The days of watching Amir Khan for free are over. After his first 18 bouts were screened on ITV1, Khan’s next bout on September 6 — and presumably most of his future bouts — will be on pay-per-view television after Frank Warren, Khan’s promoter, signed a multi-bout deal with Sky Sports.

Sky Box Office has proved a massive money maker for Ricky Hatton in recent years, most notably for his bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr in December that drew an audience of 1.2 million, paying nearly £18 million. Khan, 21, the Commonwealth lightweight champion, is unlikely to draw those kinds of figures soon, but his bout on ITV regularly topped 6 million viewers.

No announcement has yet been made for Khan’s opponent on September 6, although Derrick Gainer, the former WBA featherweight champion from the United States, is understood to have turned the bout down. The show at the MEN Arena, Manchester, also features Alex Arthur’s first defence of his WBO super-featherweight title against Nicky Cook and Audley Harrison’s heavyweight bout against Martin Rogan, which was postponed from last month.

The deal, which will also see Warren promote shows on Friday Fight Night on Sky Sports, is quite a turnaround for both Warren and Sky. Warren promoted shows for Sky for ten years, but the two had what was considered a bitter falling out when Warren jumped ship for ITV after signing Khan, the 2004 Olympic lightweight silver medal-winner, in 2005.

It is also a surprise seeing as Warren’s company, Sports Network, signed a three-year deal in April with Setanta, Sky’s arch rivals. Khan was not part of that deal, but with 20 shows being planned with Sky in the next 12 months, it remains to be seen what happens to the Setanta contract.

There will also be questions about whether the deal is a good one for boxing. When Warren left ITV for Sky in 1995, the sport was on a high, with shows featuring the likes of Nigel Benn and Naseem Hamed topping 16 million viewers.

But the move to Sky, while financially lucrative, was considered by many to marginalise the sport, getting a fraction of the number of viewers. An apprenticeship on satellite television was also blamed as the reason that Hatton and Joe Calzaghe did not get their due recognition until late in their careers — although it is worth noting that Hatton, who is probably Britain’s most popular sportsman, has never boxed in terrestrial television.

Since ITV’s deal to show Khan’s bouts ended , after his win over Michael Gomez in June, the network has hinted that it intends to stay in the sport. A deal is rumoured to be imminent with Mick Hennessy, another promoter, whose stable includes Carl Froch, the British super-middleweight champion who is set to be boxing for the WBC title later this year. Hennessy also promotes Junior Witter, the former WBC light-welterweight champion, and another talented unbeaten lightweight, John Murray, the British champion.

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