maverick23 wrote: ↑23 Sep 2021, 16:41
Manchester Hitman wrote: ↑23 Sep 2021, 15:53
maverick23 wrote: ↑23 Sep 2021, 07:17
The contract will have various clauses in it and will be weighted in BT’s favour. If BT decide to no longer broadcast sport and DAZN buy the rights they want then Frank will have to go elsewhere.
The bulk of the fighters you list aren’t known by sports fans and out of those fighters you list, how many have been in good, competitive fights this year?
Frank has some good fighters but is rarely making good fights that sell tickets and cross over.
DAZN won’t be interested in getting Frank or his stable as, in their mind, they’ve already catered for boxing fans with Eddie’s shows. Having Frank’s on there will increase their cost base without driving significantly more subscribers as if you’re not subscribing with the Liverpool show or the Whyte card then it’s likely you won’t for Lynn be Jahanzeb.
You are making the assumption that DAZN will not want Warren which is a stretch.
They would have the following fights amongst other fights easily to be made in house;
AJ v Fury/Joyce and maybe even Dubois 1 day.
Buatsi v Johnson/Yarde/Arthur
Frank hasn’t survived 40 odd years by leaving himself vulnerable with his TV situation.
He will knew exactly what is happening behind closed doors with the possible sale and like I said earlier, he wouldn’t have been in a position to re-sign Joyce if he didn’t have the backing of BT boxing management behind him.
They have also committed to the prospects shows.
Sam Jones would have spoken to Eddie, before sticking with Warren, who 100% would have been interested, so he is also clearly comfortable about Warren’s position.
By your rationale, outside of AJ, Whyte and Benn (due to his dad) the average sports fan wouldn’t know any of Matchrooms fighters either - both statements being ridiculous.
Dubois v Yarde was the highest rated boxing show last year. I think Arthur - Yarde was either 2nd or 3rd.
Having said that, Warren needs to improve the product especially with the London shows and try to make these more commercially attractive.
He seems to be onto a good thing in the Birmingham region with Heaney etc, so it will be interesting to see how that develops.
My assumption is that DAZN won’t get significantly more subscribers to warrant paying Warren for his shows. I think that’s fair.
AJ/Fury won’t be made in house as AJ is still with Sky in the U.K. and I would have thought Tyson has a separate deal with BT on top of his ESPN deal.
You mention those fights with Buatsi but Frank is struggling to make a contracted rematch between 2 of his own guys - not sure how easy he’d find it matching one of them with Buatsi. Johnson will likely continue to be matched with random Europeans that no one has heard of.
Frank won’t have a clue what’s going on in the background. BT are a listed company so why would they tell Frank the status of the sale of part of the company? I’m sure though he’ll have plans for whatever happens. BT will be operating like business as usual although they may be reducing their spend on boxing - they had one show in September (prospect show) and other than the Fury PPV, one show in October (yet to be confirmed whether it’s also on the PPV).
I didn’t say all his fighters are unknown. I said most of the ones you listed are. Zach Parker, Brad Foster, Chamerlain, Sheeraz, McCann, Arthur, Johnson aren’t known at all really. Have any of them ever sold many tickets? More casuals will know Alen Babic.
Assume you mean Dubois/Joyce - that was a great fight which has been a rarity for Frank. Like I said his output this year has been crap. Do you disagree?
If they do end up buying, until we know exactly what DAZN are planning to do, its very difficult to speculate how subscribers will be affected. I could very easily see DAZN boxing under Hearn staying as a separate entitity, which will land on the platform as well as the app.
All of which could take a significant amount of time, if indeed it does go through. I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I spoke to a geezer who works at a high level in the industry and he was very sceptical of the whole thing, but let’s see.
My point is, DAZN & Eddie himself, will want access to Fury/Joyce/Dubois - there is no conceivable way that they wouldn’t.
Zach Parker, Sheeraz, McCann, Adeleye etc are all potentially very marketable and have the potential
to cross over IMO which is the point. All of them are reasonable ticket sellers already.
If you honestly don’t think Warren is up to speed with what’s going on you must be delusional - he will know the score, that’s his business to do so. Even the secretary’s/PAs, getting banged by the higher ups, will know what’s going on.
Ive been at company’s who are in the middle of a merger/takeover and everybody knew what was happening, one way or another.
When BT sports absorbed allegedly, it’s pretty conceivable that he retained some kind of stake in it as well, so there’s those implications to factor in.
I haven’t really noted whether the output is low - he seems to be averaging about 1 per month. Whilst he has been very unlucky with postponements/ covid cancellations, he needs to increase the quality of undercard opponents in general.
Warren said Arthur - Yarde 2 has been resolved. He already did the first one and as mentioned
Joyce- Dubois, so in-house fights I’m confident wouldn’t be an issue if he is working with Hearn.
Let’s not forget, he wanted to meet with Eddie, until Hearn caught Covid and than he stuck the boot into Dubois after the defeat.
