Matchroom Sports promoter Eddie Hearn has this afternoon announced a 5 year extension to their current exclusive Sky Sports broadcasting contract (which ends next year), meaning that the present Saturday night formula for British fans is set to continue until 2021.
This is sure to elicit a mixed response from fans who, as of late, have grown tired of what they perceive as mis-matches on many of the domestic cards, taking to calling the firm “mis-Matchroom” boxing in jest on social media.
For example, a £5 7-fold bet on the favourites for the last domestic show in Birmingham, that included Matthew Macklin and Anthony Joshua, would have returned you the princely sum of £5.31.
And that is just the latest in a line of recent dud domestic shows that have been poorly received by fans. Newcastle and Leeds were cards also plagued by injury and pull-outs, that on top of the current state of things, led to both bills also being slammed by many fans with more than a passing interest in the sport.
Get the idea?
The problem for Hearn, by his own admission, comes largely in the financial mechanics of securing the 50/50 clashes I genuinely believe he desires. International ones at least.
In order to obtain bigger ‘names’ as it were – at decent venues – money must be spent to be recouped (with profit of course) – hence, why as of late, the quality cards – like the bumper May 30th Wembley bill – all become PPV.
A sickner for those who already forked out for May-Pac earlier this month! Though at least it didn’t cost us the Earth like it did the Americans.
The average fan just wants quality, 50-50 domestic fights on a Saturday night and with the size of the stable Hearn has – and the link up with German heavyweights Sauerland – many fail to see why this isn’t a more regular occurrence.
I think Hearn is a likable and honest enough character most of the time – as has been evidenced by the fighters who have defected to Matchroom Sport in their droves over recent years.
He is also usually shrewd enough and savvy enough to listen to the fans – who he interacts with frequently on twitter and participates in various Q & A’s via the iFLtv platform.
Talking today on Sky Sports News, he mentioned all of the main fights that Matchroom have coming up, the highlight of which for many will be the Scott Quigg v Kiko Martinez 122lb world title fight in July in Manchester.
There is already a nervous tingling anticipating the words “Pay-Per-View” for that card too, especially as local favourite Anthony Crolla is also returning on the bill to fight for the WBA 135lb title against Darleys Perez.
At the announcement – Hearn promised 120 live fight nights over the next 6 years. How many will end up being PPV we don’t know, but there exists a school of thought that thinks such a monopoly is a worrying trend. For both building the fighters and for turning in competitive and meaningful fights – however one cannot argue with the platform the broadcaster provides.
Hearn said;
“This is massive news for us and our elite stable of fighters. We’ve made huge waves over the last 3 years. Now we have 6 years. We’re nowhere near where we want to be, but we’ve assembled a stable of fighters of a level that I believe we’ve never seen before in British boxing.”
“This is a fantastic time to take the sport to a new level. We have to build our fighters in the right way and for a lot of them, that time is over.”
Just do something positive with it then Eddie for God’s Sake. With such a depth of talent it’s inexcusable for your marquee names to be knocking over Polish builders and Irish cabbies fight after fight after fight, week in, week out.
Can we really expect competitive and meaningful fights that are NOT PPV????
I WANT TO BELIEVE!
Really, I do.
Twitter @Undilutedpoison