Comments Thread For: “Fighting Words” – Free Fights, Pugilistic Piracy: Boxing, Broadcasts and Bootlegs

[TheKza]

Boxing was not always a pay per view sport, before that big fights were shown on televisions. But these money grubbing bastards want to make the most money possible out of every fight and because of that boxing is less popular than it could be.

Now, i already see a couple of you replying. But, Money Mayweather has pay per view buys in the millions! Sure, but the people who bought that are boxing fans. Ask a random person on the street who is the heavyweight champion and he most likely won't know.

30 years ago boxing was a sport for the people, but in the 80's they introduced pay per view and nowadays it's pretty much normal for boxing fights to be on ppv.

Personally i say **** 'em, i'll use internet to download and stream fights for as long as i can. If it was 20$, i'd buy some of them, but 50$+ is a roberry.

They could just make deals with big television channels and make just as much money off publicity. But they would rather make boxing an exclusive sports and rob the people for fights that aren't worth the pricetag half the time.

But you would pay for the Pacquiao v Mayweather fight???

[sweetpea87]

I record every fight I watch and burn it to dvd. I also have a huge collection of old fight I have bought online. I don't do streams but its not a bad idea because paynig $60 for HD PPV fights is ridiculous.

[Tweezy316]

by David P. Greisman - It is the night of Antonio Margarito’s fight against Roberto Garcia. I find an online stream of what is otherwise being shown on pay-per-view for $40.

It is the day after U F C 101. I search on YouTube for video of A nderson Silva’s destruction of Forrest Gri ffin, which was the co-feature bout on a $45 pay-per-view.

It is three years after the pay-per-view rubber match between Antonio Tarver and Roy Jones Jr. I open a package and pull out a DVD I bought online that includes Nate Campbell’s technical knockout of Kid Diamond, a bout from that show’s undercard.

I should feel guilty. All of this is illegal. All of this is increasingly common.

This is the struggle seen in various entertainment industries: How do you make money when the technological evolution has not only made so much information available, but made it available for free? How do you keep from losing money when technology has made it easier for people to bootleg your product instead of buying it? [Click Here To Read More]

This is why Mayweahter vs Pacquiao will not outsell Mayweather vs De la hoya. Hell it might not even outsell Tyson vs Holyfield II. But it will be the most hyped fight of all time!

[Khalid X]

by David P. Greisman - It is the night of Antonio Margarito’s fight against Roberto Garcia. I find an online stream of what is otherwise being shown on pay-per-view for $40.

It is the day after U F C 101. I search on YouTube for video of A nderson Silva’s destruction of Forrest Gri ffin, which was the co-feature bout on a $45 pay-per-view.

It is three years after the pay-per-view rubber match between Antonio Tarver and Roy Jones Jr. I open a package and pull out a DVD I bought online that includes Nate Campbell’s technical knockout of Kid Diamond, a bout from that show’s undercard.

I should feel guilty. All of this is illegal. All of this is increasingly common.

This is the struggle seen in various entertainment industries: How do you make money when the technological evolution has not only made so much information available, but made it available for free? How do you keep from losing money when technology has made it easier for people to bootleg your product instead of buying it? [Click Here To Read More]

easy solution to your problem

I don't have any issues with people who cap and make dvd's. Reason being is there is no outlit to go buy fights. IF there were, then I would get them legally buy paying for them. With that said, I think the solution would be to offer them for download with encryption to were you can't make a copy or hack and get the d/l for free.

This is not impossible and Directv does this with there tv shows, programing etc. They let you save a copy to your harddrive, but it's encrypted to the point that its a one time thing and no one has ever broken it. The ability to do it is there, and all they would have to do is talk to service providers (IT people in general) to get it to work.

If HBO offered d/l HD version of their fights, then their would be no production cost, so even if they didn't sell a lot of those (the biggest reason that is holding them back) they won't lose any money if they flop. With those sales, they could then split up the profit (do a percentage base system) to all of those who own a claim to the fight, and everyone wins as that is money being made that those guys would have not seen, due to those fights sitting in the vaults and no one collecting money off of them.

[Gonzalez_Boxing]

easy solution to your problem

I don't have any issues with people who cap and make dvd's. Reason being is there is no outlit to go buy fights. IF there were, then I would get them legally buy paying for them. With that said, I think the solution would be to offer them for download with encryption to were you can't make a copy or hack and get the d/l for free.

This is not impossible and Directv does this with there tv shows, programing etc. They let you save a copy to your harddrive, but it's encrypted to the point that its a one time thing and no one has ever broken it. The ability to do it is there, and all they would have to do is talk to service providers (IT people in general) to get it to work.

If HBO offered d/l HD version of their fights, then their would be no production cost, so even if they didn't sell a lot of those (the biggest reason that is holding them back) they won't lose any money if they flop. With those sales, they could then split up the profit (do a percentage base system) to all of those who own a claim to the fight, and everyone wins as that is money being made that those guys would have not seen, due to those fights sitting in the vaults and no one collecting money off of them.

Good points. It would be easy for all the major Networks and promoters to offer digital downloads. For a while Showtime offered downloadable fights for $1.99 via iTunes. They started with 2 fight and never offered anything after.

As far as downloads. You cant stop a pirate, but you should offer legal alternatives to people who are willing to support the sport.

[UND]

Tbh fights aren't shown in every country, most of the HBO fight arn't broadcasted in the Uk and else where so its difficult for people to view these fights. If they were available world wide to download from such websites for a fee, or even subscription more people would watch more fights and pay to do so. Even so there are still people that even with easy access to fight chose to rather watch a stream or download the fights.

[T.Horton]

Honestly, I don't think any media outlet should be crying over lost revenue dollars. If these ppv's were affordable for the average fan people (for the most part) wouldn't steal them. they're treating us fight fans like crackheads....they know they got what we want so they sell it to us at outrageous prices.

I remember one classic from the pay per view king, Oscar, de la Bigmouth, he said 'yeah it's eighty bucks but if ten or twenty of your friends throw in five bucks each....

fluck you Oscar. Have you gotten over your phobia of the pizza man since Manny laid you out?

[Tomasio]

Some of these PPV cards aren't even worth all the money they are charging! As a matter of fact some ain't worth ****! They charge the viewer an extra $40-$60(I say extra cause the viewer is already paying for HBO, SHO, ESPN ect threw their cable or satellite company)for a show that the under card suck's & the main event doesn't turn out to be that good & that's a lot of $$$ to be paying for 1 decent fight..For example on the Mayweather vs Mosley card the main event wasn't bad(nothing to go crazy about) but the under card ****** & on the Cotto vs Pacquiao was just about the same thing except the main event was a little more exciting than the 1 mentioned before, but still WAS NOT WORTH WHAT MUCH $$$..Then they put cards on PPV like these "Latin Fury" where Julio Cesar Chavez jr is the head liner & they are pathetic! I've seen WAY BETTER fights on boxing cards(& note that at times the whole card was better than some of these PPV) on ESPN, Telefutura, & even when "Tuesday Night Fights" were around on USA network..Sometimes they throw PPV cards with fighters that aren't really that known, for example Saturday the main event on the PPV card was 122lbs WBO champ Wilfredo Vazquez jr vs totally unknown Zolt Bedak & co-main event was 130lbs WBO camp Rocky Martinez vs another totally unknown Gonzalo Mungia, the fights were really good, but these fighters are not PPV material cause they are not house hold names & not that many people order these fights & for that matter these fighters do not get the exposer they need & should be getting..The card on Shotime last weak between Mares vs Perez & main event Marquez vs Vazquez could have easily landed on PPV & people would have paid the extra $$$ for it & it would have been worth it...So if these greedy promoters & networks want to make extra $$$ by putting these cards on PPV, then I don't see nothing wrong with the fact that some people are streaming these fights for free online(& sharing them) & some watch them for free on jacked up satellite receivers cause some if not most of these PPV cards aren't worth the money they are asking for & others ain't worth ****!..... I remember the days when legends like Duran, Hagler, Hearns, Benitez, Gomez, Sanchez among others fought on REALLY FREE NETWORKS(no cable or satellite channels) like ABC, NBC & CBS, yes regular channels that you could receive with a regular antenna anywhere in your house...

[snake]

Please...did online streams stop Mayweather and Pacquaio from doing over 1 million buys in their fights? Do online streams keep the UFC's from doing 400,000+ on a regular basis? Pfft.

For the UFC, missing their ppv is not too big a deal as the dvd's of their events are dirt cheap, contain extras and event footage before and after the show, and are easy to get at the store. The dvd's are so affordable there is no reason to steal anything.

The UFC dvd's sell enormously well and are a second huge source of revenue for the company.

Boxing on the other hand has ignored the dvd market and the only way to see any fights at all from the past is on ESPN Classic, or search around on Youtube. No Marquez-Vasquez boxed set of the trilogy with interview extras and behind the scenes footage? Boxing still hasn't caught up with the times.

[NECK SNAPPER]

The cards have to have more than one good fight
your watching fights with nobody there but the judges somtimes
at least fill the under card with prospects knocking out guys
live boxing should be exciting not match up two guys that
fudge there way 10rds of boring boxing its called fight night for a reason