Exclusive - Hennessy Sports secure British TV for Friday's Shobox bill

BoxRec News can reveal that Hennessy Sports have secured British TV coverage for their Friday night bill at York Hall featuring John O'Donnell and Tyson Fury. 

Even trade insiders were perplexed that no news was forthcoming for UK armchair fight fans, bearing in mind that US broadcaster Showtime are sending a team to cover the bill as part of their 'Shobox: The Next Generation' series.

Forums lit up lamenting the apparently nonsensical situation as yet another anomaly was chalked up to 'only in boxing' or Hennessy being criticised for their inability to find a broadcaster.

The bill from York Hall, London, will be shown by nascent channel Premier Sports on the Sky platform, Channel 433, live from 9pm.  The monthly rate is £6.99, with a minimum two months' subscription and a connection fee of £5. Unfortunately, consumers on the Virgin Media platform will be unable to access the action.

The channel's website, premiersports.tv, offers a bit of background on their product.

"Premier Sports was formed in 2010 to primarily facilitate the broadcasting of sporting events that have been ignored by other broadcasters but have a very strong core following. Currently the channel focuses on Gaelic Games, league of Ireland Football, Blue Square Conference Football, NRL (Australian Rugby League) and Copa libertadores from South America."

The more TV coverage the better as far as most fans are concerned and if Premier Sports is setting out its stall to try and fill a gap left by the much-missed Setanta Sports, good luck to them.

"We believe in giving our customers a strong voice in how the channel is run and we constantly look at sports rights and make changes to our schedule based on requests from fans of the station on Facebook."

Sky Sports - with the return of Ringside and move to Saturday night prime time shows - have listened to fans.  Premier Sports are saying they'll do the same. 

Boxing fans aren't used to being treated with this level of respect and there's absolutely no doubt that the internet community via forums such as BoxRec's has played a significant role in this movement. 

More power to us - and to those broadcasters and promoters prepared to listen to us.