By Sean McDaniel: For British boxing fans that want to see WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s fight against Mikkel Kessler on April 24th, they will have to watch it on Primetime television network. Since Froch’s bouts aren’t being shown on terrestrial television, the only option for fans is to see Froch on pay-per-view in the future unless some of the television stations change their mind and start showing his fights.

This is really a negative thing for Froch, because it likely means that he’ll be seen by far less people and it could potentially hurt him in becoming a huge star in the UK like Ricky Hatton, Amir Khan and Joe Calzaghe. Froch’s promoter Mick Hennessy said to the BBC Radio Nottingham, “For marquee fights right now, it seems pay-per-view is the only route. Everyone’s going to be disappointed that boxing’s not on terrestrial televisions, because it’s not free to air and it goes out to the masses.”

Previously, Froch’s fights have been shown on both the BBC and ITV. However, neither of them picked up Froch’s exciting fight against American Andre Dirrell last October. A lot of boxing fans missed out on seeing what turned out to be a very close fight filled with a lot of action.

Hennessy says “It’s just right in this day and age, because it’s hard for terrestrial TV to find the money that’s necessary to make a fight like this” [Froch vs. Kessler].

This is unfortunate because Froch’s fights need to be seen by the casual fans so that they can get for familiar with him as a fighter. Once Froch is better known, then a move to pay-per-view would seem like a reasonable option. But by having Froch’s fights on PPV before he’s even become a huge star, it seems to be a limiting factor in making him a huge star like Hatton in my view.