ITV Mulling Pay per View Sport

ITV is mulling over a return to boxing and, more significantly, putting the best fights on a pay-per-view outlet, perhaps in collaboration with Floyd Mayweather and his business associate, Al Haymon, the mystery man of the American fight game who has already put roots down in Britain.

It is a development welcomed by Eddie Hearn, whose Matchroom operation stands tall over Europe, with Sky funding.

“The more the merrier,” was Hearn’s response to the news, arguing that anything that raises the sport’s profile is good for everyone else. Well, maybe. What we don’t know is how far ITV is prepared to go with pay-per-view, because that is the only sustainable model in elite boxing – given that BoxNation is a subscription service, so not entirely free-to-air.


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SPORT on THEGUARDIAN.COM
22-Feb-2016 @ 13:39

ITV Pay?

Believe it when I see it.
Not sure how they would get coverage across all platforms (DSat & Virgin Media is easy, not sure how you'd get a ppv channel on standard Freeview) but, in the mindless pursuit of revenue..

If anybody was going to give money for PPV sport, I'm sure the majority of people would rather pay Sky than ITV purely based on their ability to provide decent sports coverage. I'm not a big football fan but I know there are people who'd rather listen to a match on the radio than watch it on ITV.

The other problem ITV has is, where would it broadcast it? What I mean is, would they go through the rigmarole of setting up a channel on digital satellite, just for maybe one fight or two, in a blue moon, and on PPV? I'm not sure on that. Sky and Channel 5 are general outlets for the sport nowadays, with Box Nation a more specific outlet.

Could one possible way m=be a tie up with Box Nation? Maybe Box Nation shows the fight live, and ITV screens the rerun?

Is it bad that the first thing I thought about when I saw this thread was the mess that happened with ITV Digital and ITV Sport.
I know its not the same, but I just have a bad feeling something like that would happen again. Ok not anywhere near the same scale, but can't imagine it working out well for them.

I remember PrimeTime. Not many other people do.