Ben Shalom remains confident “major broadcasters” will seek to be involved in the fight on April 26 between Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn.
Eubank-Benn is scheduled to finally take place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, but despite Boxxer’s status as the promoter of a fight certain to prove one of the biggest in Britain in 2025, it has been reported that their broadcast partner, Sky Sports, has reservations about being associated with it.
The long-term rivals were scheduled to fight in 2022, until Benn twice tested positive for the banned substance clomiphene.
He has consistently maintained his innocence and since been cleared of any wrongdoing by the National Anti-Doping panel, but the reputational damage caused by the cancellation of their first date, and Eubank’s association with the convicted spot-fixer Mazhar Majeed, are reportedly giving Sky Sports, long the leading broadcaster of boxing in Britain, cause for concern.
The date and venue for Eubank-Benn, in addition to details related to the undercard, were confirmed, but atypically for Boxxer a broadcaster – Boxxer have a long-term agreement with Sky Sports – was not.
Shalom, when asked about those reports, told BoxingScene: “Let’s see what happens. It’s a massive fight, and I expect the major broadcasters to want to be involved.
“Sky have their own view on every event, separate to our business, so they’ll make a decision based on their own event. I can’t really comment for Sky. Obviously it’d be a shame if they weren’t involved in such a huge, huge event. But, again, that’s a question for Sky. Sometimes you read things and you don’t know how much is in it. These things sometimes appear from nowhere; you don’t know the size of the issue.
“It is what it is, I’m not really reading too much into it. A lot of this happens in boxing. When fights get made there’s concerns about someone throwing a table, concerns about loads of things. So I just think it’s a process that they go through.
“I can’t speak on behalf of anyone. There’s a long way to go to that fight, and I don’t know how much to make of the story.”
DAZN, more recently, has also broadcast, alongside Sky Sports and TNT Sports, some of the promotions in which Boxxer has had a stake.
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