BoxRec

This weekends PPV event between Joshua and Klitschko is expected to pull in more than 1 million buys. That's impressive from a small country with a population of just over 65 million. With pubs and clubs across the UK showing the fight, and friends and family coming together to watch the event at home, the amount of actual viewers at the opening bell could easily top 5 million. That's simply colossal, especially at a cost of nearly £20.00. Imagine what the viewing figures would be if this went out on regular SKY Sports..... which leads to my next point.

It's been widely reported over the past 8 months that viewing figures for Premiership football on SKY are plummeting at an alarming rate. On average Premiership football is bringing in just 1.03 million viewers per game. SKY currently pay £11.7 million per game. This has rocketed up from the £4.8 million per game they paid during the 2010 to 2012 seasons. With the Premiership rights auction coming up in the next 12 months for seasons 2019 to 2022, and BT expected to bid aggressively, SKY could face a bill of up to £14 million per game to keep the lion's share of fixtures. This is something SKY have little appetite for as confirmed by Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, when approached about a bidding war. Daroch confirmed "We will seek to win but we’re also happy to let things go. Sport is important. Football is very important, but every day it is less important."

There's a real chance that BT could win the rights to more Premiership games than they've ever held before. I can't see them winning more than SKY but it's possible they'll approach a more even split with SKY. If that happens SKY will need to come up with a big differentiator to keep their share holders, subscribers, advertisers and sponsors happy. Something that sets their product apart from BT Sport. This is when they should consider throwing their financial clout at boxing.

Losing some of the Premiership rights would actually free up hundreds of millions of pounds for SKY to invest elsewhere. The return of PPV boxing in recent years has been viewed as an additional revenue stream to help subsidise the spiraling cost of football. With this requirement gone, and the need to offer SKY Sports subscribers a real alternative, boxing would appear to be the ideal replacement.

Give Eddie Hearn 12 big fights nights per year to put on a PPV level supercard. Throw him around £5 to £8 million per event to play with, a fraction of what a Premiership game costs, and hype the hell out of it for a month with the usual Behind The Gloves and Beyond The Ropes shows. That kind of money would allow Eddie to put on shows that would capture the imagination of the general public like Joshua Vs. Wilder or Groves Vs. DeGale II each and every month. Shows that create genuine buzz and are likely to pull in more viewers than Premiership games. SKY would recoup some of their investment from advertisers and sponsors but the key positive would be halting some of the exodus of subscribers to BT.

Hearn would still have regular Fight Nights to build the next stars but the big supercards would be home of the biggest domestic clashes and international stars coming over to face our best.

The popularity of boxing in this country is at an all time high. The state of boxing is incredibly healthy. With the right level of investment and commitment from SKY, Britain could easily become the global hub of the sport.

This could all just be wishful thinking on my part however SKY will have to make some massive decisions should they lose a large chunk of Premiership rights. I can't think of any other sport on their platform they could invest in that would draw more public intrest.

I think they're missing a trick by having a 'summer break' during August. Not only does it make no sense as August is the height of British summer but there's no World Cup, Olympics or Euros

Sky are as likely to invest in drama as sport.

DannyMCR wrote:I think they're missing a trick by having a 'summer break' during August. Not only does it make no sense as August is the height of British summer but there's no World Cup, Olympics or Euros

I'm not sure if that's because of the summer holiday period. People off on holiday = less tickets sales?

It is a good point though. SKY always take a hit in summer months with SKY Sports subscribers cancelling their subscription due to the end of the football season. Would the likes of Joshua Vs. Wilder at the end of May, DeGale Vs. Groves II at the end of June, and Brook Vs. Khan at the end of July convince subscribers to keep paying during the summer months? I think it would certainly make a decent amount change their mind.

Probably not

I'm sorry I didn't have the time to read. But in my opinion, TV / broadcasting is going to change a lot in next 5 years. Apart from maybe premiership football, everything will be on pay per view. Already many top series are only available through one outlet - SKY, Netflix, amazon etc. It's unsustainable that the companies can expect customers to subscribe to every channel to make sure they get all the programmes they want. It costs a lot, it takes management to keep up with all your subs, and most importantly perhaps, just takes too much time - we are in an era where everything is expected immediately.we will pay for What we want to watch and no more.....

samwbr wrote:Sky are as likely to invest in drama as sport.

Very true. They have been investing heavily over the past 24 months already. Just last week they agreed a $250 million production deal with HBO. Problem is a SKY subscription for their basis channels is only £22.00 per month. Their real earner is getting those same subscribers to take SKY Sports at an additional cost of £27.50 then a further £6.00 if they want to watch in HD. I agree drama is very important to SKY, and drives a large amount of subcriptions, but SKY Sports is their real money maker and needs to remain appealing. A poor uptake of SKY Sports causes SKY a large headache.

Sky will be in a very difficult position when the Premier League rights go out to auction again. It's becoming increasingly clear that the bubble is bursting - there's less and less interest in the massively overhyped Premier League which is reflected in the viewing figures, yet Sky is paying more and more for it.

But Sky TV's success was built on football - if they lost the Premier League rights they'd instantly lose a large number of customers, and probably lose a good deal of credibility in terms of public perception too.

As for boxing...apart from the occasional cash-grab PPV, I don't think it's anywhere near their list of priorities.

It is a lot cheaper than football and probably could bring in better viewing numbers per £ spent. The issue for Sky is that their main revenue stream is subscriptions and football is the biggest pull when it comes to that, I can't see boxing having anywhere near the same reach. If Sky lose the majority of the rights to BT in the next round of bidding, it'll be very interesting to see where they go from there, I can't see them sustaining 5 channels, a 24 hour news channel and the F1 channel if they have a limited number of games from the Prem and none of the European rights, people will start to look at it as a significant chunk of money they can save for a product they're not using as much as they used to. All the other stuff on there, while it will bring in some subscriptions, is really just there to provide a sense of value for money and keep people watching when there's no football on.

Don't forget Sky goes out to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as a few smaller Commonwealth countries. The PPV for the Joshua fight is HUGE!
Full page advert in the Sky magazine plus a two page feature here in NZ and healthy buying, Australia is a huge market and plenty of Aussies will be stumping up for it.
The cost of the PPV in NZ and Oz is the same as the UK. We are talking big money.

expe wrote:It is a lot cheaper than football and probably could bring in better viewing numbers per £ spent. The issue for Sky is that their main revenue stream is subscriptions and football is the biggest pull when it comes to that, I can't see boxing having anywhere near the same reach. If Sky lose the majority of the rights to BT in the next round of bidding, it'll be very interesting to see where they go from there, I can't see them sustaining 5 channels, a 24 hour news channel and the F1 channel if they have a limited number of games from the Prem and none of the European rights, people will start to look at it as a significant chunk of money they can save for a product they're not using as much as they used to. All the other stuff on there, while it will bring in some subscriptions, is really just there to provide a sense of value for money and keep people watching when there's no football on.

Interesting about the F1 channel. SKY is likely to lose the rights to F1 following Liberty Media buying the racing business.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37307339

Liberty Media is owned by John Malone who also happens to own Liberty Global. Liberty Global is the owner of Virgin Media. Can't see Mr. Malone selling the rights to SKY again when they expire in 2024.

boxingknockout wrote:I'm sorry I didn't have the time to read. But in my opinion, TV / broadcasting is going to change a lot in next 5 years. Apart from maybe premiership football, everything will be on pay per view. Already many top series are only available through one outlet - SKY, Netflix, amazon etc. It's unsustainable that the companies can expect customers to subscribe to every channel to make sure they get all the programmes they want. It costs a lot, it takes management to keep up with all your subs, and most importantly perhaps, just takes too much time - we are in an era where everything is expected immediately.we will pay for What we want to watch and no more.....

I see your point.

If you shop around, and catch deals at the right time, you can get a subscription to Netlix, Amazon Instant Video and NOW TV for less than £15.00 per month. If you already have a Freeview box with recording capacity, it's a real cost effective alternative to SKY.

In my livingroom I have SKY and Amazon TV. In my bedroom I have a LG Smart TV and a Youview box. My Smart TV has the NOW TV, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video apps built in. I used to have SKY multiroom but the extra box was costing me £12.00 per month. I cancelled this and now use the £12.00 to subscribe to Amazon and Netflix. I'm no worse off. Spending the same amount but getting so much more additional content.

The thing with SKY is all the little additional extras that you might pay but forget about along the years. £12.00 for multiroom, £6.00 for Sport in HD, £8 a month for SKY talk extra etc... It all adds up. I was paying for a phone package to have all my calls included yet nobody in the house was actually using the phone. I took it about 6 years ago and simply forgot. Since then all our calls are made via mobile.

It pays to know what your paying, and what alternatives are out there.

chad wrote:

boxingknockout wrote:I'm sorry I didn't have the time to read. But in my opinion, TV / broadcasting is going to change a lot in next 5 years. Apart from maybe premiership football, everything will be on pay per view. Already many top series are only available through one outlet - SKY, Netflix, amazon etc. It's unsustainable that the companies can expect customers to subscribe to every channel to make sure they get all the programmes they want. It costs a lot, it takes management to keep up with all your subs, and most importantly perhaps, just takes too much time - we are in an era where everything is expected immediately.we will pay for What we want to watch and no more.....

I see your point.

If you shop around, and catch deals at the right time, you can get a subscription to Netlix, Amazon Instant Video and NOW TV for less than £15.00 per month. If you already have a Freeview box with recording capacity, it's a real cost effective alternative to SKY.

In my livingroom I have SKY and Amazon TV. In my bedroom I have a LG Smart TV and a Youview box. My Smart TV has the NOW TV, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video apps built in. I used to have SKY multiroom but the extra box was costing me £12.00 per month. I cancelled this and now use the £12.00 to subscribe to Amazon and Netflix. I'm no worse off. Spending the same amount but getting so much more additional content.

The thing with SKY is all the little additional extras that you might pay but forget about along the years. £12.00 for multiroom, £6.00 for Sport in HD, £8 a month for SKY talk extra etc... It all adds up. I was paying for a phone package to have all my calls included yet nobody in the house was actually using the phone. I took it about 6 years ago and simply forgot. Since then all our calls are made via mobile.

It pays to know what your paying, and what alternatives are out there.

Having to pay line rental for a completely unused landline is the biggest rip-off going. Should be investigated imo.

Boxerbeetle wrote:

chad wrote:

boxingknockout wrote:I'm sorry I didn't have the time to read. But in my opinion, TV / broadcasting is going to change a lot in next 5 years. Apart from maybe premiership football, everything will be on pay per view. Already many top series are only available through one outlet - SKY, Netflix, amazon etc. It's unsustainable that the companies can expect customers to subscribe to every channel to make sure they get all the programmes they want. It costs a lot, it takes management to keep up with all your subs, and most importantly perhaps, just takes too much time - we are in an era where everything is expected immediately.we will pay for What we want to watch and no more.....

I see your point.

If you shop around, and catch deals at the right time, you can get a subscription to Netlix, Amazon Instant Video and NOW TV for less than £15.00 per month. If you already have a Freeview box with recording capacity, it's a real cost effective alternative to SKY.

In my livingroom I have SKY and Amazon TV. In my bedroom I have a LG Smart TV and a Youview box. My Smart TV has the NOW TV, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video apps built in. I used to have SKY multiroom but the extra box was costing me £12.00 per month. I cancelled this and now use the £12.00 to subscribe to Amazon and Netflix. I'm no worse off. Spending the same amount but getting so much more additional content.

The thing with SKY is all the little additional extras that you might pay but forget about along the years. £12.00 for multiroom, £6.00 for Sport in HD, £8 a month for SKY talk extra etc... It all adds up. I was paying for a phone package to have all my calls included yet nobody in the house was actually using the phone. I took it about 6 years ago and simply forgot. Since then all our calls are made via mobile.

It pays to know what your paying, and what alternatives are out there.

Having to pay line rental for a completely unused landline is the biggest rip-off going. Should be investigated imo.

It's a scandal. Paying for a phoneline just to be able to receive the internet. It's a gig all the providers are in on.

chad wrote:This weekends PPV event between Joshua and Klitschko is expected to pull in more than 1 million buys. That's impressive from a small country with a population of just over 65 million. With pubs and clubs across the UK showing the fight, and friends and family coming together to watch the event at home, the amount of actual viewers at the opening bell could easily top 5 million. That's simply colossal, especially at a cost of nearly £20.00. Imagine what the viewing figures would be if this went out on regular SKY Sports..... which leads to my next point.

It's been widely reported over the past 8 months that viewing figures for Premiership football on SKY are plummeting at an alarming rate. On average Premiership football is bringing in just 1.03 million viewers per game. SKY currently pay £11.7 million per game. This has rocketed up from the £4.8 million per game they paid during the 2010 to 2012 seasons. With the Premiership rights auction coming up in the next 12 months for seasons 2019 to 2022, and BT expected to bid aggressively, SKY could face a bill of up to £14 million per game to keep the lion's share of fixtures. This is something SKY have little appetite for as confirmed by Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, when approached about a bidding war. Daroch confirmed "We will seek to win but we’re also happy to let things go. Sport is important. Football is very important, but every day it is less important."

There's a real chance that BT could win the rights to more Premiership games than they've ever held before. I can't see them winning more than SKY but it's possible they'll approach a more even split with SKY. If that happens SKY will need to come up with a big differentiator to keep their share holders, subscribers, advertisers and sponsors happy. Something that sets their product apart from BT Sport. This is when they should consider throwing their financial clout at boxing.

Losing some of the Premiership rights would actually free up hundreds of millions of pounds for SKY to invest elsewhere. The return of PPV boxing in recent years has been viewed as an additional revenue stream to help subsidise the spiraling cost of football. With this requirement gone, and the need to offer SKY Sports subscribers a real alternative, boxing would appear to be the ideal replacement.

Give Eddie Hearn 12 big fights nights per year to put on a PPV level supercard. Throw him around £5 to £8 million per event to play with, a fraction of what a Premiership game costs, and hype the hell out of it for a month with the usual Behind The Gloves and Beyond The Ropes shows. That kind of money would allow Eddie to put on shows that would capture the imagination of the general public like Joshua Vs. Wilder or Groves Vs. DeGale II each and every month. Shows that create genuine buzz and are likely to pull in more viewers than Premiership games. SKY would recoup some of their investment from advertisers and sponsors but the key positive would be halting some of the exodus of subscribers to BT.

Hearn would still have regular Fight Nights to build the next stars but the big supercards would be home of the biggest domestic clashes and international stars coming over to face our best.

The popularity of boxing in this country is at an all time high. The state of boxing is incredibly healthy. With the right level of investment and commitment from SKY, Britain could easily become the global hub of the sport.

This could all just be wishful thinking on my part however SKY will have to make some massive decisions should they lose a large chunk of Premiership rights. I can't think of any other sport on their platform they could invest in that would draw more public intrest.

I remember ntl or virgin done the season ticket for prem games and imo what they need to do to get the interest back is a season ticket per club,gain the rights to every game and sell for instance a liverpool season ticket £200 a season and u get every liverpool game even the 3 oclock games,id pay it for every liverpool game available on tv

aren't sky going to be having individual channels that you can subscribe to so if you only watch football, golf, F1 or cricket you can pay just for that channel instead of the full package? im sure I heard that a few months back, maybe they will do their own boxing channel to rival allegedly??

thechump wrote:

chad wrote:This weekends PPV event between Joshua and Klitschko is expected to pull in more than 1 million buys. That's impressive from a small country with a population of just over 65 million. With pubs and clubs across the UK showing the fight, and friends and family coming together to watch the event at home, the amount of actual viewers at the opening bell could easily top 5 million. That's simply colossal, especially at a cost of nearly £20.00. Imagine what the viewing figures would be if this went out on regular SKY Sports..... which leads to my next point.

It's been widely reported over the past 8 months that viewing figures for Premiership football on SKY are plummeting at an alarming rate. On average Premiership football is bringing in just 1.03 million viewers per game. SKY currently pay £11.7 million per game. This has rocketed up from the £4.8 million per game they paid during the 2010 to 2012 seasons. With the Premiership rights auction coming up in the next 12 months for seasons 2019 to 2022, and BT expected to bid aggressively, SKY could face a bill of up to £14 million per game to keep the lion's share of fixtures. This is something SKY have little appetite for as confirmed by Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, when approached about a bidding war. Daroch confirmed "We will seek to win but we’re also happy to let things go. Sport is important. Football is very important, but every day it is less important."

There's a real chance that BT could win the rights to more Premiership games than they've ever held before. I can't see them winning more than SKY but it's possible they'll approach a more even split with SKY. If that happens SKY will need to come up with a big differentiator to keep their share holders, subscribers, advertisers and sponsors happy. Something that sets their product apart from BT Sport. This is when they should consider throwing their financial clout at boxing.

Losing some of the Premiership rights would actually free up hundreds of millions of pounds for SKY to invest elsewhere. The return of PPV boxing in recent years has been viewed as an additional revenue stream to help subsidise the spiraling cost of football. With this requirement gone, and the need to offer SKY Sports subscribers a real alternative, boxing would appear to be the ideal replacement.

Give Eddie Hearn 12 big fights nights per year to put on a PPV level supercard. Throw him around £5 to £8 million per event to play with, a fraction of what a Premiership game costs, and hype the hell out of it for a month with the usual Behind The Gloves and Beyond The Ropes shows. That kind of money would allow Eddie to put on shows that would capture the imagination of the general public like Joshua Vs. Wilder or Groves Vs. DeGale II each and every month. Shows that create genuine buzz and are likely to pull in more viewers than Premiership games. SKY would recoup some of their investment from advertisers and sponsors but the key positive would be halting some of the exodus of subscribers to BT.

Hearn would still have regular Fight Nights to build the next stars but the big supercards would be home of the biggest domestic clashes and international stars coming over to face our best.

The popularity of boxing in this country is at an all time high. The state of boxing is incredibly healthy. With the right level of investment and commitment from SKY, Britain could easily become the global hub of the sport.

This could all just be wishful thinking on my part however SKY will have to make some massive decisions should they lose a large chunk of Premiership rights. I can't think of any other sport on their platform they could invest in that would draw more public intrest.

I remember ntl or virgin done the season ticket for prem games and imo what they need to do to get the interest back is a season ticket per club,gain the rights to every game and sell for instance a liverpool season ticket £200 a season and u get every liverpool game even the 3 oclock games,id pay it for every liverpool game available on tv

Its s collective deal, the chairman of the club's outside the big 4 or 6 will never vote for it to be broken up. They would be signing their own death warrant.