BoxRec

This is absolutely bonkers.

150,000 buys for a middle of the night Vegas fight after doing 70,000 for a primetime fight against McCloskey.

I think Khan is forgetting that McCloskey/Irish fans formed a significant amount of those PPV buys and that people don't like PPV on obscure channels for fights that happen while they're usually asleep.

http://www.boxingfutures.com/news/0615- ... udah-fight

WBA light-welterweight champion Amir Khan has revealed he expects to get 150,000 buys on British pay-per-view channel Primetime for his upcoming unification clash with Zab Judah.

Primetime will screen Khan vs Judah live on their on their Sky platform at channel 480, Virgin On Demand and via a live stream for Internet subscribers for £14.95 and the Bolton man is expecting a large take up of subscriptions.

Khan who did almost 70,000 buys on independent PPV channel in his last outing against Paul McCloskey when Sky Box Office dropped the fight in the final week reckons his clash against Judah is a much bigger sale.

‘I think we can hit about 150,000 buys for this fight,’ Khan told Boxing Futures. ‘That’s what we’re looking at because it’s a big fight.

‘Judah is a much bigger name than McCloskey and a lot more people know him. Plus it’s a unification fight and its in Vegas.

‘To get 70,000 buys on Primetime after selling the fight in three days was massive. People couldn’t even get through to book because they didn’t have enough staff to man the lines.

‘But now those who are already registered can just press the red button and they’re going to have more people working in the call centres in the build up to the fight.’

This will certainly be a test of Primetime. Khan-McCloskey was relatively easy — Sky had done all the pre-fight build up and advertising for them, plus the show was on at UK time, plus the Irish are very loyal towards their fighters. All that said, I was very impressed by the broadcast and pleasantly surprised by the buy rate.

This is a different kettle of fish entirely though. Yes, it's a unification match and a far better fight (potentially), but it will be shown in the middle of the night UK time (it's in Las Vegas), Judah has no loyal following in this country, plus Sky's advertising will be missing.

On the positive side, there's the Primetime-Channel 5 link. Obviously a terrestrial network has far greater audience potential than Sky and with the Chisora-Fury fight being shown on C5 earlier that evening, there will be a perfect opportunity to advertise and build up the Khan fight later that night. I know that Primetime will be making a concerted effort to advertise this fight and believe their link to C5 will be absolutely crucial to the show's success. All that said, I think Amir might be being a little optimistic with 150,000 — if I were him, I'd be delighted with anything over the 100,000 mark and I'm sure Primetime would be too.

Anybody know if they'll do a British leg on the promotional tour?

Khan talks about the fight being in Vegas as a strong point for PPV, but that and the timing that goes with it is probably the factor most likely to result in lower buys.

Also, McCloskey appealed to and captured the imagination of casual fans, Irish sports fans and people that know nothing about boxing, whereas Judah won't really appeal to much more than the casual enthusiast and die hards.

I think they will do well to match the Mcloskey numbers even though its a better fight. The Irish are loyal, remember how Jedward got so far on the X Factor

Just out of interest, how much is Khan likely to make from Primetime if they did do 150,000 buys? That totals about £2.25 mil income for Primetime - what will Khans cut be?

How much are HBO paying for the fight?

Glyn Leach wrote:This will certainly be a test of Primetime. Khan-McCloskey was relatively easy — Sky had done all the pre-fight build up and advertising for them, plus the show was on at UK time, plus the Irish are very loyal towards their fighters. All that said, I was very impressed by the broadcast and pleasantly surprised by the buy rate.

This is a different kettle of fish entirely though. Yes, it's a unification match and a far better fight (potentially), but it will be shown in the middle of the night UK time (it's in Las Vegas), Judah has no loyal following in this country, plus Sky's advertising will be missing.

On the positive side, there's the Primetime-Channel 5 link. Obviously a terrestrial network has far greater audience potential than Sky and with the Chisora-Fury fight being shown on C5 earlier that evening, there will be a perfect opportunity to advertise and build up the Khan fight later that night. I know that Primetime will be making a concerted effort to advertise this fight and believe their link to C5 will be absolutely crucial to the show's success. All that said, I think Amir might be being a little optimistic with 150,000 — if I were him, I'd be delighted with anything over the 100,000 mark and I'm sure Primetime would be too.

Agreed, and I think if Khan makes 100,000 then Sky should be start to question their assessment if he is a PPV star or not?

Khan is the only fighter since Hamed who I have seen as the face of a TV advertising campaign - I think he is a bigger star than Sky think he is - but this will be the test. Jim Rosenthal did try and plug that Froch would be on a PPV channel as best as he could on ITV, and with Froch's fights at home - it will be interesting to see how their respective PPV's do.

C5 will have to be careful that they don't breach advertising rules - there are certain restrictions about advertising on a rival network (e.g. not allowed to state the time/date of broadcast).

stujones wrote:C5 will have to be careful that they don't breach advertising rules - there are certain restrictions about advertising on a rival network (e.g. not allowed to state the time/date of broadcast).

Interesting point Stu. We need a proper UFC head to help with this one. Immediately before every PPV show the UFC runs an hour of prelim fights in which they talk up the PPV. I think they're on different networks (Spike and Showtime), but I'm not sure. Maybe an American situation isn't the same as in Britain though.

Glyn Leach wrote:

stujones wrote:C5 will have to be careful that they don't breach advertising rules - there are certain restrictions about advertising on a rival network (e.g. not allowed to state the time/date of broadcast).

Interesting point Stu. We need a proper UFC head to help with this one. Immediately before every PPV show the UFC runs an hour of prelim fights in which they talk up the PPV. I think they're on different networks (Spike and Showtime), but I'm not sure. Maybe an American situation isn't the same as in Britain though.

Maybe, and maybe's its changed. I just remember watching a points of view style programme on sky and when Sky secured the rights of a programme normally on terrestial TV (I think it was Prison Break) they could only advertise it on ITV/C4/Channel5 as "coming soon" or "Saturdays" - they couldn't say specifics.... and it was stated on this points of view style programme that this was the reason. I think Hollyoakes did a campaign a couple of years ago and they had to say "weekdays" on all channels other than C4.

i'll be watching this one on a stream i think, the next day.
de la hoya promised packed cards after the maidana-morales fight had a few crackers on it. let's see if he keeps his word

Khan is a dreamer if he thinks he get that many! I doubt any of his ppv have bdone 100,000 viewers on sky let alone primetime without HD.

I can see this bombing, they'll do well to do 50k imho.

TheCobra wrote:I can see this bombing, they'll do well to do 50k imho.

it would have to have an amazing under card, plus someway of advertising. They need to be sensible and charge £8.99 if its not HD.

When has khan ever done 150,000 buys, ive paid for kotelnic, maidana and salita but who the hell else did? im a fan but i didnt bother with mccloskey and i would love to see him fight judah but im not paying £15 quid when i can stream it. Id pay if it was HD. Khan should have stuck with sky and fought his last fight on the normal sky sports then sky probably would have been happy to put this fight on ppv.

Goldenboy are all very good at complaining and threatening to boycott sky for snubbing khan for this fight. But they werent bothered about making a decent matchup or undercard last time round. And lets face it they only have a handful of fighters we'd be bothered about if they did boycott sky it not like we get the hopkins fights anyway.

I wish he'd stick to predicting the round he's going to win in rather than how much money he will make!!
im sure he wont be short of a few bob.