Is watching boxing becoming too expensive? by Craig MacKay Jan 15th 2008

BBN welcomes another new writer in Craig MacKay. The recent announcement that the long awaited fight between David Haye and Enzo Maccarinelli was taking place in March had many a British boxing fan struggling to contain their excitement at the thought of going to the O2 Arena to watch the two devastating punchers slug it out. That was of course until the ticket prices were announced, ranging from the cheapest at £60 to ringside seats at a whopping £1,100! Just to guarantee getting a floor seat will set you back at least £220. Of course boxing, like anything, is all about supply and demand. For a fight as big as this, there will be plenty of people willing to pay these exorbitant prices. This fight does make one wonder however, how expensive is it to be a fan of boxing? Tickets for live sporting events are always going to be expensive; the cheapest price to see Chelsea FC play at home is £35 while watching the Wimbledon final on centre court will set you back well over £1,000 with some brokers. So what do fans do that can't afford to go to or are unable to get to live events? They try and watch it live on TV. Of course, watching it on TV can never substitute for the atmosphere of being there in person, but does it at least give everyone a chance to watch it? Before SKY, boxing was shown on terrestrial TV and everyone who had a TV had access to it.  That's not the case nowadays. With the subscription only SKY sports finding its way into many homes, SKY had the power to outbid terrestrial channels for big sporting events, including boxing. Then along came an idea from the USA - the Pay Per View. PPV as it's known is for exceptionally big events, where despite the subscription service, the TV companies will charge you an extra £15-25 for an event. Ricky Hatton's last fight with Floyd Mayweather cost £14.95 on top of the usual SKY subscription and came complete with a set of undercard fights that could well have made you fall asleep even if the 4.30am start time didn't. Those without a SKY subscription have no opportunity to watch these fights and even those with SKY Sports have to pay extra to watch the fights they don't want to miss. Add onto this the new £9.99 a month on top of your subscription sports channel Setanta winning the rights to a number of the big fights of 2008, such as the David Haye and Enzo Maccarenelli bout, and you have one expensive year. Of course, it is very easy to complain about the costs and state they are prohibitive to some fans, which is a real shame, but is boxing any different from other sports? Football is far and away the biggest sport in the UK and it also is certainly not a cheap sport to follow. For top-level football, fans will be paying at least £30 a match and they're upwards of forty games per season to watch, setting you back at least £1,200. Boxing is in some ways unique as a sport - most people don't support a single fighter. Many fans just want to see great fights.  Everyone has their favourites and will travel the world to watch one particular boxer, but most fans would love to see all the big fights across the world. Comparisons can possibly be drawn with motor racing - it's relatively easy to get to local race tracks to watch stock car racing or karting but it will cost you a (not so) small fortune travelling the world taking in all the F1 Grand Prix. If you are not desperate to be ringside at all the big fights, you can certainly get decent seats for a lot of fights happening in the UK, as well as great seats for the smaller bouts happening up and down the country every week. Hatton fans coming back from Vegas may well be carrying pretty light wallets but trips like that are going to be once in a lifetime for many who were there. Being there in person isn't the only option and there are some advantages to the subscription TV channels for the fan. Coverage of boxing before satellite television is incomparable to the coverage today. Just a quick glance at this year's boxing schedule on Setanta lets us see a number of mouthwatering bouts from both sides of the Atlantic available to subscribers. Even PPVs have their upsides, a few of my best nights have been inviting a group round splitting the cost between us and getting the beers in to watch the big fight. The cost doesn't work out any more expensive than a night out and I know I enjoy it more, despite the slight resentment at having to pay on top of my already expensive monthly TV subscription. If paying monthly TV subscriptions isn't an option for the boxing fan then there are still some top class bouts being shown on terrestrial TV. Joe Calzaghe v Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika and Peter Manfredo have all been shown on ITV recently, although his fight versus Mikkel Kessler was and his next against Bernard Hopkins will be on Setanta. Frank Warren has signed a deal with ITV to show Amir Khan's bouts and ITV know that this guarantees viewing figures due to the huge public interest surrounding the Olympic silver medallist.  (ITV's Mark Sharman is considering withdrawing from covering boxing as he feels it isn't viable at the moment - Ed.)  2007 was a great year for British boxing and the increased exposure and high levels of public interest led to the BBC replaying the Calzaghe Kessler and Hatton Mayweather fights in full a week or so after the bouts took place. Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton took first and second places respectively in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year contest, to further highlight the level of public interest in boxing right now. This can only help persuade the BBC or ITV to pull out all the stops to win the rights to some of the top fights or at the very least carry on replaying fights in full that are unavailable to the terrestrial TV viewer. If you crave the live boxing experience but can't find enough pennies down the back of your sofa for a ringside ticket to see Haye v Maccarenelli then why not go online to find your local boxing club and check what shows they are putting on locally? Sure, it may not be quite the same as seeing a world champion in a packed arena but who knows maybe you will be watching a star of the future and it won't cost you the earth to do so. All in all, top class boxing may be relatively expensive to watch on TV and even more expensive to watch live but at least now we do have the opportunity to choose what fights we watch and get to see bouts that only a few years back would never have made it onto our screens. If ticket prices for boxing continue to rise then the only solution is to stop buying them and that's exactly what I will be doing for the Haye-Maccarinelli bout, a "cheap" night in watching on TV will have to do for me!

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great read and i agree Jan 15th 2008, 12:27:00 by dazzer the prices now to watch a boxing show are a lot of money for mainly one evenly matched fight. Take for example frank warrens shows his undercard fights are real boring because you know who will win and very easy aswell. I went to cardiff for calzaghe kessler and that had to be the worst undercard i have ever seen at a boxing show also staying in the arena till 2am to watch the main fight So are we the paying public getting are moneys worth? I do not mind paying 60 pounds for a night of evenly matched fights, but one fight 60 pounds no way, the shows a few years back were great nights you sometimes had 4 world titles fights and they were great nights for boxing but the last few i have attend have been poor. Small hall shows now in london cost £40 i think that is a lot of money so i do not get to many of them shows £30 i think is a fair price.