THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 7, 1995 TAG: 9508050033
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
SURE, I'D like to sink into my La-Z-Boy on Aug. 19 and watch the comeback of boxing's celebrated felon, Mike Tyson, on pay-per-view.
But no way will I pay $39.95 for the privilege of watching Tyson beat up a tomato can named Peter ``Hurricane'' McNeeley.
The driving force behind this unusually high PPV fee - $59.95 in some cities - is greed. This is not a title fight, you know.
Showtime Event Television is billing it as a ``10-round heavyweight special attraction.''
The $39.95 tab on Cox Cable pay-per-view is an early-bird special. If you wait until the day of the fight to order, the cost is $45.95. In Suffolk on Falcon Cable, the charge is $49.95 for early hook-up and $54.95 otherwise. If you're on cable in Chesapeake, the price ranges from $37.95 for those who get in before Aug. 16 to $47.95 for stragglers.
The question of the day is, if Showtime Event Television is asking up to $59.95 in some markets to see Tyson fight, a nobody who has been fattening up on opponents named Frankie Hines and Danny Lee Wofford, what will the price be to see Tyson face a somebody like George Foreman or Riddick Bowe?
The $59.95 asked by a number of cable operators for the Tyson-McNeeley fight is a record price for a one-shot PPV event. Three other fights are on the card. That should be some consolation to viewers who shell out the big bucks on Aug. 19.
The preliminaries include a 12-rounder for the WBA heavyweight championship between Bruce Seldon and Joe Hipp; a 12-round WBC middleweight championship involving Julian Jackson against Quincy Taylor; and Miguel Angel Gonzalez facing Lamar Murphy in a 12-round WBC lightweight title match.
Some ringsiders in Las Vegas will pay $1,500 a seat.
The cheapest way to see this fight is to locate a watering hole signed up with the KingVision Bar Network, which is asking commercial establishments to cough up $17.50 per patron. That beats $39.95.
When Matthew C. Blank, president and chief operating officer of Showtime Networks Inc., met with members of the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles not long ago, Blank said he expects viewers to pay the record fee for Tyson-McNeeley without grumbling much.
Locally, it's a big deal if cable operators get 10,000 pay-per-view subscribers to sign on for a concert or a professional wrestling Slam-a-rama at $19.95 or so. Who knows how many Hampton Roads subscribers are willing to pay $37.95, $39.95, $49.95 or more to see Tyson tune-up for bigger and better fights in the future?
Tyson, who now sports tattoos of Mao Tse-tung and Arthur Ashe on his biceps, and Showtime have already established the date of his next fight on pay-per-view. It will be Nov. 4, the same day Bowe has his rematch with Evander Holyfield.
Suppose Tyson and his handlers line up the winner of the Bowe-Holyfield match early in 1996. What will that fight cost on PPV? Seventy five dollars? One hundred dollars? Will you need to take out a second mortgage to afford PPV?
Blank told the TV writers that Showtime has already heard from subscribers who think it's wrong to make such a big deal about Tyson's return, to showcase a man who has served time for a rape conviction. ``There has been negative fall-out. To critics, we say that we view this as covering a sporting event involving a man who was convicted of a crime, went to jail, served his time and now is legally sanctioned to fight again.
``I don't think we should be in the business of judging Mike Tyson.''
Early on in the TCA press tour, Michael Fuchs, the president of Home Box Office, told TV reporters that HBO had no interest in signing Tyson. Not so, said Blank when he took his turn before the reporters.
``I can tell you that negotiations involving Showtime, HBO and Tyson was a hotly contested battle that was not decided until the last minute. We expect our three-year contract with Tyson to generate some of the biggest pay-per-view events of all time.'' by CNB