Publicity in Britian

[danconnollyeire]

Media is proper p***ing me off with treatment of our boxers. We have Sky pulling the plug on everyone, Froch finally getting in the papers and it seems like you have to be a complete c**t to get noticed (ie Haye/Chisora).

Boxing needs a big reboot. We have stars like Burns, Clev, Froch, Mitchell, Murray, Macklin who deserve big Pay-per-view payouts but Haye/Chisora are the only people who can do this (people like be subscribing to Box-nation to see the fight so it is basically pay-per-view).

What do you think needs to be done? The joke Gilfrod's doing his best to making us look useless (although it never works!!!)

[Lightsoot]

Media is proper p***ing me off with treatment of our boxers. We have Sky pulling the plug on everyone, Froch finally getting in the papers and it seems like you have to be a complete c**t to get noticed (ie Haye/Chisora).

Boxing needs a big reboot. We have stars like Burns, Clev, Froch, Mitchell, Murray, Macklin who deserve big Pay-per-view payouts but Haye/Chisora are the only people who can do this (people like be subscribing to Box-nation to see the fight so it is basically pay-per-view).

What do you think needs to be done? The joke Gilfrod's doing his best to making us look useless (although it never works!!!)

I take your point re: Haye-Chisora but could never advocate Mitchell, Burns, Cleverly etc being pay-per-view.

[iamasadlittleboy]

I tried to make a point in the other topic but I think this would be a better place for it. Our top fighters are hiding from the media. We needs guys like Burns, Cleverly etc to get their faces on mainstream TV, stick them on talk shows and the likes, get their faces out there. If they are seen by the wider public they have a better chance to become stars.

Also promoters need to start to promote, especially the bigger ones.

[danconnollyeire]

I tried to make a point in the other topic but I think this would be a better place for it. Our top fighters are hiding from the media. We needs guys like Burns, Cleverly etc to get their faces on mainstream TV, stick them on talk shows and the likes, get their faces out there. If they are seen by the wider public they have a better chance to become stars.

Also promoters need to start to promote, especially the bigger ones.

x2... when they win a title, straight on Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr etc like Haye did. Noone point for someone like Clev now would be better saying 'new champion of the world' and everyone to go 'oh really!'

[squared circle]

Someone like Burns is clearly a quality fighter but 99% of those on the street probably have never heard of him and I'd say far less than 50% of the casual sports fan would have either. I have lots of mates who are fans of the game, but also a large number who are just general sports fans - until last 12 months or so the latter group wouldn't have even know who Carl Froch was, and he's now probably in the all-time British P4P list.

Going back over last 20 years or so you have "celebrity" boxers (that is not meant as derogatory in any sense, purely referring to their public profile) like Eubank or Bruno who were built up on big terrestrial TV programming and were entertaining interviewees to boot. You then have boxers who held certain cross-over appeal such as Hatton (due to his "one of the lads" persona) or even Lewis (to be fair largely through his in-ring achievements and the cache of being "heavyweight champion of the world). Someone like Joe Calzaghe, despite a stellar career, only started to generate any sort of presence at the tail end of his career, and that was more of the back of BBC sports personality, a couple of big fights on ITV (Lacy and I think Kessler?), and then the dancing once he'd retired.

Its hard to see who amongst the current crop have matched this. The obvious example is Haye who has sufficient charisma, the right look, and the belts to get access to mainstream TV starting from the build up to the Valuev fght (although the David v Goliath angle fuelled much of that). He was (is) popping up everywhere on chat shows, game shows, sports shows etc. At least on a par comes Amir Khan primarily due to the BBC coverage of the Olympics and then ITV covering his initial career. There was also a lot of weight attached to a British Muslim gaining success at a time when race relations were not always at their most harmonious for a host of reasons. Froch is now clearly trying to go down the same road (or more likely Hearn is rightly pushing him down that road to maximise earnings in the last few fights of his career). Other than that, I think you are looking at Audley Harrison.....


Most of the current crop of fighters fall between 2 stools They are either fighters achieving a level of success in the ring, but perceived as "lacking" charisma or too nice/humble when profiled or interviewed.....for example Burns, Mitchell, Murray, Barker, Quigg etc. Or they are "characters" who unfortunately don't seem to (yet) have the in-ring achievements to match....e.g. Theophane, Kid Galahad, Chisora (to an extent)


There is a third group I suppose - achieving "success" and coming across well too - e.g. Fury and to a lesser extent Macklin, Bellew, possibly Price - but in all fairness apart from Fury who has terrestrial exposure (and also a "memorable" name!), unless the rest get a world title they will probably never be household names like the ones I listed earlier.

Be interested to read others views - I honestly don't know how much of this is due to the marginalisation of TV coverage, the rise of the internet age that saturates and dilutes public profiles, the fault of promoters or just a lack of enough engaging, successful characters amongst the fighters themselves.

[danconnollyeire]

Someone like Burns is clearly a quality fighter but 99% of those on the street probably have never heard of him and I'd say far less than 50% of the casual sports fan would have either. I have lots of mates who are fans of the game, but also a large number who are just general sports fans - until last 12 months or so the latter group wouldn't have even know who Carl Froch was, and he's now probably in the all-time British P4P list.

Going back over last 20 years or so you have "celebrity" boxers (that is not meant as derogatory in any sense, purely referring to their public profile) like Eubank or Bruno who were built up on big terrestrial TV programming and were entertaining interviewees to boot. You then have boxers who held certain cross-over appeal such as Hatton (due to his "one of the lads" persona) or even Lewis (to be fair largely through his in-ring achievements and the cache of being "heavyweight champion of the world). Someone like Joe Calzaghe, despite a stellar career, only started to generate any sort of presence at the tail end of his career, and that was more of the back of BBC sports personality, a couple of big fights on ITV (Lacy and I think Kessler?), and then the dancing once he'd retired.

Its hard to see who amongst the current crop have matched this. The obvious example is Haye who has sufficient charisma, the right look, and the belts to get access to mainstream TV starting from the build up to the Valuev fght (although the David v Goliath angle fuelled much of that). He was (is) popping up everywhere on chat shows, game shows, sports shows etc. At least on a par comes Amir Khan primarily due to the BBC coverage of the Olympics and then ITV covering his initial career. There was also a lot of weight attached to a British Muslim gaining success at a time when race relations were not always at their most harmonious for a host of reasons. Froch is now clearly trying to go down the same road (or more likely Hearn is rightly pushing him down that road to maximise earnings in the last few fights of his career). Other than that, I think you are looking at Audley Harrison.....


Most of the current crop of fighters fall between 2 stools They are either fighters achieving a level of success in the ring, but perceived as "lacking" charisma or too nice/humble when profiled or interviewed.....for example Burns, Mitchell, Murray, Barker, Quigg etc. Or they are "characters" who unfortunately don't seem to (yet) have the in-ring achievements to match....e.g. Theophane, Kid Galahad, Chisora (to an extent)


There is a third group I suppose - achieving "success" and coming across well too - e.g. Fury and to a lesser extent Macklin, Bellew, possibly Price - but in all fairness apart from Fury who has terrestrial exposure (and also a "memorable" name!), unless the rest get a world title they will probably never be household names like the ones I listed earlier.

Be interested to read others views - I honestly don't know how much of this is due to the marginalisation of TV coverage, the rise of the internet age that saturates and dilutes public profiles, the fault of promoters or just a lack of enough engaging, successful characters amongst the fighters themselves.

Well sumed up mate spot on

Amir Khan, Haye, Chisora and Froch to a less-extend are only people non-boxing enthusiasts I know seem to know. Mayweather, Pacman are Klits are more popular (which is wrong really because they are foregn)

[Counter-puncher]

We have stars like Burns, Clev, Froch, Mitchell, Murray, Macklin who deserve big Pay-per-view payouts[/b]

you're suggesting that ALL of the above should be on pay-per-view? Cleverley? for what? poroving himself the 3rd best lightheavy in europe....? Murray/Macklin proven to lose bravely at world levl deserve PPV payouts? madness IMO. one name and one name only you mention is ppv-worthy, IMO.

[orbtastic]

I think even SKY would struggle to sell Froch and PPV in the same sentence.

[danconnollyeire]

We have stars like Burns, Clev, Froch, Mitchell, Murray, Macklin who deserve big Pay-per-view payouts[/b]

you're suggesting that ALL of the above should be on pay-per-view? Cleverley? for what? poroving himself the 3rd best lightheavy in europe....? Murray/Macklin proven to lose bravely at world levl deserve PPV payouts? madness IMO. one name and one name only you mention is ppv-worthy, IMO.

No you clearly don't read. I'm saying they deserve the popularity to be on pay-per-view like boxers did in the 90's. It would be stupid putting them on now as they would not sell. Sky and the press don't help... if you read it you would see I'm saying they need to be elevated in the press and public after winning titles etc. I'm not ssaying they should be on pay-per-view, I'm saying they will prob never be popular enough to be, understand?

[danconnollyeire]

I think even SKY would struggle to sell Froch and PPV in the same sentence.

I agree... it would be nice to even be in a position were he could be on it. Of course personally I wouldn't want him on there as it would cost me 15 quid but it would be nice for our sport to have that profile.

Even Khan couldn't sell-out PPP

[Counter-puncher]

We have stars like Burns, Clev, Froch, Mitchell, Murray, Macklin who deserve big Pay-per-view payouts[/b]

you're suggesting that ALL of the above should be on pay-per-view? Cleverley? for what? poroving himself the 3rd best lightheavy in europe....? Murray/Macklin proven to lose bravely at world levl deserve PPV payouts? madness IMO. one name and one name only you mention is ppv-worthy, IMO.

No you clearly don't read. I'm saying they deserve the popularity to be on pay-per-view like boxers did in the 90's. It would be stupid putting them on now as they would not sell. Sky and the press don't help... if you read it you would see I'm saying they need to be elevated in the press and public after winning titles etc. I'm not ssaying they should be on pay-per-view, I'm saying they will prob never be popular enough to be, understand?

the big difference is the 90s generation were much, much better than Cleverley or Murray, and won much better fights, against better fighters. they earned their popularity and paydays. as opposed to fighting the 1990s equivalent of, umm, Tommy Karpency.

other than that I agree, it's madness the media hasn't turned Nathan Cleverley into some kind of crossover star, and that John Murray isn't in the papers every week.

[Deserter]

it's madness the media hasn't turned Nathan Cleverley into some kind of crossover star, and that John Murray isn't in the papers every week.

It's not up to the media, it's down to the promoters, managers and publicists, who are generally defined by their ineptitude when it comes to comms.

[danconnollyeire]

it's madness the media hasn't turned Nathan Cleverley into some kind of crossover star, and that John Murray isn't in the papers every week.

It's not up to the media, it's down to the promoters, managers and publicists, who are generally defined by their ineptitude when it comes to comms.

That's true... I mean when Froch became champ would've been that hard to egt him on Graham Norton, This Morning all that nonsense?

[Counter-puncher]

it's madness the media hasn't turned Nathan Cleverley into some kind of crossover star, and that John Murray isn't in the papers every week.

It's not up to the media, it's down to the promoters, managers and publicists, who are generally defined by their ineptitude when it comes to comms.

[sarcasm]

[squared circle]

Froch was on Alistair Macgowan's saturday tea-time thing....

not quite Graham Norton viewing figures but small steps etc!

[orbtastic]

I'd rather see Froch in Graham Norton than be subjected to him giving out banal soundbytes like Haye did.

[Counter-puncher]

you want to see Froch in Norton?

[orbtastic]

Yeah, that was intentional. He'd tear him a new one, he's always got the upper hand on TV, let him suffer a bit.

I would rather watch someone being bummed than have someone of Froch's calibre subject himself to doing what Haye did on national TV. It was painful to watch.

[Counter-puncher]

its funny with Haye, he seems to think he's this one-man self-promoting genius, when actually he's more a genius of consistently making a cock of himself in public.

[orbtastic]

It was like Will Smith doing the press for his film, making the same inane joke about his jug ears on every chat show. Painful.

[Jeff Thomas]

Every ppv star was brought through on terrestrial. They took the piss for very longest possible time they could and there will never ever be another ppv star from the uk in our lifetimes.

Because that's what happens when you sit greedy people round a table. They all take the piss out of each other till there is nothing left. And now there is nothing left. Internationally there is maybe 1 or 2 fights maximum that have any chance of capturing the publics interest.

Fury vs a kiltschko being one of them.

[Deserter]

it's madness the media hasn't turned Nathan Cleverley into some kind of crossover star, and that John Murray isn't in the papers every week.

It's not up to the media, it's down to the promoters, managers and publicists, who are generally defined by their ineptitude when it comes to comms.

[sarcasm]

[orbtastic]

Every ppv star was brought through on terrestrial. They took the piss for very longest possible time they could and there will never ever be another ppv star from the uk in our lifetimes.

Because that's what happens when you sit greedy people round a table. They all take the piss out of each other till there is nothing left. And now there is nothing left. Internationally there is maybe 1 or 2 fights maximum that have any chance of capturing the publics interest.

Fury vs a kiltschko being one of them.

Hatton?

[mickey1975]

Someone like Burns is clearly a quality fighter but 99% of those on the street probably have never heard of him and I'd say far less than 50% of the casual sports fan would have either. I have lots of mates who are fans of the game, but also a large number who are just general sports fans - until last 12 months or so the latter group wouldn't have even know who Carl Froch was, and he's now probably in the all-time British P4P list.

Going back over last 20 years or so you have "celebrity" boxers (that is not meant as derogatory in any sense, purely referring to their public profile) like Eubank or Bruno who were built up on big terrestrial TV programming and were entertaining interviewees to boot. You then have boxers who held certain cross-over appeal such as Hatton (due to his "one of the lads" persona) or even Lewis (to be fair largely through his in-ring achievements and the cache of being "heavyweight champion of the world). Someone like Joe Calzaghe, despite a stellar career, only started to generate any sort of presence at the tail end of his career, and that was more of the back of BBC sports personality, a couple of big fights on ITV (Lacy and I think Kessler?), and then the dancing once he'd retired.

Its hard to see who amongst the current crop have matched this. The obvious example is Haye who has sufficient charisma, the right look, and the belts to get access to mainstream TV starting from the build up to the Valuev fght (although the David v Goliath angle fuelled much of that). He was (is) popping up everywhere on chat shows, game shows, sports shows etc. At least on a par comes Amir Khan primarily due to the BBC coverage of the Olympics and then ITV covering his initial career. There was also a lot of weight attached to a British Muslim gaining success at a time when race relations were not always at their most harmonious for a host of reasons. Froch is now clearly trying to go down the same road (or more likely Hearn is rightly pushing him down that road to maximise earnings in the last few fights of his career). Other than that, I think you are looking at Audley Harrison.....


Most of the current crop of fighters fall between 2 stools They are either fighters achieving a level of success in the ring, but perceived as "lacking" charisma or too nice/humble when profiled or interviewed.....for example Burns, Mitchell, Murray, Barker, Quigg etc. Or they are "characters" who unfortunately don't seem to (yet) have the in-ring achievements to match....e.g. Theophane, Kid Galahad, Chisora (to an extent)


There is a third group I suppose - achieving "success" and coming across well too - e.g. Fury and to a lesser extent Macklin, Bellew, possibly Price - but in all fairness apart from Fury who has terrestrial exposure (and also a "memorable" name!), unless the rest get a world title they will probably never be household names like the ones I listed earlier.

Be interested to read others views - I honestly don't know how much of this is due to the marginalisation of TV coverage, the rise of the internet age that saturates and dilutes public profiles, the fault of promoters or just a lack of enough engaging, successful characters amongst the fighters themselves.

Well sumed up mate spot on

Amir Khan, Haye, Chisora and Froch to a less-extend are only people non-boxing enthusiasts I know seem to know. Mayweather, Pacman are Klits are more popular (which is wrong really because they are foregn)

I would say Fury is better known to the general public than almost all except Khan.

[m1kee50]

Theres a massive range of people who can influence it tho...

I went to a show yesterday featuring boxers from Barkingside, Romford, Upminster, Cranham, Brentwood. In theory, every boxing fan with 30 quid spare and a free evening who lived between the A406 and the A130 should have been there... two big televised fights the same evening notwithstanding... obviously that wasn't the case, and worse than that, there are, right now, people who watch boxing, attend shows, who live in that 'catchment area' and will not have heard of Joe Mullender, Tony Conquest, John Dignum (not that he fought yesterday) or to give a bigger example, Colin Lynes. They would not know who a former European title challenger is, would never have seen him fight...

I honestly think that, when you look at the numbers of people who tune in for big fights, especially in the recent ITV era, that there is the audience out there for local fighters and local shows (for local people), but I do think that that knowledge needs to be built up...

Local newspapers could have a little friendly p4p rating of local fighters, monthly, including a note of when their next fight is scheduled for... not just covering the one or two notable fighters.
Local radio could feature fighters or trainers, who themselves could get involved with local schools and youth clubs... I know some already do, and I know other fighters need to work as well as box, and have kids, but then they can't complain they haven't got a profile if they don't put themselves out there