The Murky World of Pay Per View

Before Christmas, both Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren gave interviews to IFL TV talking about the Pay Per View situation in the UK and where both their companies stand in terms of their relationship with Sky. This has been a topic of much contention with people from all angles being brought into the discussion. In this article, I will hopefully clear up and summarise why there has been such confusion and what really is going on with Pay Per View in the UK.

On the 21st March 2015 it was announced that Sky Sports and Matchroom had extended their exclusive deal with each other to 2021. What this meant was that only Matchroom fighters could fight on Sky Sports unless Sky Sports and Matchroom came to an agreement that a fighter from another stable could box on Sky Sports. For example, George Groves, who is promoted by Team Sauerland, is boxing on Sky Sports 1 against Andrea Di Luisa on the 30th January 2016.

Eddie Hearn, the promoter of Matchroom Sports, was quoted saying 'we and Sky are exclusive; PPV is only on Sky'. Barry and Eddie Hearn have been saying throughout 2015 that they had exclusive Pay Per View with Sky. Now this is the problem that promoters such as Frank Warren and Mick Hennessy have with Eddie Hearn because this 'exclusive' deal is only exclusive to Sky Sports. Eddie Hearn has been saying that Matchroom Sports is exclusive with Sky and this is simply not the case. He is exclusive with Sky Sports, which is what Frank Warren and others have been trying to stress.

As Frank and his son George announced on IFL TV, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppgky7FF0jo) Box Nation are in talks with Sky about setting up a Pay Per View in 2016. Now this is a deal with Sky Box Office which is a completely separate branch of Sky to Sky Sports. The reason why this is so important is because Eddie Hearn has been telling fighters that the only way to get on Sky Box Office is if you sign with Matchroom Sports.

This has given him a huge bargaining chip in the race for promotion teams to sign up and coming prospects and it is simply not the case. Fighters have been convinced that they must sign with Matchroom in order to make any kind of real money which means that they will not want to sign on with Hennessy Sports or Queensbury Promotions. It also means that customers will not want to pay for the Box Nation package that is offered if they think that they cannot show the best fights on that channel.

This is why it is so important to clear up this Pay Per View mess because Matchroom and most notably Eddie Hearn have been creating, as George Warren calls it, a 'distortion' in the boxing market which has meant that other companies are losing out on potential revenue and fighters because of these inaccurate comments.

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44