Donaire Vs Narvaez on BoxNation on 22 October

Morning Folks

Looks like BoxNation has made a great addition to their schedule. Finally Nonito Donaire's fights will air in the UK for the first time I believe.

From Frank Warren's site:

DONAIRE v NARVAEZ ADDED TO SUPER LINE UP
The latest addition to an action-packed October is the potential thriller between WBO/WBC World Bantamweight Champion and Top-Five pound-for-pound fighter Nonito Donaire against two-time world champion Omar Andres Narvaez, LIVE on BoxNation (Sky Platform Ch. 456) on Saturday 22nd October from the Mecca of Boxing - New York's Madison Square Garden.

"Filipino Flash" Donaire has being hailed as the new Manny Pacquaio with an explosive all-action style just like his fellow countryman. He's unbeaten in nine years and on a 25-fight unbeaten run with knockout wins over IBF/IBO World Flyweight Champion Vic Darchinyan and fourth-round KO of former WBA World Bantamweight Champion Wladimir Sidorenko. The best win so far has been against WBC/WBO World Bantamweight Champion Fernando Montiel who he stopped in the second round.

Argentina's Narvaez, a two-time Olympian, won his first world title - the WBO World Flyweight Championship - in only his 12th fight against Adonis Rivas. He defended the title an amazing 16 times in a seven year reign before vacating and stepping up a division. Narvaez then claimed the Vacant WBO Super-Flyweight title with a win over Everth Briceno and has since made three successful defences.

Coming up LIVE on BoxNation this Saturday (22nd October) night is the British blockbuster showdown between WBO World Light-Heavyweight Champion Nathan Cleverly and bitter rival Tony Bellew from a packed crowd at the Liverpool Echo Arena; then the action switches to the Staples Centre in LA where the legendary Bernard Hopkins defends his WBC World Light-Heavyweight title against Chad Dawson.

On Friday 21st October British Cruiserweight Champion Rob Norton defends his title against Leon Williams LIVE at East London's world famous York Hall. Then the following night, a LIVE international DOUBLE-HEADER begins in Germany with Marco Huck's WBO World Cruiserweight title defence against Rogelio Omar Rossi; switching to New York for Nonito Donaire's WBC/WBO World Bantamweight Title defence against Omar Andres Narvaez.

Friday 28th October LIVE from the Bowlers Exhibition Centre in Manchester, super-hot talent Frankie Gavin - the only British fighter ever to win a gold medal at the World Amateur Championship - defends his WBO Intercontinental Welterweight title against former French Champion Frank Haroche Horta.

Then on Saturday 5th November, it's another big international DOUBLE-HEADER, starting LIVE at the Wembley Arena in London with Ricky Burns' Interim WBO World Lightweight title challenge against one of the world's most exciting fighters - Michael Katsidis, plus a big domestic super-middleweight bust-up between British and Commonwealth Champion George Groves and former British Champion Paul Smith. The action then switches LIVE to Copenhagen where WBO World Super-Middleweight Champion Robert Stiglitz defends his title against Mikkel Kessler in a huge showdown.



Although I am still not happy about paying another subscription on top of my massive sky bill - getting fighters like this on the channel may eventually persuade me to pay the subscription rather that downloading the fights. Donaire getting more exposure can only be a good thing - his class and skill level are sublime. Shame this isnt on terrestrial as he is the kind of exciting fighter which will get more fans into the sport.

This is starting to look annoyingly good/tempting, however I shall reserve judgement until I see what the schedule is like once it starts to charge £10 pm.

It's one saving grace may be that, as far as I'm aware, it's a rolling 1 month contract so you can stop and start as and when you like. Therefore paying £10 one month when there's a great line-up followed by avoiding a few falllow months makes it not that expensive a proposition. Especially considering PPV's (which were getting pretty average and Sky is dropping) cost £15-17 on average and you'd expect to sign up to 4-6 of those a year.

TopHat24/7 wrote:This is starting to look annoyingly good/tempting, however I shall reserve judgement until I see what the schedule is like once it starts to charge £10 pm.

It's one saving grace may be that, as far as I'm aware, it's a rolling 1 month contract so you can stop and start as and when you like. Therefore paying £10 one month when there's a great line-up followed by avoiding a few falllow months makes it not that expensive a proposition. Especially considering PPV's (which were getting pretty average and Sky is dropping) cost £15-17 on average and you'd expect to sign up to 4-6 of those a year.

id take boxnation over primetime anyday, much more value. although they usually add some kind of registeration fee to try and discourage people hoping on and off monthly. espn and setanta used to do it

I'll be sticking to online streaming, has the Setanta saga written all over it. Can't see a now non main stream sport being financially successful enough to keep its head above water.

I'll make a thread about posting links to feeds nearer the time to mainland European countries broadcasting a HBO feed etc. After all the recent court case has shown it to be perfectly ok, therefore the mods can have no complaints......... They will respect the courts authhhoritaaaaiii!!!

I am seriously tempted. I have to admit the schedule looks good. Lets see if they maintain the quality. I may have to cancel my movie subscription to pay for it!

when do you have to start paying for it?

coxy0001 wrote:I'll be sticking to online streaming, has the Setanta saga written all over it. Can't see a now non main stream sport being financially successful enough to keep its head above water.

I'll make a thread about posting links to feeds nearer the time to mainland European countries broadcasting a HBO feed etc. After all the recent court case has shown it to be perfectly ok, therefore the mods can have no complaints......... They will respect the courts authhhoritaaaaiii!!!

I think that if the fights are regular (and of quality) and they do end up getting a HD channel I may just bite the bullet and subscribe. As much as I love free links from the web - you cant beat watching it in crisp quality on a nice TV. Plus it's better when you have mates round watching it.

Does look like Boxnation might be alright for the 6 months it lasts.

Dazstarr wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:I'll be sticking to online streaming, has the Setanta saga written all over it. Can't see a now non main stream sport being financially successful enough to keep its head above water.

I'll make a thread about posting links to feeds nearer the time to mainland European countries broadcasting a HBO feed etc. After all the recent court case has shown it to be perfectly ok, therefore the mods can have no complaints......... They will respect the courts authhhoritaaaaiii!!!

I think that if the fights are regular (and of quality) and they do end up getting a HD channel I may just bite the bullet and subscribe. As much as I love free links from the web - you cant beat watching it in crisp quality on a nice TV. Plus it's better when you have mates round watching it.

Nothing a good quality HD cable from laptop to TV (you can get them for peanuts off Amazon) wouldn't sort, have done that quite alot recently. Broadband speed is great at home and you can get some seriously decent streams if you look in the right places.

Seems like alot of effort to subscribe to another channel when it's only going to be up and running for a few months before going titties up!

coxy0001 wrote:

Dazstarr wrote:

coxy0001 wrote:I'll be sticking to online streaming, has the Setanta saga written all over it. Can't see a now non main stream sport being financially successful enough to keep its head above water.

I'll make a thread about posting links to feeds nearer the time to mainland European countries broadcasting a HBO feed etc. After all the recent court case has shown it to be perfectly ok, therefore the mods can have no complaints......... They will respect the courts authhhoritaaaaiii!!!

I think that if the fights are regular (and of quality) and they do end up getting a HD channel I may just bite the bullet and subscribe. As much as I love free links from the web - you cant beat watching it in crisp quality on a nice TV. Plus it's better when you have mates round watching it.

Nothing a good quality HD cable from laptop to TV (you can get them for peanuts off Amazon) wouldn't sort, have done that quite alot recently. Broadband speed is great at home and you can get some seriously decent streams if you look in the right places.

Seems like alot of effort to subscribe to another channel when it's only going to be up and running for a few months before going titties up!

I do usually do that - but I have to use an older cable as I dont have HDMI on my laptop - its a bit old. If I do stream I always link to my telly, but perhaps the links I am using are not the best. Do still get the odd buffering issue but nothing major.

Always look out for Veetle ones, they're usually the best by a mile providing your broadband can handle them.

For a broadband use http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/ and filter the results by whichever has the fastest broadband.

coxy0001 wrote:Always look out for Veetle ones, they're usually the best by a mile providing your broadband can handle them.

For a broadband use http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/ and filter the results by whichever has the fastest broadband.

Cheers mate. I'm on Sky Broadband on the top package - i use it for online gaming. Never had an issue with it. I think I have used the Veetle ones for the recent Khan fights which are very good.

I just don’t see how they can make money. Even at 100k subscribers (ridiculously optimistic), they have £250k a week minus tax and substantial hosting fees to Sky/Virgin (which amount to 50% of a PPV – must be less for this but still sizeable I imagine). From that they have to pay for a domestic night (DeGale earnt £360k vs Groves) every week, and probably a couple of international fights a month, Buncey’s boxing hour, a news channel, Sauerland archive access and a chairman before any of the Warrens see their share.

Scottrf wrote:I just don’t see how they can make money. Even at 100k subscribers (ridiculously optimistic), they have £250k a week minus tax and substantial hosting fees to Sky/Virgin (which amount to 50% of a PPV – must be less for this but still sizeable I imagine). From that they have to pay for a domestic night (DeGale earnt £360k vs Groves) every week, and probably a couple of international fights a month, Buncey’s boxing hour, a news channel, Sauerland archive access and a chairman before any of the Warrens see their share.

And if it didnt - would Adam Smith welcome Warren back with open arms??

Hmmmm.

Dazstarr wrote:

Scottrf wrote:I just don’t see how they can make money. Even at 100k subscribers (ridiculously optimistic), they have £250k a week minus tax and substantial hosting fees to Sky/Virgin (which amount to 50% of a PPV – must be less for this but still sizeable I imagine). From that they have to pay for a domestic night (DeGale earnt £360k vs Groves) every week, and probably a couple of international fights a month, Buncey’s boxing hour, a news channel, Sauerland archive access and a chairman before any of the Warrens see their share.

And if it didnt - would Adam Smith welcome Warren back with open arms??

Hmmmm.

Well he didn’t want his sons to go into boxing promotion. Perhaps this is his way

I tend to agree with you Scott, posted this on Truss's BoxNation thread the other day:

I think it's a mistake Truss. Essentially he's spitting his dummy at Sky's withdrawal from the PPV market. Problem is boxing is already a marginalised sport in this country, and Frank will need to be putting on quality cards each week to justify charging a monthly fee - and his stable just isn't big enough or quality enough to do that, bearing in mind the likes of degale, cleverly etc fight 3 times a year at most. Re-runs of calzaghe v mafredo jr and the odd 3am US card full of fighters theyve not heard of wont cut it for the casual fan. In these hard times many will not be able to justify it. All it does is serve to marginalise the sport further by appealing to the die hards while pulling it further away from casuals and potential new fans. 

The other problem is that warren may find fighters leaving him. Does BoxNation have the power to build a fighters career like Sky? Would cleverly be who he is now if he'd been exclusively on franks channel from the start? Unlikely. Sky have the platform and commercial muscle to build a fighter. If you were clev or degale would you be that happy seeing your profile pulled from the countries biggest sports brand and stuck on some obscure subscription channel that only runs for 6 hours an evening?

I think it'll end in tears for Frank, I can't see that there's a big enough market base to continually subsidise the channel enough for him to keep putting on the big shows that he'll need to in order to justify it's cost to the punters.
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As much as I may be over the moon to see Donaires fights on UK TV (and I am), it means nothing to Joe Pukebag on the street, and without a hook to draw the casuals in BoxNation will be very much a hand to mouth business I suspect.

Sugar Boy Sweetie wrote:
As much as I may be over the moon to see Donaires fights on UK TV (and I am), it means nothing to Joe Pukebag on the street, and without a hook to draw the casuals in BoxNation will be very much a hand to mouth business I suspect.

Very good point - this isnt going to get a casual viewer to suddenly subscribe.

All it would do is to get boxing fans who were teetering as to subscribe to maybe go for it.

I suspect it wont have that much of an impact and could potentially be a lost leader (as in they wont recoup the money spent on it in increased subs)

I'd like to know what the Donaire fight would cost them. In the region of £50k? Maybe £100k?

Adam D (Hobo) wrote:

Sugar Boy Sweetie wrote:
As much as I may be over the moon to see Donaires fights on UK TV (and I am), it means nothing to Joe Pukebag on the street, and without a hook to draw the casuals in BoxNation will be very much a hand to mouth business I suspect.

Very good point - this isnt going to get a casual viewer to suddenly subscribe.

All it would do is to get boxing fans who were teetering as to subscribe to maybe go for it.

I suspect it wont have that much of an impact and could potentially be a lost leader (as in they wont recoup the money spent on it in increased subs)

Also no new fans would ever flock to the sport. You may get the odd person with a sky sports subscription flicking through the channels and if there's nothing on they might leave it on the boxing - if 1/10 stays around and watches boxing then another fan is born. This won't happen as BoxNation is subscription based!

Let's just cross our fingers and hope it is the end of Frank Warren's tenure in big time boxing.

Eddie Hearn is the future, he actually matches his fighters tough and has an exciting stable now.

Hearn is probably too far the other way on the scale. Hasn’t given a boxer a winnable title shot yet has he?

But he has confidence in his fighters and doesn't fear the repercussions of them losing, surely that is better than the safety first approach we have been treated to for so long now?

These fights are learning curves for his fighters, just as 'learning losses' used to be common in the good old days.

Adam D (Hobo) wrote:

Sugar Boy Sweetie wrote:
As much as I may be over the moon to see Donaires fights on UK TV (and I am), it means nothing to Joe Pukebag on the street, and without a hook to draw the casuals in BoxNation will be very much a hand to mouth business I suspect.

Very good point - this isnt going to get a casual viewer to suddenly subscribe.

All it would do is to get boxing fans who were teetering as to subscribe to maybe go for it.

I suspect it wont have that much of an impact and could potentially be a lost leader (as in they wont recoup the money spent on it in increased subs)

We're mostly die hards on here, and we all seem to be humming and ahhing about it, so I don't think the mass appeal is gonna be there. Die hard fans are a rare species these days, casual appeal is where the money is and none of warrens fighters have it - and even if they did, even if he still had a Ricky Hatton on board, that guy couldn't fight often enough to command Franks monthly subscription. I really think that with the country staring down the barrel of a second phase recession it's the wrong time to asking for extra money from peoples pockets to subscribe to a fringe sports channel.

Fists of Fury wrote:But he has confidence in his fighters and doesn't fear the repercussions of them losing, surely that is better than the safety first approach we have been treated to for so long now?

These fights are learning curves for his fighters, just as 'learning losses' used to be common in the good old days.

Maybe, or you could say they were out of their depth and hadn't been put in with even gatekeeper level opponents first (Barker, Prescott).

Fists of Fury wrote:Let's just cross our fingers and hope it is the end of Frank Warren's tenure in big time boxing.

Eddie Hearn is the future, he actually matches his fighters tough and has an exciting stable now.

Yeah Hearn looks to be doing the business, and seems to have his feet under the table at Sky. Fat Mick is a good promotor, he was unlucky that ITV pulled the plug when they did as he was putting good fights on and always looks to give value for money. Sadly his stable has been diminished but he may be able to rebuild now that he's done good numbers on 5 and put Furys name in the public consciousness.

Great news, Sky should be embarrassed..

Keep this schedule up Boxnation and I can't see what anyone is moaning at 10 pound a month, pittance for a boxing fan