Khan vs McCloskey moved from Sky PPV to Sky Sports 3

**JazMerkin** · 04-12-2011 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

You're right I don't know how the UK public buys ppv over there, I'm just getting the info from British boxing fans from other boards that fills people in on how it works. Correct me if I'm wrong but I was told that Primetime or whatever was some small channel that most of the UK doesn't have and that it was a mistake from team Khan switching to it? Because although Khan would be relegated to fighting on SS3 for this McCloskey fight it will still be a much bigger audience because it's Sky compared to PPV Primetime? I was told that if one isn't fighting on the Sky network or terrestrial television then people won't know that you're fighting? You can even be fighting great matchups and on some PPV brand but if it's not Sky, no one cares? Again that's what I've been told.

About Pac, no he's not a big star over in the UK, but in the US he is. He was in matches that boxing fans considered to be bad matches such as Clottey and Margarito, but one did 700k ppv buys and the other 1.15 million buys. What I'm trying to say is that certain guys can manage to do those kind of PPV numbers in bad matchups. Pac is one, Floyd is most definitely the other. I just read that Khan only manage to pull only 50 advance orders of the PPV fighting McCloskey, although that's not the final number but is extremely low. So it seems to me that Khan isn't one of those stars that can manage to get people to order the PPV in bad matchups.

Primetime isn't big, but what Team Khan were asking for in being on Sky Sports 1 or 2 is not unreasonable. Sky Sports 1 has the Barcelona-Real Madrid game which it makes no sense to push around. Sky Sports 2 however is showing a replay of a game played 5 hours earlier. That could much easier be shifted to Sky Sports 3 which has the lowest viewing numbers of all the Sky Sports channels. Not to mention many homes choose to pick up the SS1 & 2 package, because Sky Sports 3 invariably only has Golf & the odd game of Darts on.

Sky have made a quite frankly bizarre decision. Those buying the fight would have done so for Khan. They've basically appeased those who would likely have streamed the fight. What it all depends on now is if Khan's people are willing to promote the fact the fight is on Primetime. One thing that won't change is that anyone who goes to book the fight on Saturday, will go to either Sky Box Office or Virgin On Demand & will find the PPV in the live events folder. He's missing out on some audience, but then it's a gamble of whether he will make more than the 100k he would have got on SS3.

Anyone who has Sky can still get this fight. Anyone who has Virgin can still get this fight. The only people who can't are people who have BT Vision or freeview. Neither gets Sky Box Office, and BT Vision gets only Sky Sports 1 & 2. So he's not missing out on viewers on that front. What he does miss out on is the promotion he gets on Sky, but it depends how much they'd do in the last week.

It also boils down to the fact that Sky would rather have a recorded football match on a premier channel than Khan-McCloskey. If I was Khan I'd feel pretty affronted by that. To me by asking for that & then going to ITV (which has full national coverage), it seems Team Khan's first thought was on exposure rather than money. Then when they couldn't get that, they've gambled that they will make more from Primetime's PPV than the 100k Khan himself would get from SS3.

He's in no way throwing away his career. Shit, as long as he's got HBO behind him, he's laughing.