ITV lose boxing contract

Frank Warren has tonight signed a contract to take his stable of boxers to Setanta starting in September.

As I've stated before this deal has been an absolute joke for ITV with just 1 decent fight in the last 2 years. Having no pay per view outlet and having all other promoters contracted to Sky has seen Warren's influence decline and the result has been a load of pointless mis- matches and farces from ITV.

We need to get boxing away from pay-per-view and back on open-access TV. That said, ITV haven't lost much.

This is a great shame - what will Jim Rosenthal do with himself now???

Host football matched? Just a guess. OMG that means we don't get to see wee Barry McGuigan.

Ah, there's a bit more to this than meets the eye, as today Frank Warren has announced a deal that will see ITV broadcast seven boxing events featuring Amir Khan over the next 12 months.

His fight this weekend, plus 5 more events featuring Amir will be broadcast on ITV in the next 12 months, as well as the Alex Arther V Enzo Maccarinelli bout in a few weeks' time.

I can see where this is heading. Amir will continue to make progress and his profile will rise further in the next 12 months before Warren takes him over to pay TV leaving ITV with nothing.

That said there are rumours promoter Mick Hennessey wants to move his stable over to ITV so there's hope yet.

But the reality of the siutation remains that if Amir makes it to a major world title bout it will not be on ITV.

From the last few fights (especially Khan's) that I've seen on ITV, I know I wouldn't pay to watch them, no great loss to ITV.

Well in my ongoing row with Setanta, I'm all in favour of this if I ever do get the damned service, but as a Welshman I would like to see Calzaghe's last few fights live on network TV.

If it runs from September however, I expect Calzaghe's unification bout to be the first Setanta matchup.

Let's hope it doesn't go beyond 3am though...

this is a great Loss to us al lI have actually enjoy boxing on ITV including tonight's offering

Khan wins....... as we watch an advert for ice cream!!

Good old ITV strikes again

Coming soon to ITV....... Hamilton wins F1 championship whilst we watch Barry Stott plugging Cillit Bang!

Why Shuold ITV care there boxing bugger that taking it way to PPV

I for one not Paying for it!

They are a commercial broadcaster. Get over it.

Why get over it??

The whole point is that the 'win' was missed as ITV were on a commercial break when the main fight was one. I don't even recall them showing this bit as a replay - just saying something like "it was just seconds before you returned"

So you say that if the FA Cup final goal is missed as ITV was on a break at the time - we shouldn't mind as they are a commercial channel?

If that is the case - then commercial channels who insist on putting ads in the middle of major live sports events - should not be allowed to show them!