Matchroom secure new seven-year Sky Sports TV deal until 2025

[Enlightened-One]

"Matchroom secure new seven-year Sky Sports TV deal until 2025"

Matchroom Sport and Sky Sports are delighted to announce a new seven-year broadcast deal that will continue Sky’s coverage of Matchroom Sport events into a fourth decade.

Running until 2025, Sky customers will be able to watch a multitude of major events across eight different sports and comes alongside the continuation of Sky Sports’ broadcast agreement with the PDC, which will see 60 days of live darts broadcast on Sky each year.

The agreement includes continued exclusive live coverage of major fixtures of the annual sporting calendar including pool’s Mosconi Cup, Fish‘O’Mania and tenpin bowling’s Weber Cup.

The agreement also covers the World Cup of Pool, World Pool Masters, PGA EuroPro Tour golf highlights, the World Championship of Ping Pong plus events in British netball, basketball and gymnastics.

Matchroom Sport Chairman Barry Hearn added: “We’re absolutely delighted that we have been able to extend our relationship with Sky Sports for a further seven years.

“The support of Sky Sports has been fundamental to the success of Matchroom’s biggest events and it is great news for sports fans that coverage of Matchroom Multi Sport events and the PGA EuroPro Tour will continue well into the next decade.”

Matchroom Sport are the world-renowned sports promotional company behind PDC darts, World Snooker and a wide stable of boxing talent including World champions such as Anthony Joshua, Tony Bellew and Kell Brook. The company has over 30 years of experience in sports promotion and currently operates across 11 sports.

Thoughts?

[Lennox]

Good news. They are the best and very fair to deal with on all sides.

[MarkMcBurney]

I think, but am not 100% sure, that the TV deal with Matchroom Sport is different to that of Matchroom Boxing, and this is regarding things like the darts etc rather than extending a blanket deal across all sports, but I could be wrong.

[Enlightened-One]

I think, but am not 100% sure, that the TV deal with Matchroom Sport is different to that of Matchroom Boxing, and this is regarding things like the darts etc rather than extending a blanket deal across all sports, but I could be wrong.

The article specifically mentions the sport of boxing and also several fighters contracted to that promotion. The boxing element of Matchroom Sports is also listed on their official website.

[MarkMcBurney]

I think, but am not 100% sure, that the TV deal with Matchroom Sport is different to that of Matchroom Boxing, and this is regarding things like the darts etc rather than extending a blanket deal across all sports, but I could be wrong.

The article specifically mentions the sport of boxing and also several fighters contracted to that promotion. The boxing element of Matchroom Sports is also listed on their official website.

Oh yeah I know that - I mean why wouldn't it; but I seem to remember in an IFL interview Eddie Hearn saying something about the TV deal arrangement previously that separated the 'general' agreement with Matchroom from the monopolised boxing agreement. As I say though, I could well be remembering that completely wrong.

EDIT: http://www.skysports.com/boxing/news/12 ... al-to-2021

[Enlightened-One]

I think, but am not 100% sure, that the TV deal with Matchroom Sport is different to that of Matchroom Boxing, and this is regarding things like the darts etc rather than extending a blanket deal across all sports, but I could be wrong.

The article specifically mentions the sport of boxing and also several fighters contracted to that promotion. The boxing element of Matchroom Sports is also listed on their official website.

Oh yeah I know that - I mean why wouldn't it; but I seem to remember in an IFL interview Eddie Hearn saying something about the TV deal arrangement previously that separated the 'general' agreement with Matchroom from the monopolised boxing agreement. As I say though, I could well be remembering that completely wrong.

EDIT: http://www.skysports.com/boxing/news/12 ... al-to-2021

OK, I get you now.

I can shed some light on this.

Sky Sports have had an affiliation with Matchroom for quite some time, but there was previously no exclusivity. At that point in time, Matchroom was only obliged to produce a certain number of events that Sky Sports could televise.

This meant that Sky could have televised any fight cards from any promotion, even though they worked with Matchroom on a regular basis.

Similarly, Matchroom, who promotes the jewel in the crown of British boxing Anthony Joshua, could have also aired some of their shows on BT, ITV, BBC etc.

The nature of the “exclusive” deal you’ve quoted means that Sky Sports cannot televise domestic fight cards from any promoter without Matchroom being involved somehow. However, Sky is still able to televise international fights without involving Matchroom.

Meanwhile, Matchroom Sports can only have their shows televised by Sky Sports in the UK. The exclusive nature of their contract forbids them from working with the likes of BT, ITV, BBC, Dave etc.

Basically, Eddie Hearn cannot suddenly televise Matchroom’s next promotion, headlined by Anthony Joshua, on ITV.

Similarly, if Fwánk Warren wanted to showcase some of the Queensberry domestic fight cards on Sky Sports (assuming their own contract with BT allowed this, which I doubt), then he’d have to go through Eddie Hearn.