Boxxer promoter Ben Shalom has welcomed news that Amazon Prime has thrown their hat into the boxing ring.
PBC this week announced a multi-year deal with the streaming giants and Shalom says that can only be good for business.
Boxxer has a broadcast deal with Sky Sports in the UK and a partnership with NBC in the USA.
“It's brilliant,” Shalom said of the PBC-Amazon announcement. “I think all promoters want, I believe, are more networks in the sport, more networks pushing boxing, more networks finding boxing valuable to their platform and for Amazon to come in in this way, I’m really glad. I think US boxing needed it. PBC have been around for a long time and probably have had their best year this year, in a long time, so it was a worry, but [Al] Haymon always finds a way.”
Sky Sports are a traditional cable channel, and for years they have held the major rights to Premier League Football in the United Kingdom. That is the biggest commercial rights deal in sport in the UK, and that partnership was extended this week at a cost of £6.7b over the next four years.
For Shalom, even though there might be new competitors, that deal has crystallised Sky’s intentions in sport.
DAZN said they wanted to be the Netflix of sport, and Shalom thinks Amazon will do a good job.
“I think they’re a great broadcaster, but I think in this country we saw with the Premier League deal the other day, Sky Sports is the home of sport, especially in the UK, and I think that will stay the way for a long, long time. But Amazon have been in football, they’ve been in tennis, they’ve been in a lot of major sports and they’ve made their mark. It [sport] obviously works for them.”
