Will Chisora vs Fury 2 be that big a deal ?

[JimJim2009]

Expe, where do you get your BN subscriber figures from ?

The channel is brilliant and I want it to stick around. If they're still not breaking even, it surely can't last...

The booklet offering it to potential investors, it was posted on here a few days ago, I'll try and find it again later. Showed spikes in subscription of 107,000, plus 65,000 PPV's for Haye-Chisora and around 40,000 for Mayweather-Alvarez, a substantial fall in losses for 2013 compared to 2012, who the main investors are and that current subscribership is 120,000, the current base of existing and former subscribers is over 200,000 on Sky alone, 155,000 subscribers are needed to break even and have positive cash flow and at 200,000 subscribers it would be significantly profitable.

http://www.beaufortsharedealing.com/ipo ... tsheet.pdf

Thanks Expe.

That is gloomy reading to me - I think the channel is doomed. I want it to succeed but jesus that's a lot more subscribers needed. The gap of 35,000 subscribers x £10 a month (soon to be £12) adds up to over four million quid. So if they need four million quid a year to break even, that is a big hole in the balance sheet. As long as they sit fit birds next to Bill Ives at ringside they might be alright

[magnus]

[/quote]

Getting world title shots these days is about getting your profile high enough that people will pay to see you fight for a title. Achievements in the ring is very little to do with it any more.

[/quote]

I don't think this applies so much in the Heavyweight division at present. How many of Wlad's challengers have been high profile? Look at his next defence for example. The key is becoming a mandatory - hence Frank's desire to make Fury-Chisora II a WBO eliminator. When Wlad holds multiple belts and wants to retain these, it means a lot of his fights need to be mandatories.

[expe]

Expe, where do you get your BN subscriber figures from ?

The channel is brilliant and I want it to stick around. If they're still not breaking even, it surely can't last...

The booklet offering it to potential investors, it was posted on here a few days ago, I'll try and find it again later. Showed spikes in subscription of 107,000, plus 65,000 PPV's for Haye-Chisora and around 40,000 for Mayweather-Alvarez, a substantial fall in losses for 2013 compared to 2012, who the main investors are and that current subscribership is 120,000, the current base of existing and former subscribers is over 200,000 on Sky alone, 155,000 subscribers are needed to break even and have positive cash flow and at 200,000 subscribers it would be significantly profitable.

http://www.beaufortsharedealing.com/ipo ... tsheet.pdf

Thanks Expe.

That is gloomy reading to me - I think the channel is doomed. I want it to succeed but jesus that's a lot more subscribers needed. The gap of 35,000 subscribers x £10 a month (soon to be £12) adds up to over four million quid. So if they need four million quid a year to break even, that is a big hole in the balance sheet. As long as they sit fit birds next to Bill Ives at ringside they might be alright

If you use last years losses of £2,938,000 pre tax, they only need 25,000 new subscribers to break even and if no subscribers are lost with the increase to £12, that's another £720,000 in revenue. In 2013, losses more than halved compared to 2012 and the HD Channel is sure to pull in a few more subscribers put off by the picture quality in standard definition. The channel needs big fights to increase the subscriber base, Fwank will be praying Mayweather fights Khan rather than Maidana because it will bring in twice the number of subscribers and Chisora-Fury would help to keep those. The key to keeping allegedly alive is the international expansion, I believe China is the first market they're looking at, if they get a good number of subscribers there, it could open allegedly up to other markets.

[JimJim2009]

Agreed on that, if he can sell to overseas markets he's got it well and truly cracked, and I hope he pulls it off. Not sure how many Chinese folk want to stay up all night to watch Bradley Skeete fight but who knows. I think its a shame they haven't really cracked an online stream (ahem, legal stream) version of the channel for online subscribers, I always thought that would be a goldmine for the channel as that is a truly global market.

Getting back to the finances, if last year was a better year and they STILL lost three million quid it doesn't bode well. I agree big fights will bring in new subscribers but they won't come cheap and I am not sure the channel pays enough attention to keeping its existing subscribers happy. Another way of looking at the active / inactive subscriber figures is to observe that the channel has had, and lost, tens of thousands of subscribers - almost a hundred thousand through the sky platform. That's a hundred thousand folk who were happy enough to sign up, and have walked away since. I guess a large portion will be one-off customers who came in for Haye/Chisora in 2012 and Mayweather/Canelo in 2013 but you should really try your best to keep the existing customers as existing customers. There have been periods when shows are thin on the ground and its a few weeks between decent live fights.

[expe]

Agreed on that, if he can sell to overseas markets he's got it well and truly cracked, and I hope he pulls it off. Not sure how many Chinese folk want to stay up all night to watch Bradley Skeete fight but who knows. I think its a shame they haven't really cracked an online stream (ahem, legal stream) version of the channel for online subscribers, I always thought that would be a goldmine for the channel as that is a truly global market.

Getting back to the finances, if last year was a better year and they STILL lost three million quid it doesn't bode well. I agree big fights will bring in new subscribers but they won't come cheap and I am not sure the channel pays enough attention to keeping its existing subscribers happy. Another way of looking at the active / inactive subscriber figures is to observe that the channel has had, and lost, tens of thousands of subscribers - almost a hundred thousand through the sky platform. That's a hundred thousand folk who were happy enough to sign up, and have walked away since. I guess a large portion will be one-off customers who came in for Haye/Chisora in 2012 and Mayweather/Canelo in 2013 but you should really try your best to keep the existing customers as existing customers. There have been periods when shows are thin on the ground and its a few weeks between decent live fights.

To be fair £3 million looks bad, but compared to £8 million lost in 2012 it's quite good. Boxing is starting to open up in China, they've had a world champion in Xiong Zhao Zhong and Shiming has helped to bring big shows to Macau, most notably Pacquiao-Rios and if they can get the right fights to capitalise on that it could be big business, maybe buying some of the Japanese fights would do that since they're in similar time zones and the cultures are more similar, plus the Japanese fights would probably be quite cheap and allow them to show live boxing in the mornings, which will always appeal to people who can't be arsed with Saturday Kitchen, if they find that they're watching the channel regularly at all times of the day, they won't cancel their subscription. The other option they have is to start buying up archive footage, Fwank only has so much and showing different stuff would be good to keep people interested.

[JimJim2009]

£8m in 2012, £3m in 2013, Christ almighty those are big losses. Imagine how much they'd be if boxers actually got paid in full too. It doesn't bear thinking about.

[expe]

£8m in 2012, £3m in 2013, Christ almighty those are big losses. Imagine how much they'd be if boxers actually got paid in full too. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Don't think the fighters purse would matter towards the losses, I would expect that to impact on the promotional company rather than the TV channel. Look on the bright side though, £5m improvement last year, keep it up and he'll make £2m in profit this year

[Tuan_Jim]

Those numbers are absolutely pathetic. From tens of millions in the 80s and 90s. . . to tens of thousands today.

British boxing began a terminal decline in 1995, when terrestrial TV superstars the public actually cared about were moved over to the subscription channel Sky Sports. In no time PPV was added on top. I still remember the outrage over Bruno/Tyson II. A small number of people made a lot of money, but at what cost to boxing that short-sighted rapaciousness? Before long boxing became a specialist minority sport, expensive to follow. Throw that in with the need to peddle more and more belts just to make what your selling seem important and very soon you have a crap looking product that costs a lot of money.

People are smart. They know boxing is a joke now. The very few times the mainstream public has been tricked into looking our way, they've had Audley Harrison or Howard Foster rub dogshit in their eyes.

I know what I'm writing will offend some of you. I'm speaking as someone who dearly loves boxing and has done since he was a boy. I'm saddened by the tragic and, in my opinion, avoidable downward spiral I have witnessed in the past 15 years.

[expe]

Those numbers are absolutely pathetic. From tens of millions in the 80s and 90s. . . to tens of thousands today.

British boxing began a terminal decline in 1995, when terrestrial TV superstars the public actually cared about were moved over to the subscription channel Sky Sports. In no time PPV was added on top. I still remember the outrage over Bruno/Tyson II. A small number of people made a lot of money, but at what cost to boxing that short-sighted rapaciousness? Before long boxing became a specialist minority sport, expensive to follow. Throw that in with the need to peddle more and more belts just to make what your selling seem important and very soon you have a crap looking product that costs a lot of money.

People are smart. They know boxing is a joke now. The very few times the mainstream public has been tricked into looking our way, they've had Audley Harrison or Howard Foster rub dogshit in their eyes.

I know what I'm writing will offend some of you. I'm speaking as someone who dearly loves boxing and has done since he was a boy. I'm saddened by the tragic and, in my opinion, avoidable downward spiral I have witnessed in the past 15 years.

Like it or not, terrestrial TV ain't interested. Fighters are making more money now than ever before and the mainstream public keep coming back for more, because for every Haye-klitschko there's a Froch-Groves, for every Audley Harrison there's a Ricky Hatton. Sure viewing figures and fighters aren't the household names they once were, but there were 4 channels then, if people wanted to watch the telly boxing may well have been the best option, now there's hundreds, so people have more choice in what they watch, plus there's the internet, XBOX, Playstation etc. that weren't really around then that mean on the whole people watch less TV. Despite all the outrage over Tyson-Bruno II, 600,000 people deemed it worthy to stump up the cash and watch on PPV and if people really were smart, they wouldn't keep believing what comes out of David's Haye mouth. Overall, British boxing is booming, there's more fighters and more shows than any other time since the 50s, more TV coverage, albeit on pay TV and we have loads of fighters that are genuinely top 10 in their division, for a dying sport in a downward spiral, I'd say the fight game is doing pretty well.

[revporl]

I think Chisora v Fury II would be quite an intriguing fight. Fury still v vulnerable and Chisora is lighter and more motivated than when they fought first time. its a 50/50 and if they hyped it by homophobic bluster, gratuitous water spitting and press conference brawling it could do quite well.

[Maxsplit]

I think Chisora v Fury II would be quite an intriguing fight. Fury still v vulnerable and Chisora is lighter and more motivated than when they fought first time. its a 50/50 and if they hyped it by homophobic bluster, gratuitous water spitting and press conference brawling it could do quite well.

I am quite sure when it is announced and if it is confirmed as an official final eliminator to be Wlad's mandatory then it will be a huge fight.

Fury and Chisora will show each other huge amounts of disprespect which will be playful and tongue in cheek at this start and then as the fight goes closer and the enormity of the opportunity dawns on them it will become very real and make it a must see blockbuster.

One that will invariably be exciting and I would make Fury favourite to win.

[JimJim2009]

I think Chisora v Fury II would be quite an intriguing fight. Fury still v vulnerable and Chisora is lighter and more motivated than when they fought first time. its a 50/50 and if they hyped it by homophobic bluster, gratuitous water spitting and press conference brawling it could do quite well.

I am quite sure when it is announced and if it is confirmed as an official final eliminator to be Wlad's mandatory then it will be a huge fight.

Fury and Chisora will show each other huge amounts of disprespect which will be playful and tongue in cheek at this start and then as the fight goes closer and the enormity of the opportunity dawns on them it will become very real and make it a must see blockbuster.

One that will invariably be exciting and I would make Fury favourite to win.

I hope it ends up being a big, big fight but I have my doubts. The Copperbox had a lot of empty seats, and when you consider Fwank builds these shows around key ticket sellers like Buglioni and Kean, it didn't seem to me like the public were falling over themselves to see Fury and Chisora in action on the same show.

[Maxsplit]

I think Chisora v Fury II would be quite an intriguing fight. Fury still v vulnerable and Chisora is lighter and more motivated than when they fought first time. its a 50/50 and if they hyped it by homophobic bluster, gratuitous water spitting and press conference brawling it could do quite well.

I am quite sure when it is announced and if it is confirmed as an official final eliminator to be Wlad's mandatory then it will be a huge fight.

Fury and Chisora will show each other huge amounts of disprespect which will be playful and tongue in cheek at this start and then as the fight goes closer and the enormity of the opportunity dawns on them it will become very real and make it a must see blockbuster.

One that will invariably be exciting and I would make Fury favourite to win.

I hope it ends up being a big, big fight but I have my doubts. The Copperbox had a lot of empty seats, and when you consider Fwank builds these shows around key ticket sellers like Buglioni and Kean, it didn't seem to me like the public were falling over themselves to see Fury and Chisora in action on the same show.

I take your point ... But by the same token David Haye had only sold 7,000 of the 19,000 tickets at the MEN for his comeback fight vs Manuel Charr before he *COUGH* got injured. But his fight that never was with Fury sold out all 19,000 in 48 hours.

Selling out the big shows is all about a good match up between two characters the public love and/or hate.

Chisora and Fury fit that bill.

It doesn't mean the public will turn up in numbers to see their tune up fights vs journeymen when everyone knows there will fight each other in a couple of months.

The key is animosity in the build up and lots of sports news and back page coverage.

I think they could make a good fist of selling out the O2 with a cracking competitive undercard. say Cleverley fighting for a Cruiserweight world title, big Frampton fight etc ...

[Anzi]

This one is about money, easy money, if they do make it an eliminator, bonus, if it happens at all, not much excitement from the boxers.

[JimJim2009]

This one is about money, easy money, if they do make it an eliminator, bonus, if it happens at all, not much excitement from the boxers.

Billing it as world title eliminator is fine, but nobody on planet earth - certainly nobody buying a ticket - would think that the winner of the fight is going to win the world title so long as Wlad holds it.

[keithmoonhangover]

If Chisora fights Povektin first, it will likely be for the WBA regular title?

[JimJim2009]

If Chisora fights Povektin first, it will likely be for the WBA regular title?

If so I can see Warren warming to the idea. It's winnable for Delboy and him holding the WBA regular title sets up big fights for Fwank to stage, ie vs Fury. Povetkin had a good run for a few years with that belt.

[keithmoonhangover]

If Chisora fights Povektin first, it will likely be for the WBA regular title?

If so I can see Warren warming to the idea. It's winnable for Delboy and him holding the WBA regular title sets up big fights for Fwank to stage, ie vs Fury. Povetkin had a good run for a few years with that belt.

At the risk of losing more money and making a fool of myself, I'd bet my entire bankroll on Povetkin to win.

[Counter-puncher]

can anyone say 'sucker for punishment'?

[keithmoonhangover]

can anyone say 'sucker for punishment'?

Oh god, here I go...... Povetkin's an Olympic Champion, who's a very well schooled boxer. Chisora is, well, he's an errr..... boxer.

[Counter-puncher]

[lefty]

I dont see it being this huge ticket selling, stadium fight for which it's being talked about. Fury will definietly help sell a decent amount of tickets on his mouth alone but I just dont see the "enormity" of it myself.

[fizzjambo]

Povetkin has to be one of the most overhyped pro's on the circuit today. He went life and death with a crude cruiserweight in Huck FFS sake and was blowing like hell and hanging on at the end. He has beaten no one better than Chisora has beaten as a pro, regularly turns up at least 15lbs overweight and was dreadful vs Wlad and took a career altering beating. He's done, end of. He wasn't even much to start out with (as a pro).

Chisora is no ATG but he's on a good run, in decent nick and sets a good pace. I'd honestly give Chisora the edge vs Povetkin. A fit, focused Fury would piss all over him

[fizzjambo]

Just to clarify the above I don't think Fury or Chisora are all that (at elite level). I just think Povetkin, Adamek, Helenius etc get a huge amount of smoke blown up their backsides.......

[JimJim2009]

I dont see it being this huge ticket selling, stadium fight for which it's being talked about. Fury will definietly help sell a decent amount of tickets on his mouth alone but I just dont see the "enormity" of it myself.

That's how I see it. I think Chisora has got to the stage where he is as good as he is ever going to be. And that's not quite world heavyweight champ level. He featured in a domestic mega fight two years ago, and got knocked out.