It Promises To Be TV Event Of The Year
Bruce Willis and Eddie Murphy will be on hand, and Sly Stallone has a ticket, too. Right after the weigh-in, the Wayans brothers will show up, and, if his boat don’t sink, Kevin Costner will paddle over.
“It looks like the guest list for the Oscars,” said Jay Larkin, in charge of production for perhaps the biggest event Showtime has ever televised, the return of Mike Tyson to the ring Saturday night in Las Vegas.
“We’re also promising a very new and exciting entrance for Mike Tyson,” Larkin said, demurring from further detail. “This entrance will be used only once, for Tyson, because the public hasn’t seen him in four years.”
Showtime will produce the fight, beginning at 6 p.m. PDT, for its pay-per-view network. (Cost in Spokane on Cable is $39.95 when ordered in advance, $49.95 the day of the fight.)
Showtime executives are cautiously optimistic this could become pay-per-view’s all-time biggest show. The record-holder is rival TVKO’s telecast of George Foreman-Evander Holyfield in 1991, hitting 1.36 million homes for a gross of $48.9 million with an average price of $35.95.
“It’s tough to predict because technology allows people to make their decision the evening of the fight or the day before, but we’re looking for a million homes, maybe slightly more,” Showtime Entertainmen Television executive vice president Mac Lipscomb said. “There’s a chance it could become the all-timer, but it’s still a little early to know.”
The time of year could work against Showtime. Fall is traditionally the highest period of viewership, summer the lowest.
Lipscomb said he can remember only one Showtime event that rivals this one for glamour, however, and that was on the premium station, not pay-per-view.
“We did a live concert from Central Park with Diana Ross in 1982, and it rained and it rained,” Lipscomb said. “It rained to the point that it became a sensational event because of it, watching her perform with the water dripping off her.
“But clearly, anyone associated with this event would have to defend it as the biggest sports event of the year, outside of the Super Bowl.”
Larkin said Showtime anticipates 30 million viewers worldwide.
“When you pull into that truck compound and see 20 or 30 satellite uplink trucks, the size of this event really strikes home,” Larkin said.
In addition to its regular broad casters, Showtime will add Sugar Ray Leonard as a cohost with Jim Hill. Steve Albert, Ferdie Pacheco and Bobby Czyz will be at ringside, while Jim Gray will be a roving reporter.