Do you get all the other fights on the card for your £20 as they’re often the better fights in my opinion?
I agree, though I think I should point out that 12 3 minute rounds makes 36 minutes. But yes £20 for another Eddie Hearn hype job.
It comes on air at six and goes on until midnight. Six hours of viewing so it's barely three quid an hour. By that theory a football match should be a fiver to get in the ground.
That's not a fair comparison though. How much is it to purchase a match pass on iFollow? Comparing to a visit to Oakwell, it makes more sense to compare it to getting an actual seat at the venue, which probably sets you back more than £20.
To be fair, cards involving the Heavyweight Champion of the World(boxing's biggest draw) will occur 4 times a year at the max. So at the most you're paying £80 a year to see all the champions matches presented in HD with commentary and insight all in your own home. With football, your paying between £20 and £45 a match to got to a match live, for up to 46 games(just for the league games) or pay for Sky which is what, £22 a month these days or buy iFollow that costs £10 for the midweek games, or £7 plus the cost of a VPN if you want to get around the region block and watch all the games lives(without any commentary, replays or pre/post game insight). So that's either £198 for the Sky option, or around £460 to watch them all on iFollo(using the £10 price, as with a decent VPN, you won't be far off £10 a game) As you can see, that works out a hell of a lot more expensive. Then there is the argument that says it could only last a second, and while it's right, you could also get a 12 round slog fest or a match like AJ/Klitschko that had you on the edge from the first bell. It's like a football match where you could get a barnstorming 8-7 win, or you could get a 0-0 snorefest. The conversation should be around the PPv model in general as it's so outdated these days. Even the pioneer of PPV the WWE(formerly the WWF) has more or less fully ditched it now it is offering all its events included in it's £9.99 monthly fee for it's streaming service( if you purchased all it's monthly events via PPV, it would have cost around £239 per year, now you get all the events plus loads of original content for £119.98). The sooner boxing follows suit the better...
Just because one is expensive it doesn't necessarily mean the other isn't? Sport is expensive and over-inflated these days. I appreciate that lower league teams rely heavily on gate receipts but that is only due to the huge increase in player wages over the past 20 years or so due to the TV boom. It's only maintained because people are willing to pay for it. PPV wouldn't be sold at that fee otherwise. One point i'd like to make with PPV is that a group of lads for example might chip in for it, though. Obviously can't do that with a matchday ticket.
Have you read about Hearn's venture in America, Dazn? It does exactly that. It's also what Box Nation was setup for, until the partnership with BT Sport that now includes Box Office (although I think if you're paying for Box Nation you're still on the old deal). So it is happening, just not across the board. WWE is an unrealistic comparison really as there's one promoter. Boxing has multiple promoters, and also multiple networks.
I was reading about that the other day. If the monthly price is right could be as big a game changer as the WWE Network was. Wrestling isn't as different as it may appear. Sure, the WWE is the big one and most people thing wrestling = WWE, but there is at least 5 different monthly subscriptions "networks", each showing content from their particular promotions(or a group of promotions for the smaller, niche ones). It's changed the wrestling landscape as it has allowed fans access to products they wouldn't normally have access to. For example, there is "TNA" service, NJPW one that shows Japan's premier promotion, one showing ROH wrestling. It's allowed fans to just pay for the promotions they like and given them the genuine alternative to the WWE monopoly for the first time in years. Sorry for rambling on about wrestling, as I know it's not everyone's cup of team. It was just a way to highlight that monthly subscription model can work in the splintered world of boxing...
If Hearn signs the level of fighter he's promising to, then they'll be quality fights almost every two weeks and the service will end up being a massive success. Typical Eddie Hearn, but he was quick to brag about how much money he had to spend on fighters, only for Al Haymon to announce some ridiculous deal with one of the other networks (sure I saw $600 million quoted but might be wrong). I get your wrestling point, but in boxing the different networks have fights with world interest. As much as the hardcore wrestling fan will watch multiple, the casual is only interested in Summerslam, Hell in a Cell, etc. With boxing you've got one network showing Danny Jacobs, Anthony Joshua, and Demetrius Andrade. Another showing Crawford and Lomachenko. Another showing Errol Spence. And another showing Tyson Fury, Josh Warrington and Frampton.
Fair points! Whoever gets to market first and gets the "Netflix" effect will take some beating to be known as the premier boxing service. The only thing that has the potential to harm the sport is if one gets a monopoly of the market, and is able to start squeezing the fighters payoff, like what Spotify has done with the music industry. For the sport to flourish, there always has to be the pot of gold to aim for...
The pot of gold and a desire for the best to fight the best, regardless of promoter or network. UFC is still way behind boxing, but they're ability to make any fight they want has grown popularity no end.
I would imagine that the people moaning about the former would also moan about the latter, if they happen to like both sports.
The undercard arguments nonsense, all these fighters have to fight, they’ll have contracts to fight a number of dates per year so when Hearn or another promoter puts a decent fight on the undercard he’s not doing you a favour for your PPV money he’s just putting it on PPV rather than regular Sky as he knows the PPV headliner isn’t good enough to sell many. Hence why Joshua - Klitschko has a **** undercard but Joshua - Molina had a great undercard with Whyte - Chisora but you aren’t getting value for money, you’re just getting it as part of the £20 rather than your £70 subscription (or whatever Sky Sports costs). PPV should be for mega fights only, if it needs a good undercard then it shouldn’t be on PPV