Even as Floyd Mayweather Jnr is accused of turning down a minimum $50million to take on Manny Pacquaio, our own Amir Khan becomes the first million-pound victim of a down-turn in boxing?s pay-TV bonanza.
The message could not be clearer: Only the really big fights can expect to keep raking in fortunes from the pay-per-view mother lode.
So where PacMan versus Money Man will become the prize-ring?s first $200m mega-fight if Mayweather ever grasps the pound-for-pound nettle, Khan is down to six figures in his next night?s work.
One consequence of Sky?s decision to pull the plug on Khan?s Homecoming fight against Paul McCloskey is that after Manchester this Saturday evening, Bolton?s world light-welterweight champion is unlikely to fight again in Britain for the foreseeable future.
Khan is going through with this one, not least by way of keeping his promise to his home supporters to box here again. His consolation will be a probable MEN Arena sell-out crowd of 16,000 believers, even though much of Manchester will be emptied as United and City fans travel to Wembley for their FA Cup semi-final.
However, having swallowed the ?1m cut which has reduced his purse to ?250,000, Khan then expects to be moving back across the Atlantic for a title unification showdown with American Tim Bradley in July.
Not only would that fight be bank-rolled by the HBO cable network in the US but would command a pay-per-view slot here on Sky, rather on the fringe Primetime channel which has now picked Khan’s WBA championship defence against McCloskey at the same ?14.95 rate Sky had initially advertised.
Nevertheless, television and the fight game are going through a tsunami of a sea-change.
Although Sky?s U-turn has made for a dramatic week here ? with the partial collapse of the undercard cited as one of the reasons – they are not the first broadcasters to challenge boxing?s long-standing presumption that there would always be rich and easy pickings to be made from pay-per-view. The signs have been coming that these broadcasts are about to be rationed.
Saul Alvarez is the hottest new property to come out of Mexico to America and is promoted by Oscar De La Hoya?s Golden Boy company. Yet he was not considered ready for pay-TV exposure when he fought Matthew Hatton, Ricky the Hitman?s brother, for the WBC world light middleweight title in Los Angeles last month.
So ?El Canelo? was contracted to receive just $300,000, of which he forfeited $60,000 for failing to make the privately agreed catch-weight limit. Hatton picked up $30,000 of that fine to boost his own take to a personal career high of $130,000.
All of this was a far cry from the millions banked by David Haye and Audley Harrison from their world heavyweight title non-fight in the same Manchester arena to which we are headed now.
Sky, having bought the hype, shared in the widespread public disappointment with Harrison?s inert performance. The fall-out from that fiasco is said to have limited the ?14.95 advance Sky Box Office sales for Khan-McCloskey to barely 50.
In America, although Bradley-Khan should carry its potential pay-TV freight, the American?s much-ballyhooed clash with his countryman Devon Alexander did disappointing business.
The root of the problem is that there are two tiers of customers. The hard-core boxing lovers ? 16,000 of whom will fill the MEN Arena ? need to be heavily boosted by a wider public drawn to star name in marquee events if pay-per-view broadcasts are to be justified.
The promoters are also being challenged to stiffen the undercards with competitive fights to justify the price of the pay-TV packages. This Saturday?s supporting card has partially collapsed, with Matthew Macklin dropping out and the failure to clinch a proposed heavyweight clash between British prospect Tyson Fury and Hasim Rahman, who once knocked out Lennox Lewis.
Pacquiao, the Filipino sensation regarded as the greatest boxer in the world, is a huge enough draw in his own right to rack up high ratings once again on May 7 even though his opponent in Las Vegas, Shane Mosley, is past his prime.
