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THE BBC is “a disgrace” that for years has shunned boxing and deprived millions of fight fans from watching the sport’s finest fighters and best bills.
That is the consensus opinion of the boxing industry as a new outlet is sought for televised boxing following ITV’s withdrawal and the demise of Setanta, the self-styled “Home of Boxing”.
And while the BBC has recently urged the government to retain and expand the system that protects the screening of sporting events on free-to-air television, boxing has – yet again – flown under the radar. The government, which – clearly with the introduction of boxing into schools - boasts plenty of boxing supporters within its ranks, is reviewing the listing system for the first time in more than a decade.
Although one cannot be sure who will speak up for boxing on a panel headed by a football boss (FA chief executive David Davies is the chairman), a former Olympic hurdler (Colin Jackson), an ex-cricketer (Angus Fraser) and sports presenters like Eamonn Holmes and Dougie Donnelly.
There are four lists in all (and they do include some specific listings for home nations in football and rugby, not included here):
A1 Summer/Winter Olympics; FIFA World Cup; UEFA European Championships
A2 FA Cup Final; Football international qualifiers; Commonwealth Games
A3 Wimbledon finals; Rugby Union World Cup final; Rugby League Challenge Cup Final; Cricket World Cup Final; Twenty20 World Cup Final; Grand National; Derby
B Wimbledon; Rugby Union World Cup; Cricket World Cup; Twenty20 World Cup; Six Nations; Open Golf; The Ryder Cup; England’s home Test matches; British and Ireland Lions tours; Women’s World Cup/Euros/ICC Cricket World Cup finals.
Not a single mention of boxing, potentially one of the most-viewed sports in the country featuring some of its leading athletes.
Yes, the BBC screened some decent international matches earlier this decade on a delayed basis, such as Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti II and James Toney-Vassiliy Jirov, but they often broadcast them during the graveyard shift at midnight on a Sunday night, never giving the product a chance to succeed.
Were there ever any adverts letting viewers know when the fights were? Did they build up any of the fights the same way they do, for instance, football matches, Wimbledon and Formula 1?
Did they really try?
The fundamental problem with screening it so late, and on a Sunday, is that only die-hards would be awake to watch.
If ever there were a night of the week audiences would go to bed early it is Sunday, the eve of the working week. Boxing never had a chance.
In fairness to the Beeb, they bought the live rights to Lennox Lewis’ title defence against Hasim Rahman but that proved a disaster for the Briton as Lewis was out of shape, stunned and knocked out in South Africa. It was a huge upset but at least fight fans were able to watch the memorable scenes unravel without having to pay an additional PPV charge.
One must wonder, had that fight followed the script and Lennox impressed, would it have made a difference to the BBC’s outlook?
Of course, the Beeb was particularly burned by the Audley Harrison debacle. At one stage they had Carl Froch, David Haye and Harrison all on the channel. Do you see the odd one out? Boy, did they back the wrong horse. One can only imagine the figures a Haye or Froch fight could generate today on the Beeb had the network stayed with them over “A-Force”.
Picture Froch-Andre Dirrell and Arthur Abraham-Jermain?Taylor, the opening fights of the Super Six, on the BBC after the National Lottery on a Saturday night and before Match of the Day. Envisage Haye-Nikolai Valuev in the same slot. Throw in a couple of build-up appearances on Jonathan Ross (yes, the same show that recently snubbed a Mike Tyson interview), The One Show, A Question of Sport and one of a number of the cookery programmes on its schedule.
Add a few trails on the BBC news programmes (press conference and weigh-in stuff), perhaps even a build-up show – maybe on BBC 3 or attainable on iPlayer or by pressing the red button – and you have a ready-made audience.
How do we know that? Because previous statistics demonstrate that the right fights have immense crossover appeal. You can harp on all day about the ratings the likes of Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank attracted in the early ‘90s, but the fact is 27 million (for the two fights combined) is an awful lot of people. The United Kingdom stood still and watched in awe as the Brighton showman and the London bulldog went to war.
And the audience was, of course, hungry for more.
Of course, that was a top-of-the-line product. But four million tuned in to watch Harrison debut after his Olympic success and he was, how shall we say, modestly matched against American Michael Middleton. The problem was, there was little or no quality control enforced and Harrison’s future opponents, who would have been crudely described by American journalists in the 1930s as “tomato cans”.
What the BBC soon discovered, after that farcical 10-fight deal fizzled out, was that you couldn’t fool the public in boxing.
How many football fans would they get to tune in for Manchester United versus Kidderminster Harriers (non-FA Cup)?
Or, seeing as Audley fought several Americans, how many would watch Liverpool play the San Jose Earthquakes with nothing at stake?
The thing is, even though they bought so heavily and expensively into the Harrison hype, the fight fans remained. Four years on from that, nearly seven million started to watch Amir Khan fight after his exuberant journey to silver in the Athens Olympics of 2004.
In fact, 6.3 million watched his ‘Olympic rematch’ with Mario Kindelan and five million watched him blow away David Bailey, a fight that hardly had time to build an audience as it lasted just 109 seconds.
Still, as Khan moved up, and despite a number of quick wins, viewers tuned in – in their millions.
In his last ITV contest, against Michael Gomez, 5.7 million were watching – despite many comprehensively dismissing Gomez beforehand. In between Khan’s first and last fights on ITV some figures went far higher, such as the eight million peak during the Danny Williams-Audley Harrison clash (Khan was on the undercard), aided by a pre-fight scuffle at the weigh-in that made it on to the ITV?news programmes.
Even then the interest of casual boxing fans was being tested when they were forced to stay in or stay up until 11pm to watch the fistic fireworks.
Those fights were, of course, on ITV but on occasion viewing figures for Khan or Frank Warren’s ITV shows topped the BBC’s Match of the Day numbers.
What does that say? And, in the grand scheme of things (the top end of sport), they were not even enormously meaningful – or particularly attractive – fights.Of course, ITV is in the process of bailing out of boxing, too. But as a commercial entity they don’t have to answer to the millions of licence holders who would watch top quality boxing.
You see, the irony is that when boxing managed to get eight million on ITV and Harrison around five million on the BBC, fans were not getting top-quality boxing. They were watching successful Olympians dipping their toes into professional boxing. It was a new sport for them. They were not the best professional boxing had to offer at the time.
To continue with the football analogy, it was tantamount to watching Manchester United’s youth team up against a pub side.
But there is a demand to watch the best in boxing and the BBC was told that in no uncertain terms in 2007 (as Britain rejoiced with no fewer than seven ‘world’ champions) when their viewers voted two fighters into the top three of their prestigious Sports Personality of the Year awards. Ricky Hatton came third, but, following in the footsteps of Sir Henry Cooper (twice), Barry McGuigan and Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe won it, primarily based on his fine win over Mikkel Kessler in November; a fight that was, ironically, repeated on the BBC the Sunday after it happened.
To cap an excellent night for boxing, Calzaghe’s father, Enzo, scooped Trainer of the Year at the same ceremony.
A year later, Dorchester’s amateur coach Ben Geyser won the Unsung Hero Award at the BBC Sports Personality Awards and, for the record, Muhammad Ali (three times), Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield have all won the BBC’s Overseas Award.
Still, they saw fit to prioritise other sports with lesser stars and ploughed their resources into other things. They sent a team of 400 to cover music festival Glastonbury but could not manage one to report on the highest-grossing fight of last year, Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao.
And even though the BBC has no televised commitments to boxing – amateur or pro – it still finds a use for fighters on shows, such as Jonathan Ross, A Question of Sport and, last Saturday, aired a special episode of The Weakest Link with a cast filled with boxers.
Does this mean it realises their viewers have an interest in a sport they don’t screen?
And it is not as if we have just have current stars to depend upon.
More than one boxing pundit has suggested a new Golden Age of British boxing is upon us with the recent successful Olympic crop and the guys who just failed to make the plane to Beijing all turning pro.
It has already been said that George Groves, Darren Sutherland, Tony Jeffries, Travis Dickinson and James DeGale are the new Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Steve Collins and Michael Watson.
Of course, there is a long way to go but their amateur credentials more than stack up.
And Britain’s leading promoters believe the Beeb should toss its hat back in the fighting ring.
“They are a public broadcaster,” said Warren. “They should give the licence -payers what they want to see and that’s boxing. It’s one of the most popular sports in Britain.”
“They owe it to the British public,” said Mick Hennessy.
“Boxing is one of the top sports that, when we get it right, nothing compares to. When it’s done right, it’s the best sport bar none and it’s something the public want to see.
“They [the BBC] had Carl and Haye from their amateur days. Froch won two ABA titles and became our first World amateur medallist on the BBC and won his first pro title, the Commonwealth, on the BBC. They kick-started the pro careers of two special fighters there. They had the right advice [to back Haye and Froch] and they didn’t take it. What they had in their grasp was the product of all products.”
As Froch recently said of TV stations as a whole before his titanic Taylor tussle, “They only want to back the horse once the race is won.”
But the Beeb missed out. Of course, had they stuck with that fledgling stable they would now have the likes of John Murray, Tyson Fury, John O’Donnell, Darren Barker [who won his Commonwealth gold medal on the BBC] and Froch. Had they made any real investment, they would have had the careers of Hatton and Calzaghe.
Now the Welshman is retired and Hatton’s career is winding down, but can you imagine what numbers Hatton would have done on the BBC in a primetime slot on a Saturday night?
“He’s had some fantastic figures on TV when he’s done anything like documentaries and appearances and he’s broken all records on [Sky] Box Office,” said his father/manager, Ray, who emphasised that Hatton was loyal to Sky, where he made his name.
“It makes you wonder what he could have done. Boxing is becoming bigger now than ever with more amateur clubs, getting into schools and better fighters are coming through.”
So what would Ricky v Kostya Tszyu have done on BBC 1 between the Lottery and Match of the Day on a Saturday night? Or how would the proposed Hatton-Khan fight fare on the Beeb?
“I think they would be astronomical,” said Ray. “If you think for [Floyd] Mayweather and Ricky, which was on Sky at five in the morning, and a million people watched it [at nearly £15 each], I don’t know what you would have to multiply that by to see what it would do.”
British Boxing Board of Control General Secretary Robert Smith boxed on the BBC several times, including against Lloyd Honeyghan, and agrees it is time licence-payers funds are re-invested into the sport.
“I think there’s a market for it,” he said. “The people are interested in it and if people are interested in it then the national broadcaster should show it.
“The fights used to be on a Tuesday night, the BBC would show the top of the bill on the Wednesday [Sportsnight] and then the rest of the bill on a Saturday afternoon [Grandstand].”
Still, even in the comparatively halcyon days when boxing was on the Beeb in the 1970s there were those who wrote to Boxing News, appalled that the coverage the sport received was not as good as it has been in the 1960s and left on the fringes when airtime was given to darts, basketball, show-jumping, polo, weight-lifting and ice hockey.
One reader even complained of a highlights package that included excerpts of Carlos Palomino-Wilfred Benitez, the Henry Rhiney-Dave Green fight and Kallie Knoetze-Bill Sharkey scrap.
What would David Henry, of Tintern Crescent in Reading, say of today’s non-existent coverage?
BN’S challenge to the BBC To pick up the coverage of the Super Six tournament or to screen what should be the biggest fight of the year in November, when Manny Pacquiao takes on Miguel Cotto in a mouth-watering clash, either live and/or on a delayed basis at a reasonable time on BBC 2 and/or BBC 3 and with the build-up, i.e. HBO’s 24/7 show.
The BBC’s response
“The BBC is always keen to show sport’s biggest events live. In boxing, unfortunately, the really significant fights come at a price which is very hard for us to justify. We remain committed to comprehensive coverage of boxing in both the Olympics and Commonwealth Games and are actively looking at ways we can improve our boxing build-up to those major events.”
BRING BACK BOXING ON THE BBC - CLICK HERE TO SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION