I love a gimmick as much as the next person.
In sport, there’s countless tweaks that began as gimmicks but ended up improving things considerably.
Football’s backpass rule has been an undisputed success.
I’m very much in favour of tennis using a champions tiebreak in place of a limitless final set.
The three point line improved basketball as a spectacle infinitely.
I much prefer Twenty20 cricket to the longer 50 over version.
The Champions League, which was introduced as little more than a money-making idea, has become the greatest football tournament on the planet.
There are, of course, gimmicks that fail spectacularly; swimming’s full body “shark suits” damaged the integrity of the sport and cricket’s idea of the “supersub” was rapidly withdrawn after it became apparent it was definitely not improving the game.
Generally, though, I’m all for new ideas and doing things a little differently.
Last weekend, however, there was a sporting gimmick that was not just a step too far, but eons too far.
In Dallas, Mike Tyson fought Jake Paul.
On paper, the matchup was spectacularly uneven; one of the greatest fighters ever taking on a glorified Youtuber.
But, of course, Tyson is now 58 years old and hasn’t been a great boxer for decades and 27-year-old Paul, in a dull and demeaning eight rounds, defeated the former world heavyweight champion of the world on points.
In principle, I have no real aversion to two men, neither of whom are currently even good boxers never mind great boxers, stepping into the ring together.
And certainly, when you look at the stats, it becomes apparent exactly why this ridiculous bout was made.
Nearly 80,000 spectators were in the arena to witness the spectacle, if you can call it that, first hand. Netflix, which aired the fight, claim up to 120 million people watched.
And the money involved is eye-watering.
Paul reportedly made $40 million while Tyson made half that at $20 million.
For Paul particularly, it’s a quite incredible sum and makes him one of the highest-earning boxers on the planet this year despite the fact he’s little better than mediocre.
There is, of course, little point in decrying Paul or even Tyson for this monstrosity.
Only a fool would turn down those sums of money and if anything, Paul should be studied as a master of marketing and promotion given the status he’s manufactured for himself despite being only barely inside the world’s top 100 cruiserweight fighters in the rankings.
It’s what this horror show represents that is far more worrying for the sporting world.
This fight was the climax, if you can call it that, of Netflix’s ‘Countdown’, which is a “reality” boxing series.
It’s the latest move in Netflix’s foray into sport.
‘Drive to Survive’, the fly-on-the-wall series about F1 has been an overwhelming success and while the likes of ‘Break Point’, ‘Full Swing, and ‘Sprint’, about tennis, golf and athletics respectively, haven’t had quite the same impact, they all have a similar template of showing what goes on behind the scenes at the very top of their sports.
What’s been the problem with these documentaries, though, is that no longer is the sport itself really the centre-piece.
I know more than a few people who have watched Drive to Survive yet have never sat through a full F1 race.
Similarly, countless viewers of Paul v Tyson last weekend are not boxing fans, they’re fans of entertainment.
Fair enough.
There’s no commitment test that must be passed before one is given a pass to watch any sporting event.
What concerns me, though, is where these gimmicks, and Paul-Tyson is the perfect example, render the “real” sport.
While Tyson v Paul was the headline fight last weekend, Katie Taylor v Amanda Serrano was relegated to the undercard.
That’s fair in some respects in that it’s doubtful these two women could have attracted a global audience of 120 million but it’s also depressing that this magnificent pair, who are two of the greatest female fighters to have ever lived, was relegated to little more than a warm-up act for Paul and Tyson.
What is really important now, is where sport goes from here.
Netflix’s boxing series is called Countdown; but what are we counting down to?
The issue is, if Netflix is redefining the model for showing sport, and that seems to be the way things are going, then they can’t leave the ending to chance.
Surely, in exactly the way scripted shows are written to guarantee a thrilling ending, Netflix will want to ensure the same happens with their sporting series’.
Few are suggesting that Paul-Tyson was fixed but many are suggesting that there was an unwritten “understanding” between the pair that they’d do everything in their power to ensure their bout was at least a half-decent spectacle for the millions of fee-paying watchers.
And the thing is, as soon as there’s even a hint of a deal between two or more competitors, it’s no longer sport.
It’s purely entertainment.
The two are entirely different things.
The entire beauty of sport is based on the fact that literally anything can happen.
Few who saw Paul hold back when he could so easily have finished-off an ageing Tyson last weekend believed that “anything could happen” in that fight.
Instead, it was a case of making a highly controlled event as exciting as possible.
Given the circumstances, they did little more than an average job of that.
In the week since the fight, few commentators have called the fight anything close to a success.
Hopefully, then, it’s the signal that this was a gimmick too far.
Because any further and sport truly will have jumped the shark.
