Former WBA heavyweight champ David Haye has not yet officially announced an opponent for his second comeback fight, set once again for The O2 in London, but if “The Hayemaker” has his way, his fight will again appear on free-to-air TV. Haye surprised many by having his January return fight, against Mark de Mori, shown on Dave, a channel usually used to showcase comedy and chat show type fodder. But, despite the surprise, Haye’s one-round blow out attracted over 3 million views.
Haye, speaking with City A.M, said he was very happy with this as he wants “as many people as possible” to see his fights. Haye plans to swerve any pay-per-view platform in his second return bout.
“I’ve heard people complaining that it was on Dave,” Haye said. “But it’s free? They were like: ‘It’s the home of witty banter, why are they putting it on that?’ Would you rather it was on pay-per-view? I want as many people as possible to watch me. To reach out in this next fight which hopefully can also be on a free-to-air platform so everyone gets to see it, gets to follow the journey. It’s hard to follow the journey when you’re telling people to pay for it. All my heroes, Mike Tyson, Frank Bruno, it was all on free-to-air. Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Barry McGuigan. The biggest names in boxing were all on free-to-air television. That’s how you get the numbers and that’s what I want to do.”
As the quality in Haye’s comeback opposition goes up, so too, you would expect, will the viewing figures. Of course, when/if Haye gets as far as challenging for the world title, it will almost certainly mean a switch back to a pay channel: whether it’s Sky Sports if Haye faces Anthony Joshua or a U.S network if he fights WBC king Deontay Wilder. But for as long as Haye is willing to give back and allow people to watch his fights for free, let’s all get behind him.
It seems we can expect at least one more free-to-air fight from Haye. The owners of the Dave channel expressed interest in showing more boxing due to the big figures Haye-De Mori pulled in. Haye against a Malik Scott, a Shannon Briggs or a legit top-10 contender would surely pull in closer to four or maybe even five million free-to-air viewers. And it is only a good thing allowing the man on the street to watch as much boxing as possible.
Haye’s unique choice of TV channel to box on proved to be a smart one.
