By Terence Dooley
When news filtered through to me back in mid-May that Sky were planning to pull the plug on boxing PPVs after suffering a mixed year with the platform it sparked a muddle of emotions. Thoughts of saving PPV money over the course of the season were balanced by fears of the knock-on impact. Long seen as a necessary evil, PPV events have been a fixture since fight fans opened the floodgates by digging deep for Frank Bruno’s WBC heavyweight title defence against Mike Tyson in 1996 and have thrown up some great nights of action.
Indeed, the format flourished during the cash rich late-nineties and early-noughties, with Sky delivering big nights of boxing action often featuring cards from both sides of the Atlantic. Other networks, Setanta and Primetime amongst them put on pay-per-view events but it was Sky who lead the field when it came to asking for a little bit more for a lot extra.
Sky, however, have allegedly blamed their decision on events that took place during the past season. Amir Khan switched to Primetime PPV in April after Sky decided that the undercard for his homecoming fight with Paul McCloskey, which saw three outfits, Khan Promotions, Hatton Promotions and Matchroom join forces in one capacity or another, was not fit for their PPV platform. Attempts to switch the show to regular Sky Sports prompted Khan and his team to exercise their right to seek full financial recompense.
David Haye joined the Sky PPV train in 2009; his decision win over Nikolay Valuev attracted around 800,000 purchases and represented a triumph for the network. Sky pushed it as a ‘David Versus Goliath’ clash, generating the casual buzz needed to make PPV really pull its weight.
Haye, though, blotted the copybook during the 2010-2011 season; his fight with Audley Harrison was viewed as an embarrassment, a feeble main event underpinned by a card that was raised from the mediocre by George Groves’ war with Kenny Anderson.
Many within the sport tolerated this misfire. This writer had called for Haye-Harrison as soon as Audley detonated a left hook on the jaw of Michael Sprott to win the EBU crown in April 2010 due to a belief that ‘A-Force’ would produce enough attacking venom to sharpen Haye up, entertain the fans and, more importantly, ensure that interest continued to swell around Hayemaker’s long anticipated showdown with Wlad Klitschko.
In retrospect it was wrong from the start. The atmosphere of mutual loathing generated by Haye and Audley sold the fight to the general public yet the failure of the occasion itself was a black eye for the sport and did nothing for Haye apart from swelling his bank balance. David would have been best served by taking on one of the top ranked guys in order to ensure that he had quality rounds under his belt going into the Klitschko fight.
This brings us onto the heavyweight title unification meeting itself, a fight that was a natural for pay-per-view, was marketed to perfection and then shot itself in the toe by putting the sport on the world stage and rocking an undercard that was amongst the worst ever put together for a fight of this size. We needed a stunning main event to make up for the starter, although Haye and Wlad put on an interesting fight it was not the triumphant showcase that many, Sky amongst them, had promised.
No doubt chastened by the year’s events, a Sky source told The Telegraph that, “We spend too much time trying to do deals on boxing for a limited return and do not think it’s fair on our audience to ask them to pay more for boxing. That is not to say we will never return to pay-per-view. It’s just not right for us at the moment.”
In the midst of all this there was a ray of hope, December’s ‘Return Of The Magnificent Seven’ bill saw a Frank Warren-promoted domestic show featuring James DeGale, Paul Smith, Tony Bellew, Frankie Gavin, Kell Brook, Nathan Cleverly and Matthew Macklin was topped by Amir Khan’s Las Vegas bow, a twelve round war with Rene Marcos Maidana. It represented a return to the days of long nights spent in front of the TV watching bout after bout only for the format to take a downward spiral during 2011.
The news of PPV’s demise was greeted with cheers, boxing fans pay a monthly subscription for Sky Sports and expect to receive all their shows for this fee unless there is a good reason for shelling out for an event, as there was on paper going into the Klitschko-Haye match. However in pulling the plug Sky may have hit the sport with a body blow and further rumours that they could withdraw from boxing altogether down the line are sobering to say the least.
There is a distinct sense that this is a kneejerk move, the format makes money for Sky, despite the headaches, as boxing fans have traditionally shown a willingness to pay for big events.
Indeed, the network tried to take some of its football content pay-per-view when introducing a season ticket a few years ago. There were attempts to move one or two blue chip games to the format yet footy fans baulked at this, refused to pay and forced Sky to change tack. This was made possible by sheer pragmatics, there are a lot of football fans out there and the sport helped Sky reach prominence so if the football fans raise their voices it creates a storm that the corporation cannot ignore.
Boxing fans are a different breed entirely, we will grumble and groan before putting our hands in our pockets, especially if we are being sold a UK/US night of action rather than a single marquee fight and an undercard that looks to have been put together by the local undertaker. Every forum member trots out the, ‘I won’t buy this PPV line’, but someone out there purchases the shows and Sky have something Primetime currently lack due to their ability to broadcast in pristine HD.
Given the choice between an Internet feed and an HD broadcast that stretches beyond four hours most boxing fans will back the broadcaster as long as they do not milk the PPV udder too much and push their luck, as Sky did for a while before making their stance in April, a position that was undermined as early as July 2nd when the aforementioned Klitschko bill made Khan’s homecoming show look like a Don King mega-event.
If the fans pay, the promoters provide and the network shows fights rather than endless talk about a single fight – yes, I’m thinking about the over-analysis on the Haye-Harrison bill here – then PPV works, and works well. It covers its own production costs, which must have risen in recent times given Sky’s ever increasing cast of panelists and analysis teams, plus the bills themselves and can secure a prime main event.
If a massively profitable fairground ride malfunctions and does a bit of damage, the owners do not scrap the equipment, the cause of the malfunction is examined, the ride is tested and it is put back on the market as the bottom line is God.
The bottom line when it comes to PPV is that it did work in the past, telecasting big British bills before moving Stateside for a US showcase. Although established pay-per-view names such as Ricky Hatton, Lennox Lewis and Naseem Hamed are not around in the current climate a bill that featured, say, Frank Warren’s main fighters or Matchroom’s key guys topped by a US show would represent value for money and make sense for all involved, including Sky.
Another worry is that Sky themselves are making it increasingly difficult to operate in the boxing business. Their head of boxing, Adam Smith, is a huge patron of the sport, no doubt about that, and clearly wants to engage in the type of fantasy matchmaking that fans engage in yet it is impossible to do this when the network is scaling back the money they pay for regular shows whilst asking promoters to up the standard of the product in a period of recession.
The old maxim, ‘A good tailor cuts his cloth accordingly’, has no room here, no matter how good the tailor, if you give him an inch of cloth and ask for a decent suit he will struggle. Ditto for promoters, Sky’s broadcast rights fee, which my research indicates falls between £70,000-£120,000 depending on the title at stake, seems a lot yet there have been fights this year in which one of the two main fighters have pocketed most if not all of the broadcast fee. Fighters and their representatives drive a hard bargain, and rightly so, and are not to be constrained by the stagnation of Sky’s fees.
Throw in an undercard featuring a lesser title fight, the rest of the bill, other expenses etc. and there is every indication that Sky are being unreasonable when demanding a stronger, progressive product whilst paying yesterday’s, or even the day before’s, prices.
Short-term investment in the guise of higher fees for shows, with stipulations made as to the type of fighter featured on the show, would have benefits moving forward. Stars built up on the regular platform could then move to PPV as a group – Sky have tried to do this with 2008’s Olympians – and their contests broadcast in tandem with US bills that feature potential future opponents.
There is room for pay-per-view in boxing; if you disapprove of the cost of them and refuse to pay then you have that right. Those who feed the beast should be able to do so in the knowledge that the PPV money is ploughed back into the sport via development of names on regular shows and financial fees that encourage deep undercards. Then you can take people to task if they fail to deliver and do so with right on your side rather than lurching from one decision to another with seemingly no thought or aim, which has been the case with Sky’s PPV policy during recent years.
We basically come back to that old question, ‘Who wants to pay for Sky PPVs?’ I do, especially if they put something back into the sport and satisfy my need for six or eight hour boxing marathons. They can even throw in adverts, but we are not daft, we know Sky make money from those ads so will not countenance the idea that the network has been burned as badly as the people who paid for single fight PPV events in recent months.
If the shows are strong then Sky can justifiably move back into the market and in doing so dip into their huge boxing resources to provide content that will ring out over the ages. If their recent announcement ups the ante when it comes to providing the network with strong PPV cards then the punters could be the long-term beneficiaries, imagine that.
In part two we talk to a major British boxing figurehead to get an industry view of Sky’s PPV policy.
Please send news and views to neckodeemus@hotmail.co.uk