Sky not to renew Sports Network Contract

Kit · Post by **Kit** » 20 May 2005, 15:50

http://www.britishboxing.net/?page=news&id=710

Has allegedly already signed the deal with ITV?

Do Sky sports have a new UK promoter?

Are Sky concentrating solely on overseas coberage?

Are Sky getting out of Boxing?

Old bones Ian · Post by **Old bones Ian** » 20 May 2005, 16:04

Not sure if this is good news or bad news, at least with sky covering sportnetwork shows you saw some of the undercard, i remember when boxing was on ITV before you used to get the main bout and if that went the distance or nearly the distance then no undercard fights shown or only just very short highlights.

Maybe SKY want to work with various promoters and bring in more shows that way.
I think moving the boxing to 10pm on a friday may have been one of the deciding factors in Mr Warrens decision, not getting prime time any more.

will be an interesting few weeks coming up, i think the Hatton fight is his last one with SKY.
Looks as if Skelton v Williams and Khans Debut will be on ITV

steve689 · Post by **steve689** » 20 May 2005, 16:18

I just pray that SKY are working still with other promoters, i hope they do not do away with Boxing altogether. ITV having SN fights is good for the viewer but bad for the hardcore fan, one main fight is not enough, we need undercard fights too. Stu Jones had a good idea when he suggested ITV should show the main event on the main channel and show full or extended highlights on ITV 2 or 3 for those who want them, that seems to make sense to me. Either way i hope we still get plenty of Boxing on TV.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 20 May 2005, 18:07

Surely this is just and end of the exclusive deal with Allegedly. They'll be working on a fight by fight basis no doubt. That can only be good in the long run as the promoters will have to come up with decent matches to get Sky to buy in. That has to be a lot better than the state things have been in with this exclusive deal.

liamlion · Post by **liamlion** » 20 May 2005, 18:18

nickd wrote:They'll be working on a fight by fight basis no doubt. That can only be good in the long run as the promoters will have to come up with decent matches to get Sky to buy in. That has to be a lot better than the state things have been in with this exclusive deal.

Spot on! That should be the theory.

It would appear that Sky have put the onus on all the domestic promoters to come up with the best fights that they can, offering in return a pay-day and coveted TV coverage. If the domestic promoters dont rise to the challenge this will enable Sky to continue stepping up its policy of buying the delayed rights of America's best fights.

Or alternatively it could mean Sky are effectively reducing its coverage further.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 20 May 2005, 18:20

If the fights are good they'll buy them I reckon. It was a huge mistake to give Allegedly free reign to put on whatever he wanted.

steve689 · Post by **steve689** » 21 May 2005, 08:17

Yes that is a good point, instead of having a "house" promoter putting on whatever he wants each week SKY can easily lay down the gauntlet to the other promoters, Hennessy, Hearn, Gilmour, Derek Williams etc. If the fights are good enough then you get on TV. Simple.

Chopping Right · Post by **Chopping Right** » 21 May 2005, 09:39

The situation is similar to what happened at Showtime a few years ago, they had an exclusive contract with Don King but were ending up screening fights that HBO wouldn't have looked twice at. Simple economics I suppose, if you reduce the level of competition then you end up reducing the quality. SN have only themselves to blame for the loss of their contract, but I sincerely hope Sky do not lose interest and that they will start buying fights and making contracts on a short-term basis from whoever can offer the best stuff.

One other thing I have been wondering about for a while. If a quality live card cannot be found in the UK of a weekend why can't we see a few more cards from Germany? The quality is generally better than the UK action as well, so how about that?

Boxingmad · Post by **Boxingmad** » 21 May 2005, 19:43

steve689 wrote:Yes that is a good point, instead of having a "house" promoter putting on whatever he wants each week SKY can easily lay down the gauntlet to the other promoters, Hennessy, Hearn, Gilmour, Derek Williams etc. If the fights are good enough then you get on TV. Simple.

That has to be the way forward. This way all the promoters can get Sky coverage as long as they deliver quality fights. Sky know that we are fickle fans, and that only decent match-ups will do. Thus the promoters work hard to deliver these bouts; Sky will get good viewing figures because we know that a good card is on Sky Sports one evening, and we get good fights.

I wonder how it will be with ITV? Could they possibly do the same thing as Sky do and get a 2 hour slot with a main event & several undercards?

dbf · Post by **dbf** » 21 May 2005, 23:50

Chopping Right wrote:The situation is similar to what happened at Showtime a few years ago, they had an exclusive contract with Don King but were ending up screening fights that HBO wouldn't have looked twice at. Simple economics I suppose, if you reduce the level of competition then you end up reducing the quality. SN have only themselves to blame for the loss of their contract, but I sincerely hope Sky do not lose interest and that they will start buying fights and making contracts on a short-term basis from whoever can offer the best stuff.

totally agree. I think sky have taken a leaf out of Showtimes book. It seems to have definitly increased the quality of fights shown on showtime. They are having a great year. I only hope the same will happen to sky now.

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 22 May 2005, 08:31

I wrote months back how boxing was stale because a certain promoter held all the trumps and he dictated what fights were made and as such almost all fights were just to pad the record of certain boxers.

Now Sky, BBC and ITV hold the trump cards and just like in America they can demand better fights to be made because otherwise they don`t buy the card on offer.

This is good for boxing all round, if an undercard fighter is good he will get shown don`t worry about that, but if another Audley Harrison tries to come along then the TV channels won`t get fooled again.

`Allegedly` won`t be happy because he will be competing against the others and whilst in the short term his money may dictate he gets his shows shown it won`t be long before the others get on a more level footing.

Very good news for boxing, for the fans and for the boxers, just a shame it happened a few years too late for Calzaghe to get full credit.

steve689 · Post by **steve689** » 22 May 2005, 12:55

It will be interesting to see when the heat is on whether the promoters are a little more willing to work with one another to deliver the domestic fights we all want to see. For example if the promoters were under more pressure to make the bouts then maybe we could avoid a situation similar to the one we had a few years back when the Light Middleweight division was exciting and yet we never got any of the big matches on for one reason or another.

If it's a case of working together or not getting on the television i can see a bit more co-operation and that can only be a good thing..