Sky snaps up Lewis v Tyson

Sky has secured the rights to the world heavyweight title fight between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson in Memphis on June 8 without having to pay a single penny.

It beat off competition from the BBC by offering the two fighters a share of the revenue it will receive when it shows the bout on Sky Box Office, its pay-per-view channel.

Under the deals Lewis and Tyson have signed with Sky they could earn millions depending on how many people pay to watch the contest which will be broadcast in the early hours of the morning in Britain and will cost subscribers £14.95.

It is not clear what percentage of the money from subscribers will go to either Tyson or Lewis, but according to some sources, Tyson might receive a slightly larger share of the revenue from television given his global appeal.

One of Tyson's previous fights - against Frank Bruno - was also shown on Sky Box Office, but the two boxers had not signed a revenue-share deal. It was staged in March 1996 with 660,000 people paying £9.99 to see it and was the largest number of subscribers so far for a fight shown by Sky. If as many people signed up for the Lewis-Tyson fight it would bring in £9.9m to Sky.

Both Sky and the BBC had been involved in a bidding war to secure the rights to the fight, which is being viewed as the ultimate world heavyweight championship decider. According to some sources, the BBC had offered between £4m-£5m and was bracing itself for a public outcry had it been successful.

The corporation was criticised for being prepared to spend licence payers' money on the fight, particularly as it involved Tyson, a convicted rapist.

But the BBC is committed to bringing big-time boxing back to terrestrial television and had set aside a large budget to bid for the Tyson-Lewis contest.

There is disappointment within the BBC that it has lost out on the rights to a rival channel that has not paid anything but a revenue-share deal could prove to be more lucrative for Tyson and Lewis than a one-off deal with the corporation.

BSkyB has also managed to secure a number of other high profile fights on its pay-per-view channel. On May 18 Naseem Hamed's comeback bout against the Spanish and European champion Manuel Calvo, postponed from last month, is to be broadcast on a pay-per-view basis.

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