GR8? No, and not PPV worthy either
The very term ‘Pay Per View’ has led to some boxing fans sleepwalking into gradually emptying their bank accounts to watch the sport. It has led to the generally accepted view that anything which isn’t a one-off financial hit is somehow not ‘Pay Per View’. Well, that isn’t the case, is it?
Every televised boxing promotion is pay per view, just without the capital letters and the discrete promotion that goes into persuading you to part with your money for a one-hit wonder. The fact of it is this: if you want to ‘view’ boxing today via your television, you have to ‘pay’ for it, beyond your normal licence fee. This is still pay per view and regular subscribers surely offer a more lucrative model for the companies than the single hits as they’re probably paying something like £500 a year for the privilege.
These people should be looked after, shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t subscribers expect a really decent product to be readily available for that whacking sum?
By the way, Sky Sports does a fantastic job with and for boxing - and since the cancellation of the Wladimir Klitschko v Derek Chisora bout, the company has had the decency to offer refunds for disappointed customers. But the PPV question needs addressing for them as much as for us as it if isn't resolved they're going to alienate subscribers. A skim reading of fora makes this quite clear.
Anyone with even a modicum of foresight knew that the PPV model would become increasingly regular. But what constitutes PPV ‘worthiness’? Bearing in mind that subscribers are paying through the nose anyway, PPV events should be restricted to boxing’s genuinely big nights, not average fare publicised as unmissable television. There's a chance that the general public might believe this, cough up, tune in, drop out and not come back.
'Genuinely big night' might not mean an incredibly competitive match, by the way. Hatton v Pacquiao was what I call a boxing ‘FA Cup tie’ - and I love the FA Cup. The favourite would have to have an off day whilst the underdog would have to have the day of their life. It didn’t happen and it was a blowout – but not many would question that this fight was worthy of PPV status, mainly because Hatton was Hatton and British too, boxing an all-time great.
Rather than trying to offer a rigorous quality assurance process for PPV, let’s consider an easier one. What shouldn’t constitute subscribers having to put their hands in their pockets for another £15 on top of the considerable monthly fees they’re already spending?
Tonight’s Liverpool bill is, in my opinion, a prime example of a card which is in no way worthy of inclusion in a package with one-off PPV status. This is the type of fare which should be routinely served up for those already paying a considerable monthly premium to subscribe to Sky Sports. After being told that a night was planned to eclipse Birmingham’s ‘Magnificent 7’ bill well, (at least on paper) we haven’t got one, have we? Given my definition above, I don’t think the Birmingham bill on its own justified PPV status either. But at least viewers had Cleverly v Murat, Maccarinelli v Frenkel and a really even-looking match in Chisora v Sexton.
I don’t consider seeing potentially top-quality fighters taking on lower level opposition constitutes a fine night of boxing – no matter how many of them there are. Boxing is boxing and the home corner fighters could under-perform badly and the challengers box out of their skin (see Paul Appleby's demise last week as evidence of this) but the oddsmakers, usually good judges, have priced bouts up thus at the time of writing (best current prices too!): Brook 1/33, Cleverly 1/19, Macklin 1/25, Olubamiwo 1/19, Bellew 2/9 and DeGale 2/9 - and never mind Frankie Gavin's absence meaning much in competitive terms - he was as short as 1/100. None of the names on the card, either individually or collectively, are big enough yet to justify recession-hit boxing fans having to dig deep yet again.
Yes, one gets Amir Khan’s American fight against Marcos Maidana as part of the package but that’s a different argument. That is either worthy of PPV status on its own or it is not. This addition of the Liverpool bill to the PPV package only makes a positive difference to those who do not subscribe to Sky Sports and might be persuaded to make a one-off payment to see a lot of prospects. The irony is, regular subscribers (ergo, the biggest supporters of both boxing and Sky Sports) are being punished as they have to shell out again to see a card which should really be part of their normal offering.
Tonight’s Liverpool bill headlined, lest we forget, by a BRITISH title fight, sees a home corner packed with overwhelming favourites against men most of us know very little about. It should be part of a normal subscriber's package. Yes, there are a lot of potentially high-quality boxers on the bill…but ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’ doesn’t work for me.
We’ve now reached the stage where a card is happening in Britain with not a single ‘full’ world title fight on it – even in this age where they are not exactly difficult to track down – and without one ‘even money’ bout on the live, televised section of the bill…and hard-pressed subscribers are going to have to find another £14.95 to see it.
I can’t even say that this is the thin end of the wedge. I think that was breached some time ago.
