W. Promotions in administration

[Jack B]

http://www.allegedly.com/news/press-r ... nture.html

What do we make of this??? W Promotions going into voluntary administration? Sounds like a lot of big talk to me......

[brian13]

Isn't FW's son involved in Queenbury?

[JimJim2009]

"As a result of this new partnership, and due to the substantial amounts of money being owed to W. Promotions, I will now place W. Promotions into voluntary administration."

Its not good, is it ? It seems like a lot of bold promotional hype about "best foot forward" and all that, but what exactly can they do differently ? They can't launch a TV channel because they already have, they can't pinch boxers from Hearn/Sky because their business model wouldn't fund the purses necessary for that sort of swoop, and the channel doesn't even keep to the "two live shows a week" promise with which it got launched. As far as I can see the press release was full of bluster, but had no substance EXCEPT for the news that W.Promotions is going into voluntary administration. He claims its because of money owed to that company, who would owe it a penny though ? He sells tickets to fans, that's his income - no TV money as he co-owns the channel. It doesn't make sense to me.

It would make sense to me if he was a fighter still owed a purse of say £2.4m from a promoter that did the dirty on him. But he's the promoter and he wants to start afresh with a new company that doesn't have debts.

Several months ago we went through this process when him, Maloney, Khan, McGuigan and Hatton got together. Since then there hasn't been a single promotion on BN that has been a result of that supposedly ground-breaking promotional partnership. Maloney is finished, Khan won't be fighting in the UK for a year at least, McGuigan only has Frampton, and Hatton hasn't launched a date yet and his fighters are leaving him.

So anyway to me today's press announcement has no substance. Wonder if they did it to counter Sky and Eddie Hearn's releases over the upcoming big fights they've got.

[chad]

http://www.allegedly.com/news/press-r ... nture.html

"It was announced today that Fr@nk W@rren, his sons George and Francis' company Queensberry Promotions and Bill Ives, one of Britain's leading businessmen, have signed an exclusive agreement to create a powerful, new, promotional organisation. The combination of the promotional powerhouse that is Fr@nk W@rren and the business acumen and financial investment of steel tycoon Bill Ives is designed to take boxing promotion in the UK to a new level."

"Fr@nk W@rren said, "I'm looking forward to this exciting new venture with Bill and my sons. We have in place a fantastic team with great boxers and with this significant investment we will continue to develop the best young talent into champions and household names and stage the biggest events. As a result of this new partnership, and due to the substantial amounts of money being owed to W. Promotions, I will now place W. Promotions into voluntary administration."

"Further announcements will be made in due course regarding major new signings and world title matches."

Here is a video of the announcement on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSpKLEM5cMU

[chad]

The link up / major investment from Bill Ives has been in the works for nearly 7 months. Bill Ives has a personal wealth estimated at around £266 million.

The press release is interesting:

"The combination of the promotional powerhouse that is Fr@nk W@rren and the business acumen and financial investment of steel tycoon Bill Ives is designed to take boxing promotion in the UK to a new level."

Sounds like Ives will purely be the money man with W@rren pulling the promotional strings. Who knows maybe fighters will be paid directly via Ives rather than W@rren, which can't be a bad thing.

Bill Ives is 69 years old. This might be his retirement play thing. I did read somewhere not too long ago that Bill Ives wants to see the best fights take place on British soil.

Who knows, if Mr. Ives decides to go big on this, we might see a massive shake up in terms of British boxing.

We might see some new additions to the Queensbury roster soon.

[chad]

"but what exactly can they do differently ?

I know what your saying Jim however if there is additional funding maybe they can:

1. Launch allegedly HD
2. Sign an exclusive deal with Top Tank (to go with their current deal with Golden Boy)
3. Poach some talent back from Matchroom
4. Stage massive British events at least one per month
5. Launch on BT Vision
6. Launch on Youview
7. Push for a deal to be added to the XL package on Virgin Media (That's a potential growth of 2 million viewers, extra advertising revenue plus a guaranteed sizable monthly payment from Virgin in terms of carriage rights)
8. Launch a PPV version of the channel for casual fans who want to watch one off events, rather than enter a monthly subscription.
9. Sell their "new bigger shows" internationally

[stujones]

Look forward to the changes, nothing concrete said in the press release.

Love the quote from Warren about how allegedly has changed sky...what resulted in a major reduction of boxing shows and less attention placed on the sport?

[jameswilson]

Rainham steel have been a sponsor of the allegedly shows for ages. Queensbury promotions have promoted a lot of the shows on allegedly and have been run by Mr Warren's son for ages.

What exactly is being announced? It's almost a press release to confirm what a lot of us assumed and that's that allegedly, his sons and Rainham steel all have some sort of agreement.

[jameswilson]

Also Frank's younger son seems to model himself on Joey Essex.

[expe]

Look forward to the changes, nothing concrete said in the press release.

Love the quote from Warren about how Allegedly channel has changed sky...what resulted in a major reduction of boxing shows and less attention placed on the sport?

As far as I'm concerned, less attention from sky is good, no matter what the sport, just as long as it ends in sky sports going bust/shutting down.

[DMA1987]

Look forward to the changes, nothing concrete said in the press release.

Love the quote from Warren about how Allegedly channel has changed sky...what resulted in a major reduction of boxing shows and less attention placed on the sport?

As far as I'm concerned, less attention from sky is good, no matter what the sport, just as long as it ends in sky sports going bust/shutting down.

Why? Sky is good for the sports it gets behind.

As for w@rren, I am giddy with excitement waiting to hear about the new signings. Not.

Raping the stables of the BN promoters? Has to be.

[expe]

Look forward to the changes, nothing concrete said in the press release.

Love the quote from Warren about how Allegedly channel has changed sky...what resulted in a major reduction of boxing shows and less attention placed on the sport?

As far as I'm concerned, less attention from sky is good, no matter what the sport, just as long as it ends in sky sports going bust/shutting down.

Why? Sky is good for the sports it gets behind.

As for w@rren, I am giddy with excitement waiting to hear about the new signings. Not.

Raping the stables of the BN promoters? Has to be.

Has sky been good for football?

[DMA1987]

Has sky been good for football?

Overall? Absolutely. Don't be naive enough to think that Sky is a one off. If it wasn't them it would be somebody else (look at BT now), and Sky have done it well. Its also not like they squeeze clubs on the TV rights. And if its transfer fees bear in mind that the world record fee has just been paid by a Spanish club.

Whats the beef?

[lefty]

Also Frank's younger son seems to model himself on Joey Essex.

Big fan of Towie are we James?

[Jeff Thomas]

It's funny they think this is news. If they announced bold changes in their matchmaking policy and promotion techniques I'd be impressed. Instead they've just bumped yet another company and suckered in yet another financer who will pay for the princes learning curve while talented boxers remain anonymous.

[TJ77]

It's funny they think this is news. If they announced bold changes in their matchmaking policy and promotion techniques I'd be impressed. Instead they've just bumped yet another company and suckered in yet another financer who will pay for the princes learning curve while talented boxers remain anonymous.

Spot on and no doubt a trail of creditors are out of pocket.

[Scrap]

Bill Ives, been around Boxing all His Life, very good Amateur, in the 60s

[pyenest77]

Read this yesterday & thought it was a load of empty words. What would mean something to me is BN making an announcement of the fights that they have lined up, then telling us why they had got these (due to the Ives tie in).

[whiskey]

Interesting piece on Bill Ives courtesy of The Mirror

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/to ... ned-785520

[The Insider]

I welcome any news of serious investment in boxing. Hopefully Ives is keen enough and wealthy enough to enable FW to really push on and improve his product.

Pretty much the above.

[Jack B]

Just watched the press conference - can't say I'm too impressed. There's a lot of talk about 'kicking on', 'taking things to the next level' etc, but no hard information on how they're going to do that. From what I can see, the only changes are that Queensbury has replaced FWP as the Warrens' main promotional 'brand', and that Bill Ives may invest some of his fortune into it.

As people have already commented on, since the promoters' collaboration a few months ago there has been very little action. If anything BN is looking as weak as it has ever done due to Sky Sports bulking up their international action (there's no doubt they hold the edge domestically as well).

Let's see what the new 'super-promotional venture' brings......

[mfc_se15]

Firstly I understand nothing about business so I'm sure I'm just being thick but if money is owed to W. Promotions why would you take yourself into administration? Would you not chase the monies owed? I would understand it the other way round if you couldn't pay your debts volunteering to go into administration but this seems to wrong way round? Anyone care to explain (in simple words !!)?

[bripez]

Firstly I understand nothing about business so I'm sure I'm just being thick but if money is owed to W. Promotions why would you take yourself into administration? Would you not chase the monies owed?

It doesn't state who owes the money - it could be another FW owned company.

Via different companies, a person can effectively lend themselves money.

They then say that they cannot pay themsleves back so take a company down, avoiding paying all of their own creditors (suppliers) and taking advantage of tax breaks along the way.

It is the modern day equivalent of rich people literally printing money.


Disclaimer :

The above is just an example, and I am not implying that this happened in this specific case.

Also, the above scenario is entirely legal and I am not implying otherwise or suggesting any wrong doing whatsoever.

[palooka]

Firstly I understand nothing about business so I'm sure I'm just being thick but if money is owed to W. Promotions why would you take yourself into administration? Would you not chase the monies owed?

It doesn't state who owes the money - it could be another FW owned company.

Via different companies, a person can effectively lend themselves money.

They then say that they cannot pay themsleves back so take a company down, avoiding paying all of their own creditors (suppliers) and taking advantage of tax breaks along the way.

It is the modern day equivalent of rich people literally printing money.


Disclaimer :

The above is just an example, and I am not implying that this happened in this specific case.

Also, the above scenario is entirely legal and I am not implying otherwise or suggesting any wrong doing whatsoever.

fornicating hell! Mr W arren makes even armchair fans afraid of his solicitors

[jameswilson]

People in this thread are saying that the only changes out of yesterdays 'news' is that Queensbury has become the main promotional outfit under the Warren's and Bill Ives has invested some money.

Both these are not new. Queensbury were actually the company who promoted the Cleverly v Kovalev bill and are the company who won the Saunders v Ryder bill. It isn't new that they are the promotional company rather than allegedly promotions or Sports network. Likewise Bill Ives had already contributed money to allegedly shows by Rainham steel being the (or one of the) main sponsor.

I see literally nothing new to come from yesterdays announcement apart from the news that Ives may be investing more money into all of this.