Khan v McCloskey won't be on Sky Sports at all

Britain's leading boxing broadcaster, Sky Sports, confirmed today that Amir Khan's defence of his WBA light-welterweight title against Paul McCloskey will not be shown by them at all.

It has been some week for Team Khan and for the boxing bods at Sky Sports. On Monday it seemed all was well - next Saturday's card from Manchester's MEN Arena was going to be a PPV event with the chief support match being Tyson Fury v Hasim Rahman. News then came that Rahman wasn't coming and a frustrated Sky Sports drew a line in the sand of quality assurance and said the bill was not good enough for it to be showcased on Sky Box Office.

It was thought by most that Khan would take the financial hit whilst experiencing the advantages of being showcased to a much wider audience on Sky Sports 3.  However, a statement issued by the broadcaster this evening reads thus: "Khan vs McCloskey will not be shown on Sky Box Office or any of the Sky Sports channels as it has not proved possible to reach an agreement on TV scheduling.

"Financial terms were agreed and a solution was offered for the fight to appear on Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports HD3 following the decision not to broadcast on Sky Box Office. It was not accepted.

"The Khan vs McCloskey bill had been announced as a Sky Box Office event two months ago. Since then there were several changes to the bill so we made the decision - before the main promotional campaign started and Sky customers booked the event - to give it to Sky Sports viewers."

It is rumoured that nascent subscription channel Primetime, which has previously picked up Carl Froch contests which otherwise would have been lost to the British boxing fan, have seized what they must consider to be a surprising and welcome opportunity.

But the decision from Team Khan does seem remarkable. Although understandably angry at taking an unavoidable big loss, it is difficult to see how casting aside a relationship with Sky can be in their long term interests.

Had the investment and planning been there for a decent undercard in the first place (how the originally planned Matthew Macklin v Khoren Gevor, which also fell through, was accepted for PPV is beyond me) then the event would never have been pulled from SBO in the first place.