Dyke Goes Looking for Punch-up

Greg Dyke is keen that the BBC should round off Golden Jubilee week at the start of June by showing the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight exclusively live even though there are those at the Beeb who reckon the world heavyweight title contest is a huge risk.

One insider told me he feared that if the bout turned into another Tyson horror show with the former champion sinking his golden gnashers into Lewis's flesh or whatever it could be the end of professional boxing on the BBC.

But Dyke, the director gen eral, who is an unreconstructed fight fan from way back, is said to be unconcerned and has Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1, on his side in trying to obtain the fight, which is due to take place in Memphis on Saturday 8 June (or the early hours of Sunday 9 June British time). Less than 48 hours earlier, the Beeb will have shown the Argentina-England World Cup match from Sapporo in Japan.

Assuming the Lewis-Tyson showdown goes ahead - and reports that Tyson has been seen gadding about in nightclubs less than two months before the fight have raised doubts - live TV rights in the UK are likely to cost the successful bidder at least £3mil lion, a price that Dyke thinks is worth it despite the dangers.

Sky are also interested in the fight but in these days when parsimony has suddenly become the keyword in sports rights' negotiating they are not prepared to be driven to pay a silly price in a bidding war with the BBC.

Dyke's interest in boxing, particularly heavyweights, is remarkably resilient considering the flak the BBC have taken over their £1m deal with Audley Harrison, whose next fight takes place on Saturday.

Harrison, the Olympic super-heavyweight champion, was envisaged as a prime-time attraction but the programme showing his bout against the long, tall Julius Long will not start until 11.15pm.

And it might not have started as early as that if his contract had not ruled out it being any later.

A small minority of those watching this year's Formula One motor races have been doing so on Sky's new pay-per-view service, F1 Digital Plus - but not so small that they can be discounted completely.

Which is why Sky have complained to ITV about an ad on London's Capital Radio in which it makes out F1 is only on ITV1.

jon.henderson@observer.co.uk

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