Box Nation v Sky Sports

I currently just have Sky Sports to watch the boxing, but looking at the next 4 weeks there seems little point in paying my subscription for one night of boxing. The model seems to be all about the PPV cards which can just be paid for without having a SS subscription.

It seems the best way for the most boxing is to just get Box Nation and pay for the PPV's when they come along.

What does everyone else have?

I had Sky Sports, but as soon as they made the O2 card in May PPV and I saw the dross free card a week earlier I decided to scrap it. Also Sky lost the Champions League, so it was a no brainer for me, what they provide now is not worth £27 a month.

As for Boxnation, I love that channel great fights every month and easily worth the subscription fee.

I won't subscribe to Box nation as I think it's bad for Boxing...

The fact that ITV have picked up Frampton's next scrap, plus the added bit of boxing on Spike too, makes me feel more comfortable getting rid of Sky.

I dont get sky for boxing i love boxnation especially the overseas stuff

I think SKY is great value for money...

The Wife gets all her NCIS and CSI stuff and I get to watch all the big events..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I won't subscribe to Box nation as I think it's bad for Boxing...

The way forward is ITV, Barry's got the right idea.

ITV will not invest in mutiple boxing events long term i dont think sadly

He'll end up on SKY ppv wheelie....In a year's time when he tires of Barry and beating the stiffs he's going to be fed..

Cancelled sky until the football season is back. Managed to convince the missus that the world would keep turning even if she lost touch with the Kardashians.

Not going to bother with Box Nation though, unless they pick up Cotto Canelo.

I feel like all my anti-Cotto drives are wasted on you, Dipper

I think ultimately boxnation have the right idea. If you are a fan of watching boxing regularly and seeing good cards then boxnation is a better deal.

Sky have the potential, if they wished, to be a far superior product but their alliance with Matchroom is generally working out pretty poorly for the boxing fan who wants regualr good cards. They are falling way short of their potential and are heading down the route where boxing will be a subscription sport on a subscription channel via box office.

I would be fine with paying an annual subscription to a boxing channell if it offered good matches regulary. What Sky and Matchroom are doing are serving up weeks of sub standard bargain basement cards punctuated by Box Office events.

Boxnation is the way forward. Just a shame Frank didn't have more boxers on his books

Not good for attracting kids to the sport...

Not sure many blue collar dads can extend the finances much more than SKY..

Ha, Raf I'm too far gone mate. Don't let that discourage you with the other, though .

How many kids go into a boxing gym because of a fight they saw on TV. I went to the boxing club because one of mates suggested I go along, he started at the age of 9 and was very good. I first went at 14 because I heard the training was hardcore and I wanted to know how to throw a punch properly. I knew about Ali from my Dad and seeing the Berbick fight, then the McGuigan Pedrosa fight. We knew about Hagler, Hearns, Duran, Leonard and Frank Bruno, after that watching fights was thin on the ground until Tyson arrived.

My read of it was none of us went to the boxing club because of a fight we watched on TV. The only boxing we saw was on Grandstand or Sports Saturday.

So Seeing Arnie in a film doesn't inspire people to train...He certainly inspired me....

You know best..

I have Sky Sports but not because of the boxing coverage, if anyone is/has been purely for that then they're simply an idiot; Football (no interest in CL), Boxing, Cricket, Rugby League, Tennis and everything else makes it great value for me.

Like Truss I think Boxnation is bad for boxing so do not and never will subscribe to it.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:So Seeing Arnie in a film doesn't inspire people to train...He certainly inspired me....

You know best..

I had never heard of Arnie by the mid-1980's. A guy who lived near me had the book Arnold The Education of a Bodybuilder. The guy was very strong and was getting great results in the gym. I went to the gym and then later found out about Arnie. We watched Commando and Raw Deal etc. There was no internet back then so it was all word of mouth. I'm not the biggest fan of Arnie, not that nice a guy. Youtube the Dorian Yates interview where he was asked about Arnold.

Sky is a subscription channel. Boxnation is a subscription channel. Sky Box Office is bad for boxing and Matchroom are all over it.

SKY bring all kinds of sports that would never get aired on cable...to the viewers...

Not the same at all...

Its the same from a boxing perspective.

Boxing is graviting towards a subscription sport on a subscription channel with Sky.

Sky box Office is more expensive bang for your buck than a subscription channel like box nation and is doing the exact same harm to the sport by marginalising it from mainstream t.v.

Listen...people come up to me all the time and they say...'Steffan...you know all about boxing. Which is the best channel to watch it on'

And I say to them...PPV is killing the sport baby. You gotta get back on terrestrial TV. People ain't gonna pay subscriptions and then pay out more money again

Boxnation is a good idea. But Frank ain't got the fights to make it worthwhile. We need it back on ITV I tell them. Then people can watch boxing again

The concept of boxnation was to service regular boxing fans who want to watch boxing on a regular basis. Warren figured there was enough of a market there that he could run a subscription channel to accommodate it. For many years people, me included, bemoaned the lack of boxing available on tv and boxnation was set up to try and meet that demand. Its not robbing boxing from terrestial tv. Its trying to make it available where it generally wouldnt be and bring it to fans who have a demand for it. Warrens is a boxing man through and through and his target audience is boxing fans.

Sky and Matchroom are going down a whole different road. They figure the isnt really enough of a boxing demand to justify putting on good cards on a regular basis. They wouldnt make the same profits. They know that most boxing fans who have Sky use it for multiple sports rather than just boxing. So they dont face a significant threat of people cancelling their whole subscription on the back of sub par boxing coverage. Despite having a huge stable with access to most of the UK's fighters, we can go weeks without boxing and then when it is shown its generally a really poor card in respect of the kind of fights that are available to them. They know many boxing fans will watch anyway due to lack of real alternatives. And instead of providing good regular boxing cards aimed at regular boxing fans, they serve dross most of the year and then go for big Box Office events designed to appeal to everyone. The kind of fans who may only want to watch boxing several times a year.

If you are boxing fan that likes good quality cards on a reqular basis, Sky and Matchroom have been a major disappointment. Boxnation is subscription, but at least its trying to satisfy a demand for a certain kind of boxing fan at a reasonable price. Sky Box Office is little more than a greedy profit making excercise.

Spot on Catchweight.

The majority of those willing to pay primarily for boxing are doing it for either nationalistic reasons or for the event and Boxnation tends not to cater for either of those things. I myself am more than willing to pay £15 to watch Brook, Mitchell, Selby and Joshua but I wouldn't be willing to pay that to see one or two American cards and a host of relative British no hopers. There are exceptions to the rule like Saunders/Eubank but aside from BJS Boxnation doesn't show the elite of British boxing and they are the boxers most want to see.

Despite being loaded and can afford Sky Sports I just refuse to give Murdoch any money

That is a very poor pastiche of Strongy, I expected better of you Steffan.

Well I am loaded so no point in denying it and pretending that I come from a humble background. I haven't earned it mind like Strongy has although I guess he could be from a very wealthy family as well

That was not the "bad for boxing" argument. People pay for what they want to see. Not paying for boxnation on priciple because its "bad for boxing" but forking out to watch Sky Box Office is warped.

Box Office is a way to profit off fans. Sky Box Office have been behind behemoths like Bellew v Cleverly II, Haye v Harrison and Brook v Gavin. Good for the sport?

At least boxnation is providing fights that otherwise would not be shown anywhere in the vast majority of cases.

Boxnation is the best and I always watch it

catchweight wrote:That was not the "bad for boxing" argument. People pay for what they want to see. Not paying for boxnation on priciple because its "bad for boxing" but forking out to watch Sky Box Office is warped.

Box Office is a way to profit off fans. Sky Box Office have been behind behemoths like Bellew v Cleverly II, Haye v Harrison and Brook v Gavin. Good for the sport?

At least boxnation is providing fights that otherwise would not be shown anywhere in the vast majority of cases.

It's not warped when one is heavily advertised with the fighters getting paid well for it while the other is barely known outside of boxing circles.

I paid for Brook vs Gavin and i'm glad I did; Selby was magnificent, Blackwell showed his grit with glimpses of Ryder's ability, two enjoyable domestic dust ups and the brilliant fight between Mitchell and Linares.

Its completely warped

Steffan wrote:Despite being loaded and can afford Sky Sports I just refuse to give Murdoch any money

Always makes me laugh this. To avoid giving money to Murdoch you'd need to never watch a 20th Century Fox film, never buy a book published by Harper Collins and countless other things I dare say we all do without knowing on a reasonably regular basis

When I came over to spend the summer here in 88.........There were about four cable channels and I think the only sport was on a saturday on some magazine program....

Hardly no sport at all..

I imagine the younger types on here probably won't remember life pre-sky.....

I won't knock SKY tv.............It's wonderful value for money....

As for it taking sport away from the public...............There wasn't any sport shown to take away from the public...

What the TV had then bar cricket...............It's still got..

Sky used to show plenty more boxing though back them days Truss home and abroad, money seems to be ploughed into F1 and Football. Sky are only interested in Boxing when it comes to PPV now. Manny v Floyd shows that - how many years was it since they aired a Manny or Mayweather fight before the May showdown. Sky have done their own thing of marginalising the sport. Khan had viewing figures of 7 million on ITV his next fight was 280k viewers on PPV Sky against Prescott.

Cheers, Rodders

I agree with you there rod....

I wrote an article when Froch fought Kessler on PPV.....(Hearn said it would be a one off back then I seem to recall)...........Saying If you buy this he'll do it again and again......

I didn't buy Froch - Kessler...

Also wrote an article saying I'm not buying Clev v Bellew because If you buy this he'll think he can sell any old crap...

I didn't buy Clev v Bellew...

Now the horse has bolted I feel obliged to buy or else I'd never see the top shows...