Comments Thread For: Hearn Confirms Five-Year DAZN Deal For UK Shows, Ends Long Run With Sky Sports

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Eddie Hearn has finally confirmed a new five-year deal to bring all his UK shows to DAZN, ending a partnership between Matchroom and Sky Sports that goes back 27 years.
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[Kezzer]

Obviously a huge move and not totally unexpected however within the detail is one surprising thing for me.

the deal includes content specifically with Canelo Promotions & Eddy. there isn’t anything added about what this content/series is about at all. However you can surely read into it that a long term agreement has been made with Canelo in some form with DAZN / matchroom also?

[KingGilgamesh]

This is big news. This is REALLY big news TBH. Its a long time and boxing doesn't seem to be slowing down. I would have thought Sky would have fought harder to retain rights to PPVs. Really not sure whats going on here. Is Sky not willing to pay? Do they not see Matchroom as worth it? Will they attempt to forge a relationship with another stable??

I'm also torn on DAZN, tbh I think this move should have been the one they did first (though I am assuming that contractual obligations meant they shouldn't) but, at the same time, what will be the pricing strategy? £10 a month? Less??? I also can't imagine this being all that wonderful for UK based Matchroom fighters who likely wont get access to gate revenue and PPV bonus backends. But then I don't know if that was ever a thing here. I dunno, boxing purses seem way more secretive in the UK. There is nothing like the Nevada Athletic commission to verify minimum earnings.

This also seems rife for exploitation and moves one step closer to the UFC style model Hearn has always envisioned. I'm sorry but Hearn seems to have way greater power within DAZN than someone like Warren or Arum have among BT Sport and ESPN respectively. Will this end up exasperating the problem the Ali Act tried to fix???

[Eff Pandas]

[Dakuwaqa]

This is great news!

[James Hunt]

Nice to see he's leaving Comcast's puppet Sky.

[Ray*]

I see DAZN uk as Boxnation, just cheaper. Am all for it as long as we get fights that we all want. I don't pay for sky so i couldn't care less...

[Thuglife Nelo]

“DAZN sucks… who wants an app… how can it compete with Netflix or Disney?!” -LDBC PBC ret@rd

[GreatMalenko]

This is big news. This is REALLY big news TBH. Its a long time and boxing doesn't seem to be slowing down. I would have thought Sky would have fought harder to retain rights to PPVs. Really not sure whats going on here. Is Sky not willing to pay? Do they not see Matchroom as worth it? Will they attempt to forge a relationship with another stable??

I'm not in the UK but everyone there says that Sky puts almost all their money into football and have cut back on everything else. Evidently they have lost several other sports in recent years.

[BigZ44]

Only 16 shows a year seems like a low number to me, are they downscaling the amount of cards they will put on in the UK? I guess that would go along with Hearn talking about Brits ending up on more US cards now and probably means there will be a significant focus on putting on more international cards. Very curious and interested to see just where this goes and how it takes shape, as well as if Sky will stay in boxing and the route they choose, if they do