Sky's new dawn
QUICK THOUGHTS: After the big Matchroom break up, Sky Sports Boxing finally reveal their next move
Welcome to Double Dutch Boxing, a boxing newsletter from Jake Lawton. In this bonus edition, some quick thoughts on another tumultuous week in British boxing broadcasting and the potential ramifications across the board.
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Starting over
THE LONG READ
In a week when the football transfer window slammed shut and DAZN announced their monthly price increase in the UK market, Sky Sports finally showed their own hand at the top table of the fight game. New promoters, new fighters and a new schedule were unveiled on Wednesday - far from walking away from the sport, they have doubled down in the wake of Matchroom’s decision to go all-in with DAZN.
After signing four-year agreements with fledgling British promotion BOXXER and US heavyweight outfit Top Rank back in June (with the latter’s shows from the States already screening on Sky this summer), Sky Sports finally shared more details of how they will fill their UK dates and the void left by Matchroom’s departure. Analysing what has been confirmed already, and considering what might be on the horizon for the future, certainly makes for a fascinating landscape heading into the Autumn boxing schedule and beyond.
In terms of what we know so far, BOXXER will begin their Sky fight nights on 2nd October in London, with their second show in Newcastle two weeks later, and will deliver a combination of fight nights events and one-night tournaments, in the mould of the Ultimate BOXXER cards - think the successful Prizefighter format once seen on Sky Sports - which has been the upstart promotion’s bread and butter until now.
To fill these UK dates, BOXXER have signed a number of fighters to deals of varying lengths, including some former Matchroom regulars, to fight on Sky. These names have included established faces such as Hughie Fury and Lewis Ritson, along with lesser-known but highly-regarded talents. Acknowledging that their roster isn’t the largest at this stage, they will also be working with a number of other promoters - starting with Top Rank and Wasserman - in a strategic move that differs from the exclusive mandate Matchroom and Sky Sports had in place across the last decade. This isn’t such a closed shop anymore.
A few of the first fighters revealed for their roster stand out, especially amongst the female boxers. For me, Savannah Marshall is one of the elite women competing in the sport and the potential bout against Claressa Shields - three-weight world champion, two-time Olympic gold medallist and arguably the pound-for-pound number one female in boxing right now - is a genuinely massive fight with an in-built rivalry from their amateur days. Marshall remains the only person to defeat Shields, amateur or pro.
The fact that both Marshall and the “GWOAT” will be fighting on BOXXER shows in the UK going forward (after an agreement was reached with Shields’ home team Salita Promotions) means that the contest is unquestionably closer than ever before.
It’s one of boxing’s most exciting potential bouts and Sky delivering it in the UK would be a statement for sure. It would also be a bit of a bruiser for Eddie Hearn, who made no secret of wanting to deliver the fight when Marshall was competing on Matchroom shows. “Marshall vs. Shields is a superfight that can headline in the USA or England, and I will do everything to try and make it”, Hearn said back in May. He’s not wrong that it could be one of boxing’s best matchups, but it now looks like he won’t be the promoter who makes it.
Speaking of the sport’s best, Top Rank’s undisputed super lightweight champion Josh Taylor will now be competing on UK shows co-promoted by BOXXER and Bob Arum’s US outfit. After myself and others were left bemused at the ridiculousness of Taylor’s undisputed title fight with Jose Ramirez not being picked by a major UK broadcaster in May, Taylor will defend his titles against mandatory challenger Jack Catterall in December for a well-deserved major homecoming event.
Taylor has a roadmap for huge fights against the likes of Terence Crawford in the future, with his long-term goal to become a world champion at welterweight as well, and Sky feels like an excellent home for that journey.
Given this news, clearly it would have made sense for Sky to have picked up Taylor-Ramirez earlier this year, but we are where we are and I digress. Sky Sports have now put it on their YouTube page, which is something, I guess…
In a move that came as something of a surprise, decorated amateur and Tokyo Olympian Caroline Dubois will be going pro with BOXXER and Sky. Sister of heavyweight contender Daniel, this is a fighter who Mike Costello once said he was tempted to call the best female boxer he had ever seen. Caroline has massive potential as a crossover star and could perhaps be just the first of Team GB to go pro with Sky. They are certainly keen. “I can tell you there are a lot of conversations going on with the Olympians from every single angle”, said Adam Smith, Sky’s head of boxing, on the day of their relaunch. “I’m sure every promoter around the world has looked at the most successful team we have had in 100 years”.
Cruiserweight contender Richard Riakporhe is unquestionably a top-notch addition to Sky’s boxing output. A fighter with just 11 fights under his belt, Riakpohre has shown enough in his career so far to demonstrate that he will be a genuine force in the division for years to come. Holding victories against BOTH Chris Billam-Smith and Tommy McCarthy - fighters who made up such a major part of Matchroom’s UK DAZN launch Fight Camp line up, with their thrilling Commonwealth and British cruiserweight title showdown - and having left the management of Dillian Whyte, Riakporhe has the tools and marketability to be a major force. Having not fought since 2019 and being on the cusp of at least consideration for world honours, he’s a perfect fit for Sky’s brave new boxing world.
The name attached to the first BOXXER events that transcends the sport most is that of Chris Eubank Jr., who will be headlining the first event of Sky Sports Boxing’s new season in a month’s time.
Wasserman Boxing - Eubank’s promoter - have signed a co-promotional deal for their star name (and more fighters from their stable according to their latest mailshot) to box on Sky going forward. Falling short of a fully-fledged agreement for Wasserman shows to launch on the broadcaster, it’s been made clear that BOXXER are Sky’s lead UK partner promotion but that Wasserman will have a presence.
When the Sauerlands’ new outfit was announced in May, I looked in detail at the possibilities for Wasserman Boxing in the market and concluded that a regular presence on Sky to replace Matchroom might be on the agenda. Although that hasn’t quite happened in a traditional sense, this is a new age of collaboration and does at least mean a mainstream footprint for more of Wasserman’s boxers going forward.
Eubank will be fighting Sven Elber in the somewhat underwhelming main event of the 2nd October Sky show. The undercard includes David Avanesyan - who so impressively took apart highly-touted Josh Kelly earlier this year - defending his European welterweight crown against Liam Taylor in an intriguing clash, and the aforementioned Riakporhe opposite Krzysztof Twardowski, a fighter with a patchy record who has only once fought outside his native Poland. Riakporhe will be expected to look the business on a night when there will be a lot of eyes on his performance, with the focus on him at the same time people will be examining the performance of both BOXXER and Sky.
Two weeks later in Newcastle, BOXXER presents a card headlined by Hughie Fury opposite long-time heavyweight gatekeeper Christian Hammer, with both Lewis Ritson and Savannah Marshall also on the show.
For American fans, the intimation seems to be that the Sky Sports UK shows will land on ESPN and/or ESPN+, though nothing has been confirmed on this yet.
The reality is that there isn’t anything announced in the first run of Sky shows which will blow people away, but the fact that Sky will be remaining with a considerable imprint on the sport has to be a good thing, especially - but not solely - for British boxing. There are now more platforms on which fighters can increase both their name value and their income, and for fans, there will be more big-time shows coming to the UK.
It is also clear that this is just the start of Sky’s new boxing journey, something which Adam Smith and others have readily acknowledged, and the beginning of a new era in which they will be looking to build fresh stars from their small stable. After losing an entire roster of talent to DAZN, Sky Sports have put their money on potential and investing for the long-term.
Speaking of starting journeys, the new lead UK promoter on Sky can certainly be considered a brave, surprising - and potentially exciting - choice. At just 27 years of age, Ben Shalom is on a meteoric rise in the sport.
Having only delivered a handful of shows with his BOXXER promotion in his career, he now finds himself with one of the most high-profile gigs in world boxing and the power of the Sky promotional machine behind him. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of Shalom’s shows in the past, and am fascinated to see what might be achieved with a considerably larger budget and list of objectives, but it’s a huge step up.
Shalom will be the antithesis of Eddie Hearn in many ways - he’s unlikely to appear on camera much at BOXXER shows, and he doesn’t even have his own social media account. It will be interesting to see if the production style differs as much from the accepted norm of Sky’s previous boxing delivery.
Pay-per-view boxing on Sky Sports has been a contentious subject for fans over recent years. It’s certainly true that some sub-standard events placed on Box Office towards the end of the Matchroom agreement were below the level most would expect, something which has been accepted to some degree by the industry itself, and the hope is that Sky will have learnt a lesson from this.
If the rumours of Sky being the successful bidder for the impending Amir Khan vs Kell Brook fight - a bout which would be happening at least five years too late, but it seems to be happening nonetheless - then I’d expect that to be behind a paywall, and Chris Eubank and Kalle Sauerland have both intimated there may be a pay-per-view-worthy opponent in the works for Junior. In general, however, Sky’s relationship with pay events looks like it will be noticeably different, at least for the time being.
That is, of course, unless AJ decides to stick with Sky rather than join DAZN.
Britain’s biggest boxing star, Anthony Joshua, is the elephant in the room of the whole situation. AJ’s next fight, defending his unified heavyweight titles against Oleksandr Usyk later in September, is the last on his current contract with Sky. After that, he will need to make a call on where his broadcasting future lies in the UK as the AJ auction will begin in earnest. I had previously been fairly sure he would end up on DAZN, but now I’m not certain what will happen.
Failing to sign Joshua would be a huge blow to DAZN’s UK expansion plans. Signing him, on the other hand, would go a long way to truly establishing the platform in the market, at a time when many are questioning their price increase in Britain - with the UK cost per month going from the £1.99 intro rate way up to £7.99. This puts DAZN in direct competition with the likes of Netflix and Disney+, which does feel incredibly aggressive for what is currently pretty much a boxing-only app - especially at a time when there has been a total lack of Matchroom USA shows since May, and there is the serious possibility that Golden Boy will leave DAZN for Triller when their contract is up. For many of their customers, this all paints a far-from-ideal picture for the upstart streamer in the boxing landscape.
Signing AJ changes a lot of that perception overnight.
The amount of money Joshua can generate from Sky Box Office events could prove a powerful negotiation tool though. DAZN have huge financial backing, and equally huge plans, but the early Matchroom shows in their new deal haven’t featured blow away cards. AJ and Eddie Hearn have a very close working relationship, but Joshua’s team at 258 Management (who now oversee the careers of the likes of Joshua Buatsi and Lawrence Okolie) might see an opportunity for their suite of fighters with Sky which isn’t readily available on DAZN, at least while the sports streamer remains a comparatively smaller player in the game. I can’t call which path Joshua will take.
Adam Smith has been bullish about Sky’s chances in the AJ bidding war this week…
“We’ve made him (Joshua) a superstar on Sky. It is key how we build fighters. I’d be naïve to say we would be happy to let him go off into the sunset. We will be fighting very hard to keep him. I have a very good relationship with AJ and his team. He is a very loyal guy. He has stayed with Eddie Hearn, he has stayed with Rob McCracken and we believe he will stay with Sky.”
Either way, in the new battleground of British boxing, AJ’s decision will be a real game-changer - or “GAME.CHANGER.”, as DAZN might prefer to put it.
Matchroom have made a solid if unspectacular start to life on DAZN in the UK. This weekend’s show in Leeds (Warrington-Lara II) and October’ Liverpool event (Liam Smith vs Anthony Fowler) are definitely a step in the right direction, but they should be the bare minimum given the level of hype built up by Eddie Hearn and others in the wake of Matchroom’s broadcast move.
Hearn’s outfit and DAZN have already made a huge commitment in striking their exclusive broadcast deal, and it’s one which for them both absolutely has to work. Matchroom will not take any potential business gains made by BOXXER/Sky lying down, and it sets up the potential for a new golden age of rivalry for the top level of UK boxing as both sides vie for supremacy.
I remain cautiously optimistic that the announcements from Sky this past week will be a net positive for the sport, not just in Britain but across the boxing world. The first cards may not go down as classics, but in the longer term, an additional platform for boxing will mean the bigger fights are more likely to happen more often. Increased competition should mean a better product for boxing fans.
If the collaborative nature of this new approach from Sky delivers success, maybe the likes of PBC - who so rarely make fights outside of their own ecosystem - will follow suit. If you combine this with the WBA’s current enforced actions which are at least partially cleaning up their chaotic, corrupt mess of titleholders, then maybe we are heading towards a boxing utopia of one world champion per weight class and the best fighting the best...or maybe not. Surely things can only get better though eh. Long live the dream.
Boxing is far, far from being the sport it could be. The potential emergence of a new UK boxing force on Sky and the increased competition with Matchroom and their new platform, each with big ambitions, means there will be more opportunities for fighters. It also means that there is a higher probability, however slim the uplift, that the sport can get closer to being the boxing we, as fans, all want it to be. That has to be a good thing.
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