By: Sean Crose
I don’t pretend to be a genius, but I’m sure there are a few things. One is that I don’t want to spend money watching Tyson Fury face Dillian Whyte. Two is that I specifically don’t want to pay to watch those guys fight mid-afternoon in the US due to the time difference between here and the UK, where the match will begin. Three, I can’t think of a British fan who would want to pay to see that game AND then have to stay up until six in the morning so Americans like me can watch it during prime time. There’s nothing I can do about either of these. And either of the other two will be less optimal depending on where you are on the globe.
We’re beyond the point of asking the obvious: Why is this exciting ground-shaking match not pay-per-view? Why can’t the British watch their fighters fight for glory in the free evening while we in North America love to watch it in the afternoon – also for free? A lot of Americans watch European football. Lots of Europeans watch the Super Bowl. No one is screaming about airtime because no one is really paying for the fun of watching that stuff. Not so with name boxing. It seems like the big wars these days require both considerable money and inconvenience to be watched. This is not a good sign.
Maybe we can all watch this potential Fury-Whyte fight – the one we already know today we’ll have to cough up money to watch – as a pay-per-view. However, we cannot. Not when we have to pay the price for the joy of watching part-time boxer Keith Thurman take on Mario Barrios on February 5 (I know Thurman says he’ll be busier now. Here’s hope.) , or watch any of the best averages of matches against popular boxers on any given weekend. Not long ago, there were whispers that boxing’s pay-per-view structure was coming. Not only is pay-per-view still firmly established in the fighting world, at this point it’s questionable whether it’s the only way to watch any notable matches. .
