The state of boxing

[danconnollyeire]

Hands up confession... I’ve streamed a lot of boxing this year. There’s been 27374844 PPVs for bang average fights that I wouldn’t mind seeing

Remember when we got Benn vs McClellan on ITV for FREE?!

This is exactly why boxing is so far behind other sports. With football... you pay your monthly sky sports subscription and you don’t need to pay £29.99 every time your team plays. You’d be extremely pissed off if you had to pay that price for Everton (Whyte) vs West Ham (Chisora)

[Boxerbeetle]

It’s bulls!!t. But people keep buying, so nothing will change.

[Nightmare Roy]

It’s bulls!!t. But people keep buying, so nothing will change.

Yup, as long as there are enough mugs willing to pay it ain't going nowhere,

[Covfefe]

The state of boxing?

It’s in a far healthier state than it was in the early 2000s. I remember when you had to read about fights rather than get any chance of seeing them, now I can watch almost any fight on any weekend. And long may it continue.

As for PPVs, it’s just the tool to get big fights made. Though a fight like Chisora-Whyte 2 should never be ppv, also to have another PPV fight the same weekend was silly, but Chisora-Whyte 2 is the kind of fight that would help make something like Warrington-Frampton a PPV card. Neither should have been ppv if you ask me but if you’re going to make such fights ppv stack the bill.

[Covfefe]

Before someone points it out I realise that they couldn’t ever be on the same bill I’m just making a point.

[Covfefe]

Strange to look back now but Khan was the spark to get boxing back on terrestrial tv, itv started putting shows on their other channels once he signed to box on there.

[spudder56]

It’s bulls!!t. But people keep buying, so nothing will change.

Yup, as long as there are enough mugs willing to pay it ain't going nowhere,

Exactly

[bigjack]

It’s bulls!!t. But people keep buying, so nothing will change.

Yup, as long as there are enough mugs willing to pay it ain't going nowhere,

Exactly

x2 no good complaining about it and then go and pay,it would probably only take one fight to not sell then something would have to be done.I won't pay no matter who fights who and i get to see the fight the next day anyway for free.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Majority of big fights won’t get made without PPV because the boxers want to get paid well.

Looks like Sky are not folking out as much as we think. They were only willing to pay Whyte and Parker £1m purses each.. the rest of their purses the public paid for via PPV.

Look at America, even though boxing is less popular there, ESPN have been paying Crawford $3m each over his last 2 fights.

Boxing is supposed to be a big thing in the UK. It mostly just comes down to greed.

Boxing is a tough sport and the money isn’t always great. But I haven’t paid for a single PPV this year. I’ll always find a way to watch.

For being such a big sport in the UK, boxers do get paid less than they would in US. There’s tonnes of popular boxers in the UK. All from different areas. Up north, East and West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, London, Midlands. Can a sell some tickets.

Matchroom need to get a better deal from Sky. To think they’re exclusive as well. Sky cannot promote any other UK based promoter unless they’re co-promoting with Matchroom. You’d think there would be even more money.

Like I said.. it’s all greed.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Yup, as long as there are enough mugs willing to pay it ain't going nowhere,

Exactly

x2 no good complaining about it and then go and pay,it would probably only take one fight to not sell then something would have to be done.I won't pay no matter who fights who and i get to see the fight the next day anyway for free.

Yeh. After Khan’s early PPV days, Sky stopped for a while, until Haye became a popular HW. Now he was popular but he fought some worse opponents than AJ has. Then they disappeared again.

I think boxing is even more popular now than it was when Haye was World champion.

There’s a hell of a lot of promotions, build, social media etc. Fight week is always crazy, media workout, weigh ins and obviously Sky have SSN channel.

[TheGman]

Majority of big fights won’t get made without PPV because the boxers want to get paid well.

Looks like Sky are not folking out as much as we think. They were only willing to pay Whyte and Parker £1m purses each.. the rest of their purses the public paid for via PPV.

Look at America, even though boxing is less popular there, ESPN have been paying Crawford $3m each over his last 2 fights.

Boxing is supposed to be a big thing in the UK. It mostly just comes down to greed.

Boxing is a tough sport and the money isn’t always great. But I haven’t paid for a single PPV this year. I’ll always find a way to watch.

For being such a big sport in the UK, boxers do get paid less than they would in US. There’s tonnes of popular boxers in the UK. All from different areas. Up north, East and West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, London, Midlands. Can a sell some tickets.

Matchroom need to get a better deal from Sky. To think they’re exclusive as well. Sky cannot promote any other UK based promoter unless they’re co-promoting with Matchroom. You’d think there would be even more money.

Like I said.. it’s all greed.

Nigel Benn reportedly got £750,000 for the McClellan fight now i know he deserved every penny and more for that fight but how did it get to where the fighters are wanting £10million+?

[Ruthless-RKO]

Nigel Benn reportedly got £750,000 for the McClellan fight now i know he deserved every penny and more for that fight but how did it get to where the fighters are wanting £10million+?

Yeh. If you adjust that amount and take in inflation and all that. It equals to around £1.5m today.

Some boxers today don’t even deserve that based on who they fight.

[TheGman]

Nigel Benn reportedly got £750,000 for the McClellan fight now i know he deserved every penny and more for that fight but how did it get to where the fighters are wanting £10million+?

Yeh. If you adjust that amount and take in inflation and all that. It equals to around £1.5m today.

Some boxers today don’t even deserve that based on who they fight.

Exactly mate,if joshua is worth 30/40mill what was benn worth for that fight or eubank for the 2 watson fights? The top end fighters get too much imo,yes they deserve a lot of cash for what they do but multi millions? No way i dont agree with it,i dont agree with footy players getting what they get more than i do boxers.

The only ones paying for the rise of the boxers purses is us fans

[Autobarn]

Satellite and cable TV changed all of that.

[tonyevs]

I am of the age that was brought up on watching fights on terrestrial tv. The big Friday and Saturday fights with Benn etc .. pubs would empty as people went home to watch it ... to avoid the casuals hogging the view spouting their ignorance

Boxing since PPV has lost it’s core base, and been replaced by the casuals .. the casuals fork out for a loud mouth non boxing MMA guy to have a pretend match against a retired boxer ... they will happily pay for a young prospect to knock over a bunch of journeymen fight after fight; but the real boxing fan won’t - and soon enough the paying casual influences what fights get made. And that’s turning out to be whoever has the best media profile ... and the quality of the top guys get worse as a result.

[veriton]

Only paid for Warrington v Frampton this year, didn't think any of the others were "must see" fights.

Radio commentary does me for the rest, and then I'll watch the fight at a later date.

This has been interesting, as I only saw Fury v Wilder for the first time last night on BT SPort. I thought it was a fairly dull fight yet in the immediate aftermath people were talking about it as amazing. Sometimes a bit of distance is good for fair appraisal.

[bigjack]

I am of the age that was brought up on watching fights on terrestrial tv. The big Friday and Saturday fights with Benn etc .. pubs would empty as people went home to watch it ... to avoid the casuals hogging the view spouting their ignorance

Boxing since PPV has lost it’s core base, and been replaced by the casuals .. the casuals fork out for a loud mouth non boxing MMA guy to have a pretend match against a retired boxer ... they will happily pay for a young prospect to knock over a bunch of journeymen fight after fight; but the real boxing fan won’t - and soon enough the paying casual influences what fights get made. And that’s turning out to be whoever has the best media profile ... and the quality of the top guys get worse as a result.

x2 the likes of Sky tv ruined boxing,the general public knew Bruno,Benn, Eubank, McGuigan etc,once they started to migrate over the audience became limited and slowly the new breed of British stars were unknown.I used to chat boxing in work and everyone knew all the boxers,eventually nobody except the real hardcore fans knew who i was talking about.

[Andrew]

I am of the age that was brought up on watching fights on terrestrial tv. The big Friday and Saturday fights with Benn etc .. pubs would empty as people went home to watch it ... to avoid the casuals hogging the view spouting their ignorance

Boxing since PPV has lost it’s core base, and been replaced by the casuals .. the casuals fork out for a loud mouth non boxing MMA guy to have a pretend match against a retired boxer ... they will happily pay for a young prospect to knock over a bunch of journeymen fight after fight; but the real boxing fan won’t - and soon enough the paying casual influences what fights get made. And that’s turning out to be whoever has the best media profile ... and the quality of the top guys get worse as a result.

x2 the likes of Sky tv ruined boxing,the general public knew Bruno,Benn, Eubank, McGuigan etc,once they started to migrate over the audience became limited and slowly the new breed of British stars were unknown.I used to chat boxing in work and everyone knew all the boxers,eventually nobody except the real hardcore fans knew who i was talking about.

It's a big debate. There's an argument sky kept actually boxing going in the UK even if cards were hit and miss.

Terrestrial TV would improve things. For example no one knows about Callum smith beating George Groves. Totally forgotten probably a few thousand watched it live. Imagine that on ITV 1 at 10pm and staged in the UK. Would have views of around 3 million I reckon.

Then again Hatton never fought on terrestrial.

[Andrew]

Hands up confession... I’ve streamed a lot of boxing this year. There’s been 27374844 PPVs for bang average fights that I wouldn’t mind seeing

Remember when we got Benn vs McClellan on ITV for FREE?!

This is exactly why boxing is so far behind other sports. With football... you pay your monthly sky sports subscription and you don’t need to pay £29.99 every time your team plays. You’d be extremely pissed off if you had to pay that price for Everton (Whyte) vs West Ham (Chisora)

It's all down to idiots who pay.

That's why hearn is a good promoter. I can't stand him but he is good at his job.

Fights and cards such as Whyte v Parker delivering are disastrous for the sport.

[bigjack]

I am of the age that was brought up on watching fights on terrestrial tv. The big Friday and Saturday fights with Benn etc .. pubs would empty as people went home to watch it ... to avoid the casuals hogging the view spouting their ignorance

Boxing since PPV has lost it’s core base, and been replaced by the casuals .. the casuals fork out for a loud mouth non boxing MMA guy to have a pretend match against a retired boxer ... they will happily pay for a young prospect to knock over a bunch of journeymen fight after fight; but the real boxing fan won’t - and soon enough the paying casual influences what fights get made. And that’s turning out to be whoever has the best media profile ... and the quality of the top guys get worse as a result.

x2 the likes of Sky tv ruined boxing,the general public knew Bruno,Benn, Eubank, McGuigan etc,once they started to migrate over the audience became limited and slowly the new breed of British stars were unknown.I used to chat boxing in work and everyone knew all the boxers,eventually nobody except the real hardcore fans knew who i was talking about.

It's a big debate. There's an argument sky kept actually boxing going in the UK even if cards were hit and miss.

Terrestrial TV would improve things. For example no one knows about Callum smith beating George Groves. Totally forgotten probably a few thousand watched it live. Imagine that on ITV 1 at 10pm and staged in the UK. Would have views of around 3 million I reckon.

Then again Hatton never fought on terrestrial.

19 million watched McGuigan v Pedroza

[knockout]

It’s a tough one , obviously you want boxers to be well paid as they deserve it (most of the time) but on the other hand why is it the only sport ( along with MMA) where there is PPV??

It’s a piss take paying a monthly subscription
And a PPV amount .

Atleast ITV don’t make you pay a monthly Subscription. Would be great if they could get their PPV model working properly and bring the big fights, so then at least you didn’t think you were paying twice for an event.

Ignoring TV issues, Boxing as a sport the UK hasn’t been bigger for a long time I don’t think.

Lots of people taking part in boxing as a sport at all levels , great attendances at the big shows, good press coverage.

It’s just a shame that the small hall shows are suffering due to exclusive TV deals

[tonyevs]

Small hall shows are struggling because there is hardly any core fan base anymore. 50 years ago boxing was taught in schools; practically everyone had some sort of experience of doing it. Right up to the early 90's boxing still got people talking in work on a Monday morning.
But then Sky TV took the biggest names from terrestrial TV, and it quickly began to lose its popularity. Now the biggest British boxing stars are mainly known for being on I`m a Celebrity or in the tabloids ... hardly anyone outside of the hardcore boxing fan will be able to tell you who Britains best known world champion actually beat to win the title.

The casuals won`t go to small hall shows. And I doubt theyd go to anymore than 2 big shows a year at best .. the boxing is secondary to the actual event .. I doubt they even go to their seats before the main event - and leave straight after.

Boxing is getting more and more irrelevant, and is on a slippery slope that I really cant see it reversing without a major change of how it is aired ... with so many different formats how to watch tv, I just don`t see one format ever reaching as big an audience as ITV and BBC once did.

[TheGman]

Small hall shows are struggling because there is hardly any core fan base anymore. 50 years ago boxing was taught in schools; practically everyone had some sort of experience of doing it. Right up to the early 90's boxing still got people talking in work on a Monday morning.
But then Sky TV took the biggest names from terrestrial TV, and it quickly began to lose its popularity. Now the biggest British boxing stars are mainly known for being on I`m a Celebrity or in the tabloids ... hardly anyone outside of the hardcore boxing fan will be able to tell you who Britains best known world champion actually beat to win the title.

The casuals won`t go to small hall shows. And I doubt theyd go to anymore than 2 big shows a year at best .. the boxing is secondary to the actual event .. I doubt they even go to their seats before the main event - and leave straight after.

Boxing is getting more and more irrelevant, and is on a slippery slope that I really cant see it reversing without a major change of how it is aired ... with so many different formats how to watch tv, I just don`t see one format ever reaching as big an audience as ITV and BBC once did.

Exactly,my mate who watches boxing but doesn't really know it like he knows football or horse racing,he buys every anthony joshua ppv and iv tried to talk him out of ppv's that arnt ppv worthy but he just shrugs his shoulders and says "its AJ tho init" and these are the type of people that makes tge ppv train chug along nicely. Its the main boxers that are wrecking boxing imo,they wont fight for less than a good few million so the tv conpany has to throw it on ppv to make up their wage and its us fans who get squeezed like lemons.

[bigjack]

Small hall shows are struggling because there is hardly any core fan base anymore. 50 years ago boxing was taught in schools; practically everyone had some sort of experience of doing it. Right up to the early 90's boxing still got people talking in work on a Monday morning.
But then Sky TV took the biggest names from terrestrial TV, and it quickly began to lose its popularity. Now the biggest British boxing stars are mainly known for being on I`m a Celebrity or in the tabloids ... hardly anyone outside of the hardcore boxing fan will be able to tell you who Britains best known world champion actually beat to win the title.

The casuals won`t go to small hall shows. And I doubt theyd go to anymore than 2 big shows a year at best .. the boxing is secondary to the actual event .. I doubt they even go to their seats before the main event - and leave straight after.

Boxing is getting more and more irrelevant, and is on a slippery slope that I really cant see it reversing without a major change of how it is aired ... with so many different formats how to watch tv, I just don`t see one format ever reaching as big an audience as ITV and BBC once did.

Exactly,my mate who watches boxing but doesn't really know it like he knows football or horse racing,he buys every anthony joshua ppv and iv tried to talk him out of ppv's that arnt ppv worthy but he just shrugs his shoulders and says "its AJ tho init" and these are the type of people that makes tge ppv train chug along nicely. Its the main boxers that are wrecking boxing imo,they wont fight for less than a good few million so the tv conpany has to throw it on ppv to make up their wage and its us fans who get squeezed like lemons.

I noticed when Joshua got in the ring last week with Whyte he was going on about his ' worth'.It's good that he has control of his career but i personally hate to hear boxers talk like that,another one who does it is Khan,really grates on me

[TheGman]

Small hall shows are struggling because there is hardly any core fan base anymore. 50 years ago boxing was taught in schools; practically everyone had some sort of experience of doing it. Right up to the early 90's boxing still got people talking in work on a Monday morning.
But then Sky TV took the biggest names from terrestrial TV, and it quickly began to lose its popularity. Now the biggest British boxing stars are mainly known for being on I`m a Celebrity or in the tabloids ... hardly anyone outside of the hardcore boxing fan will be able to tell you who Britains best known world champion actually beat to win the title.

The casuals won`t go to small hall shows. And I doubt theyd go to anymore than 2 big shows a year at best .. the boxing is secondary to the actual event .. I doubt they even go to their seats before the main event - and leave straight after.

Boxing is getting more and more irrelevant, and is on a slippery slope that I really cant see it reversing without a major change of how it is aired ... with so many different formats how to watch tv, I just don`t see one format ever reaching as big an audience as ITV and BBC once did.

Exactly,my mate who watches boxing but doesn't really know it like he knows football or horse racing,he buys every anthony joshua ppv and iv tried to talk him out of ppv's that arnt ppv worthy but he just shrugs his shoulders and says "its AJ tho init" and these are the type of people that makes tge ppv train chug along nicely. Its the main boxers that are wrecking boxing imo,they wont fight for less than a good few million so the tv conpany has to throw it on ppv to make up their wage and its us fans who get squeezed like lemons.

I noticed when Joshua got in the ring last week with Whyte he was going on about his ' worth'.It's good that he has control of his career but i personally hate to hear boxers talk like that,another one who does it is Khan,really grates on me

I hate it,his worth? He is a fighter or he isnt,mike tyson didnt talk worth neither did rocky marciano or ali so if these clowns of 2018 want to follow in the footsteps of the legends iv mentioned then dint even talk about money,say who you want to fight your manager and promotor will make the fight happen and you get your pay at the end its really that simple. Fights should be made 50/50 with a win bonus cause im sick of hearing about joshua's worth,he has made enough money now to keep him till he dies of old age. If your a fighter fight but if your into money become a bank manager or work in stock exchange.