On the 3rd of December 2011 Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto will meet at New York’s Madison Square Garden for the Boxing Super Welterweight WBA World Championship. This match will be aired live on HBO’s pay per view. Many people have noticed that prices for Pay Per View have increased, which is due in part to the amount of people that watch live television online.
It is well known that HBO generates a tremendous amount of income from their Pay Per View features. For example, the Oscar De La Hoya versus Floyd Mayweather boxing match in May 2007 generated 2.5 million sales. HBO, however, maintains that they don’t actually make a lot of money on the Pay Per View system, claiming that it is capped and that it is actually the fighters and the promoters that insist on having Pay Per View in place for big boxing matches. The truth in this remains to be seen.
Many people are now calling for a lowering in prices of Pay Per View. Having such high prices increases the amount of illegal downloads and people finding ingenious ways to by-pass these prices, particularly when watching online. Some people, for example, will record a match live whilst being in attendance and broadcast this through certain websites. This is, of course, not legal, but it does not stop it from happening.
Viewers are urged to write formal letters requesting a lowering in prices. If enough people write in, prices could be reduced, as well as reducing the amount of illegal broadcasts of course. HBO continues to maintain, however, that if they do not agree to Pay Per View, the promoters will simply go elsewhere, which is what happened when Cotto fought Malignaggi in 2006. It is unclear what the best solution to this problem is.
In the meantime we recommend you to watch Cotto vs Margarito on TV or online, because it will be a great fight.
