and itv4 pull out at the end of the year and with Setanta already gone, Sky will be the only channel showing boxing........
In terms of your theory, i can get similar food at less-inflated prices anywhere, with boxing you can't, hence your "restaurant" analagy is total crap and does'nt stand up to reckoning in this instance
To answer the title of the thread - we have no choice - we have to back Sky's boxing coverage.
But I have stated on the Hayemaker thread - the jungle drums are beating and hopefully there is a miracle going to happen and Sky will not have a total monopoly in boxing too much longer!!!
Life is not as cut and dry as some on here like to make out. I pay for sky but i also watch some fights on stream if they are not shown on uk tv. This does not make me a lower form of life. It just means i will do what i can to watch the sport I love.
I find Sky's promo of their services to boxing slightly odd. I mean, over the years they have shown some of the biggest and best fighters for the last 15 years... its more than that also.
So why the focus on British boxers alone. Even Tyson is shown fighting Julius Francis... actually found it a little alarming (for future US shows).
I was a longtime subscriber who got tired of an ever decreasing standard, lowered output and a blatant disdain towards the one thing I was paying good money for!
Sorry, but I'm not going to 'not moan about the standard of boxing', simply because there happened to be one fight which represented a speck of H2O in the desert being served up to me. I'm perfectly happy to pay for box office events in order to support the sport, but I will not pay a monthly fee for slim pickings.
Sky simply doesn't show enough of the sport to justify an argument not to watch streams, you cannot be party to the best of the sport without resorting to them. The money I used to pay Sky now goes to a stable stream provider and I have no moral qualms about it whatsoever. Show me a channel which gives a damn about the sport (like Setanta) and I'll pay through the teeth... piss on me and tell me it's raining (your Sky argument), and I'll proceed to the nearest stream.
x2
The sky output doesnt represent anything like value.
I have subscribed for years but Setanta showed us all what boxing coverage COULD be like if the pay sports channel gave an eff about the sport.
Sky dont, and until they significantly increase their international coverage and show more frequent good quality domestic matches I will continue to vote with my feet. I will not blindly support Murdoch's empire just because they are the only channel showing some boxing at the moment.
Oh my god... I am pleased you lot are not running the country.
The restaurant analogy holds up perfectly. There are many alternatives for you to spend your money on other than Sky Sports - it doesn't have to be boxing. You might choose to spend the £19.50 down the pub each month or another form of entertainment. This is akin to choosing another restaurant. Restaurants do offer different products - even if they all sell food. The product depends on ambience, location and service as well.
Perhaps this example will make it clear cut for you:
- I invent a widget that allows you to hover
- There are no rival products
- I charge £100 for the product
- You think its only worth £50 for the fun it would give you, so do not purchase it
Do you now go out and steal the widget from a shop? After all, you have adjudged it would have been worth £50.
And, by the way, the only reason Sky have a monopoly on boxing is because every other broadcaster has withdrawn their support. That is not Skys fault.
The point about not being able to have a say about the state of British Boxing if you use illegal streams is even clearer:
- If you use a stream, you are making no contribution towards the cost of the event.
- You are therefore making the event less rewarding for the promoter and broadcaster
- The broadcaster/promoter will be less inclined to stage future events
- You are therefore damaging the sport
Why should somebody, damaging the sport, have a right to moan about it?
What would happen if everybody watched illegal streams. There would be no events at all for you mob to freeload off.
And can I just say again, if you don't think the content is good enough, just don't buy it. It really is that basic. No one has a gun to your head.
Maelstrom wrote:Oh my god... I am pleased you lot are not running the country.
The restaurant analogy holds up perfectly. There are many alternatives for you to spend your money on other than Sky Sports - it doesn't have to be boxing. You might choose to spend the £19.50 down the pub each month or another form of entertainment. This is akin to choosing another restaurant. Restaurants do offer different products - even if they all sell food. The product depends on ambience, location and service as well.
Perhaps this example will make it clear cut for you:
- I invent a widget that allows you to hover
- There are no rival products
- I charge £100 for the product
- You think its only worth £50 for the fun it would give you, so do not purchase it
Do you now go out and steal the widget from a shop? After all, you have adjudged it would have been worth £50.
And, by the way, the only reason Sky have a monopoly on boxing is because every other broadcaster has withdrawn their support. That is not Skys fault.
The point about not being able to have a say about the state of British Boxing if you use illegal streams is even clearer:
- If you use a stream, you are making no contribution towards the cost of the event.
- You are therefore making the event less rewarding for the promoter and broadcaster
- The broadcaster/promoter will be less inclined to stage future events
- You are therefore damaging the sport
Why should somebody, damaging the sport, have a right to moan about it?
What would happen if everybody watched illegal streams. There would be no events at all for you mob to freeload off.
And can I just say again, if you don't think the content is good enough, just don't buy it. It really is that basic. No one has a gun to your head.
"restaurants do offer different products......"
Such as ? Washing machines ? televisions ? dvd recorders perhaps.......
I think you are losing the argument !!
Just re-read the thread and perhaps you will realise that NO-0NE, yes, NO-ONE, agrees with you 8)
I think there are two issues here, the first is the concept of property theft, and the second is the concept of the effect of that theft on boxing and within this the question of which way cause and effect is works in this case: the theft damaging the quality of boxing by starving it of money, or the quality of boxing reducing the numbers willing to pay.
On the former, I have to say that morally, as well as legally, watching a stream or downloading a fight is theft.
If you take my computer without paying for it, that's theft, but just because something isn't a physical object, doesn't mean it isn't theft.
The best example is patenting and trademarking. If I come up with an ingenious design for a new water pump, and you take that design and build it yourself, that's theft, despite the fact you haven't stolen a 'thing'. Equally, creative or performance work is the fruit of someone's labour and reproducing that without someone's concent is theft, even if you're giving it away for free. Cormac McCarthy wrote The Road, so it is therefore his property, and the money he makes from the sale of the book is his salary. Because he owns it, he is free to do with it as he pleases. If he wants to charge a million pounds for it, that's his right, and the huge expense doesn't give any other person a mandate to decide it's too expensive.
A boxing match is the property of the boxers, the promoter and/or the TV channel which broadcasted it. Irrespective of whether you think it's worth 14.99 on PPV, or whether it doesn't merit taking a Sky subscription to watch, that's still theirs, and taking it, even over the internet, and even if noone's making a profit, is theft.
So I think we need to understand that streaming is stealing.
On the latter point -- the direction of causality's arrow in the case of whether poor fights lead to fewer paying customers or fewer paying customers lead to poorer fights -- I think there are too many other factors in play to approach a definitive answer.
I will say this, however: there is nothing more infuriating with the monotonous blubbering on this forum about the quality of fights and the paucity of television boxing coverage from the very same group on individuals who rarely go to a fight and consider it an affront to have to pay for it.
For crying out loud, there was even a thread a few months back where a few posters were moaning about the number of adverts they were forced to suffer during an ITV card one evening.
A boxing even costs money to stage. An arena must be rented. A ring and seats and lighting must be set up. Attendants and stewards must be employed. A neurosurgeon and anaesthetist must be put on standby. Boxers must be paid. It all costs money. All television companies must justify this in terms of the revenue they get, not just in absolute terms but in terms of the revenue they get from boxing as compared to something else they could have put on in its place.
If you're not willing to pay a subscription, or tune in, or whatever, because you're watching a stream, that's a number down, and the calculation shifts ever so slightly in favour of the other show that could have been on.
All this you all know. I'm not telling anyone anything new. Yet people seem to be willing to ignore this because they'd rather watch for free.
I'm not going to complain about that. I have downloaded songs and movies and watched boxing streams myself, on occasions -- although I have to say never one televised in the UK while I lived there. So go right ahead. But just bear in mind what you're saying when you do watch a stream: "I could pay for this, but don't value it enough to, and don't value the future presence of boxing on TV enough to."
Maelstrom wrote:Oh my god... I am pleased you lot are not running the country.
The restaurant analogy holds up perfectly. There are many alternatives for you to spend your money on other than Sky Sports - it doesn't have to be boxing. You might choose to spend the £19.50 down the pub each month or another form of entertainment. This is akin to choosing another restaurant. Restaurants do offer different products - even if they all sell food. The product depends on ambience, location and service as well.
Perhaps this example will make it clear cut for you:
- I invent a widget that allows you to hover
- There are no rival products
- I charge £100 for the product
- You think its only worth £50 for the fun it would give you, so do not purchase it
Do you now go out and steal the widget from a shop? After all, you have adjudged it would have been worth £50.
And, by the way, the only reason Sky have a monopoly on boxing is because every other broadcaster has withdrawn their support. That is not Skys fault.
The point about not being able to have a say about the state of British Boxing if you use illegal streams is even clearer:
- If you use a stream, you are making no contribution towards the cost of the event.
- You are therefore making the event less rewarding for the promoter and broadcaster
- The broadcaster/promoter will be less inclined to stage future events
- You are therefore damaging the sport
Why should somebody, damaging the sport, have a right to moan about it?
What would happen if everybody watched illegal streams. There would be no events at all for you mob to freeload off.
And can I just say again, if you don't think the content is good enough, just don't buy it. It really is that basic. No one has a gun to your head.
"restaurants do offer different products......"
Such as ? Washing machines ? televisions ? dvd recorders perhaps.......
I think you are losing the argument !!
Just re-read the thread and perhaps you will realise that NO-0NE, yes, NO-ONE, agrees with you 8)
Clearly you just don't understand the concept of alternatives. There are alternatives to Sky Sports, just as there are alternatives to a restaurant. It doesn't have to be exactly the same product.
On the flip side, do you honestly think a restuarant charging £50 a head for a steak, is offering the SAME product as a restaurant one mile away selling a steak for £25 a head? Even if it is the same cut of meat? In your world every restaurant should be charging the same price. Ridiculous.
To make it clearer for you, however, I gave you the widget example where there are no alternatives. You have chosen to ignore this along with the majority of my post, presumably because you cannot argue against it.
Tell me, would you steal the widget?
And again, you cannot use the argument that Sky has a monopoly against them. They are the last man standing, because they are the only one who have continually forked out for boxing.
Can any of you not see that perhaps their model is the ONLY one that has worked. Unlike any other broadcaster, they have been in the sport, without fail, for 15 years. At times subsidisng the sport when it has no doubt lost them money.
Last edited by Maelstrom on 13 Sep 2009, 05:46, edited 2 times in total.
I would have a lot more respect for the streamers on here if they just put their hands up and said:
'You know what, yes I am stealing it, but I do it because I can get away with it easily'
I am sure if in your example of the water pump, or mine of the widget, if they could steal them with no chance of getting caught, they would do.
I would also like to say that although Sky is the example here, my argument for streams is with regard to any broadcaster. The worst example being the Froch-Taylor stream when it was actually an online PPV!
The point that it damages the sport as being hard to assess can only be answered like this: what would happen if everybody did it?
And on another point regarding whether I am losing the argument or not, I was always up against it given that the majority on here are streamers - and I adressed them specifically. Bit like a Rangers fan going on to a Celtic forum.
The only time I ever use streams are when I have no other choice like when the fight isn't shown on British TV or when Sky goes bust like it did on the same day as Hatton v Pacquiao.
Not really keen on streams though, hunched over my laptop at 3am trying to watch a distorted feed isn't my idea of fun.
I don't buy the channels anymore. Sky took the piss and I think there's probably no going back, with me. So in my way I paid out a considerable amount of money each month, just to see boxing, was let down badly and that is it. TV just show any fights because it's from whatever promoter has a contract, rather than showing the fights that matter, in many cases. Damage done. Too hard to move a British prospect/contender if he doesn't have an amateur medal of some sort, too expensive to make any fight that really matters on the world scene and we are insulted with "Kids' Club" PPVs: we watch it, we smile, and we say "ooh, didn't 'e learn well" and "hmmm, this one will go far."
I won't watch fights online, don't like live streams
