TVtibi, an OTT video service that offers channels on an a la carte basis, said it has secured a deal to offer its first global pay-per-view event-- a boxing card that’s slated to get underway on Feb. 18 from The Carnivore Gardens in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ready, Set, Sync! Inc., the company behind the service, is teaming with Bigger Than Life Entertainment on the event, which will feature five preliminary bouts prior to a scheduled eight–round bout between Zarika Fatuma and Asha Ndegere, and the main event, a rematch between welterweights James Onyango and Patrick Athuhairwe.

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TVtibi is offering the event on pre-order for $5. The service currently supports Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, and recently introduced an app for iOS devices.

PPV is a new arena for TVtibi, which offers a mix of free and paid channels, including Newsy, MyJam TV, Britrox TV, NatureVision TV, Pursuit Channel, The Children’s Reading Channel, and duckTV.

"Expanding into live PPV sports is a significant move for us," Andrew Goldman, co-Founder and CSO of Ready, Set, Sync!, said in a statement. “We are able to exhibit our extensive capabilities to deliver on a global scale and set ourselves apart as a provider of premium live content.  Additionally, we are working on partnering with other platforms and providers to ensure the widest reach possible for these events.”

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“Our goal when we started was to bring Las Vegas-style boxing to Nairobi Kenya. With our partners at TVtibi we're able to bring affordability and accessibility to the fight fan and to even the fringe fight fan,” added Bigger Than Life Entertainment’s Shawntee McCoy.

New York -- Like most who favor the sweet science, count Stephen Espinoza among the crowd that would love to see Floyd Mayweather finally battle Manny Pacquiao.

Speaking at NewBay Media’s The Business of Live Television Summit here Tuesday, Espinoza, executive vice president, general manager Showtime Sports and Event Programming, Showtime Networks, Inc., said “we’re going to make another run at that. It’s something that should happen. I don’t know if it will” of the long-anticipated matchup between “Money” and “Pac Man.”

The fight, which would be pay-per-view gold and likely shatter boxing's $150 million revenue record for Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez, has been scotched in the past over disputes about drug testing methodologies and animus between the would-be participants. However, as Mayweather only has two bouts left on his six-fight contract with Showtime and Pacquiao is also nearing the end of his career, Espinoza remained hopeful that such a mega-bout could happen in 2015 during one of boxing/Mayweather’s May and  September windows.

Espinoza, who was interviewed by Multichannel News programming editor, R. Thomas Umstead, said that Mayweather’s most recent fight, another win over Marcus Maidana on Sept. 13 following their earlier confrontation in May, was a win for Showtime from broadcast, event and financial metrics.

He said that when it comes to great athletes – he called Mayweather, the Michael Jordan of boxing – fans only have a relatively short amount of time to appreciate their careers. “Tiger Woods was on top for 10 years;  Roger Federer for six.  For an athlete to be dominating a sport into his late thirties, to be undefeated for 17 years, to be regarded as one of the top fighters for 13 to 14 years, it’s rare that we get to see that kind of athletic performance.”

He said that Mayweather’s fights have been producing 900,000 to 1 million buys, but revenue have been supplemented by other platforms.  Espinoza said theater exhibition of Mayweather-Maidana was "a very big business." Harkening back to the closed circuit days before residential pay-per-view, there were 600 screens in play nationwide for Mayweather-Maidana, two thirds of which were "sold out at $20 a pop."

Espinoza said that exit polling revealed that most who witnessed the bout in the theater setting had visited the cineplex with the expectation to see a film; that two-thirds were not planning to buy the fight at home anyway; and that it was a very young demographic “This did not cannibalize the pay-per-view. This was completely additive,” Espinoza stated.

Similarly, he said Mayweather-Maidana picked up some business from Playstation users: “The fight performed at the upper end of UFC and WWE cards on this platform.  Again, this was additive from hard-core gamers.”

As to the value of live sports on Showtime, Espinoza said it’s somewhat difficult to get an exact read on why households subscriber to the premium service.

“We don’t monetize viewers through ads.  We don’t know who subscribes for boxing, for Dexter, for Ray Donovan or Homeland.  Generally, it’s probably a combination of it all,” he said. “But boxing and MMA appeal to different demos than say RayDonovan.  Boxing is slightly younger than the network overall and it’s more ethnic and educated than Showtime as a whole.”

Relative to PPV performance, it’s not only about the buys.  “We can’t get Peyton Manning, Michael Phelps or Roger Federer exclusively. But we can get the No. 1 boxer in Floyd Mayweather on our network. Sports has tremendous [promotional] value.  Pay-per-view is one of the only times we get to talk to non- subscribers. It provides multiple layers of value for the network.”