If You Want to See Tyson-Spinks, You Have to Pay for It

When Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks get together Monday night, their objectives will be quite simple. Each will try to knock the other senseless.

But things get a little complicated when it comes to understanding the intricacies of televising the fight.

HBO is producing the telecast, but the fight won’t be on HBO.

In Southern California, Prime Ticket co-owners Jerry Buss and Bill Daniels are promoting the pay-per-view and closed-circuit showings, but the fight won’t be on Prime Ticket.

To avoid confusion, Buss and Daniels, and their investors in this event, are calling themselves Cable Promotion Partners.

About 75 Southern California cable systems representing about 1.2 million subscribers will carry the fight on a pay-per-view channel, which varies from system to system.

Today, the fight, on most systems, costs $40. The price tag Monday, on most systems, will be $50. Some will charge as much as $70.

To order the fight, you must call your cable company, which can be quite an adventure. Lines are frequently busy, and it’s going to get worse as fight time approaches.

At mid-day Thursday, sales had reached 90,000.

If you don’t subscribe to a cable company offering the fight, and don’t know someone who does--promoters are suggesting fight-night parties--you’ll have to find a closed-circuit showing. For those locations, check newspaper ads, or call TicketMaster.

Some major outlets are the Hyatt Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, the Sheraton Hotel in Universal City, and the Irvine Marriott. Seating is first come, first served. The Hyatt, which is charging $40, will show tapes of classic fights, beginning at 5 p.m. Prices at most other locations are $35.

Some restaurants are offering specials deals. At Legends in Long Beach, for example, you can get dinner and the fight for $35 with a credit-card reservation, or two drinks and the fight for $30. At C.J. Brett’s in Hermosa Beach, the fee is $35 for an advance registration and $40 the day of the fight.

Satellite dish owners are out of luck, since the signal will be scrambled. Also, a spokeswoman for American Cablesystems said cable operators will have security people checking for pirating at public places.

The live undercard from Atlantic City, N.J., will be shown, starting at 6 p.m., and the main event, scheduled for 12 rounds, at 8. The fighters are scheduled to enter the ring about 7:45.

The undercard fights aren’t much. One has heavyweight Buster Douglas facing Mike Williams in a 10-rounder. In another, unbeaten welterweights Maurice Blocker and Orlando Orasco meet. There may be a third fight, time permitting.

Originally, Carl (The Truth) Williams was scheduled to fight Trevor Berbick, Muhammad Ali’s final opponent, but that fight fell through.

HBO was planning to hold a press conference in Atlantic City this week to discuss coverage plans for the fight. But Shelly Finkel, telecast coordinator, nixed that idea. Finkel was concerned that some viewers might think that the fight could be seen on HBO.

Actually, it will be shown on HBO, reportedly a week from today. But HBO is not allowed to announce that until after the fight.

As for HBO’s production plans, executive producer Ross Greenburg said from his New York office that 11 cameras will be used to cover the 20 by 20-foot ring, including five instant-replay cameras.

The fight announcers will be the HBO team of Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Sugar Ray Leonard.

HBO has one major problem--Butch Lewis, Spinks’ manager. HBO has refused to drop the $8 million suit it filed against Lewis last year for pulling his fighter out of HBO’s heavyweight tournament. So Lewis, among other things, is refusing to allow HBO to put a microphone in Spinks’ corner.

“Lewis isn’t hurting HBO,” Greenburg said. “We are just serving as an independent production company. Who he’s hurting are the viewers of the pay-per-view telecast.”

Dial-a-fight: Teleline, a Beverly Hills-based company that is the nation’s leading voice information provider, was planning to offer a telephone broadcast of the fight for $3.40 per round.

Teleline and promoter Don King signed a 10-year contract on May 3.

But Teleline’s plans fell through when Tyson’s manager, Bill Cayton, convinced King that the phone broadcast would hurt the pay-per-view and closed-circuit gate.

“Our contract is still intact, and we plan to broadcast fights in the future,” said Bob Lorsch, president of Teleline.

Teleline is still going through with its pre-fight plans, which include offering pre-taped interviews involving mostly Tyson and King. Spinks’ camp is not involved. Fans willing to pay $2 for the first minute and 35 cents for each additional minute can, up until fight time, call 1-900 909-KING to hear the interviews. The three-minute recordings are updated twice daily.

Governor speaks up: Fans often complain about biased announcing, but this time Michigan’s Gov. James Blanchard, seems the most upset.

He called Dick Stockton and Billy Cunningham, who worked the Laker-Detroit series for CBS, “a disgrace to sports broadcasting.”

Blanchard told reporters: “I have followed spectator sports since I was 8 years old, maybe, and I don’t ever remember more biased announcing.

“I don’t know whether it’s because they just didn’t know anything about the Pistons and were simply incompetent or whether they decided to promote the Lakers, but it was really disgusting.”

The feeling here is that no noticeable bias was shown by either Stockton or Cunningham, who did commendable jobs throughout the playoffs.

Also, the directing job by Sandy Grossman the final two games was vastly improved. Nothing was missed and there seemed to be fewer camera switches than in earlier games.

TV-Radio Notes

The Michael Spinks-Mike Tyson weigh-in will be part of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Also, commentator Alex Wallau will preview the fight. . . . There will be all kinds of previews of this well-hyped fight. There will be a round-table discussion of the fight on CBS’ “Sports Saturday” on Saturday, 1:30 to 3 p.m., and another on Channel 7’s late-night “Sunday Sports Final.” . . . ESPN, which already has reporters Jimmy Roberts and Eric Clemons in Atlantic City, will preview the fight Monday at 6 p.m. and also cover the postfight press conference. Roberts, 31, a former producer for ABC’s sports and news departments, is a recent ESPN addition. . . . CNN’s Nick Charles will also have live reports from the site following the fight.

Tuesday night’s Laker game drew a record 40.9 rating in Los Angeles, shattering the old mark of 29.7 for last year’s Game 6. During the final quarter-hour, Tuesday’s game did a 52.2 rating and a 70 share, meaning 70% of the viewing audience at the time was watching the game. . . . Boxing commentator Al Bernstein will have a busy week when he announces boxing shows next Wednesday and Friday at the Country Club in Reseda. First, Bernstein, along with Tony Hernandez, will do the Z Channel telecast of the Frankie Duarte-Ron Cisneros bout on Wednesday night, then will be at ringside with Tom Kelly for the ESPN telecast of Jesus Poll vs. Julian Solis Friday night.

Attention golf fans: “The Centennial of Golf in America,” a 1 1/2-hour special produced by Ohlmeyer Communications, will be televised on NBC Saturday at 10 a.m. The host is Vin Scully. Included will be highlights from a one-day tournament and banquet held at Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., last Monday, when Jack Nicklaus was named player of the century.

The $150,000 Epson Stats Match nine-hole, medal play golf tournament held at La Costa in January will be televised on Channel 2 Sunday at 3 p.m. Participants were 1987 PGA Tour statistical leaders in 10 categories, such as Paul Azinger, sand saves; Ben Crenshaw, putting, and Calvin Peete, driving accuracy. Included in the coverage will be Dan Pohl’s hole in one on the third hole.

Recommended viewing: An Olympic special, “Keeper of the Flame,” on ABC Sunday at 2 p.m., will explore the history, problems and growth of the Olympics since its beginnings in ancient Greece. Donna de Varona is the host, and also helped Doug Wilson produce the one-hour show. . . . Saturday’s Michelob track meet at San Diego’s Balboa Stadium will be taped by CBS for showing on July 3.