The Decline of Boxing

Two things stick out in my mind. The proliferation of world sanctioning organizations and the onset of pay per view, coupled with the virtual disappearance of boxing on free TV. World titles are so watered down now that many are meaningless. Pay per view ensured riches for a few fighters at the top, but the overall fanbase of the sport declined and less money became available for the mid range contenders.

 

Just for info, I did some googling, and found some info on the popularity of individual sports in America.

In a 1960 Gallup poll asking Americans to list their favorites sports--

Baseball------34%
Football------21%
Boxing-------18%

In 2012, a Harris poll asked Americans to list their favorite sports--

Pro Football------34%
Baseball----------16%
College Football--11%
Auto Racing-------7%
NBA---------------6%
Hockey-----------5%
College Basketball--3%
Golf---------------2%
Soccer------------2%
Swimming--------2%
Tennis------------2%

Boxing, Horse Racing, and Track and Field got less than 1%

No surprise here for an American in the decline of baseball and the collapse of interest in boxing.

*A point made by Harris, soccer has actually declined since the 1980's

**Of course, 1% is about 3 million folks, so there is still money to be made.

***The radio ratings for the Louis-Schmeling fight in 1938 was 63, figured the same way as modern TV ratings. The highest rated Super Bowl has been less than 50.

My guess is that 18% total in 1960 was already well in decline from where it would have been decades earlier.

 

When I saw the title of this thread I was sure it was gonna be another one of those 'modern boxing sucks' threads... but this has, surprisingly, turned out to be much more interesting than that! It seems to be a fact that back in the 'good old days' boxers were much more active than today. Burt claims that the oldtimers often fought 10-20 times a year... and if you go back to the 20s and study some of the records, that certainly seems to be the case for a lot of the top fighters. But Im wondering if those numbers can also be used as an average for the entire boxing population back then? Not saying they cant... but they do seem a bit high to me. What do you guys think?

 

M, please be logical, if dozens and dozens of top fighters I can cite in my era the 1940s, averaged 10-20 times a year, pray tell me were they boxing themselves or maybe their wives, if not hundreds of journeymen, other contenders, and rising young fighters who made their livings in hundreds of small and large boxing arena's and armories that dotted America before the advent of tv ? As I have posted before I growing up in the early 1940s, along with my dad would attend fights in the New York Area at such arena's as St. Nicks, Broadway Arena, Ridgewood Grove, Queensboro Arena, Dexter Park, Ebbetts Field, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Polo Grounds, and other arena's along with the top of the line old MSG where every Friday night there was a great fight card with a main event featuring top fighters and many HOF champions as Ray Robinson, Willie Pep, Ike Williams, Beau Jack, Bob Montgomery, Kid Gavilan, Jake LaMotta, Marcel Cerdan, Al Bummy Davis, Fritzie Zivic, Sandy Saddler, Rocky Graziano etc, most of these fought over 100 bouts against the best of the best...I also forgot one of my favorite boxing arena's Sunnyside Gardens on Queens Blvd...If inclined you could see a boxing card every night of the week except Sunday...So yes there were innumerable more licensed pro fighters those days and before my time in the 120s and 1930s. The advent of television was the death of all those boxing venues, as people could stay home, nurse a beer, and watch the bouts from their comfortable living room...But attendance dwindled, revenue dried up and fight clubs closed their doors, leading to less fighters plying their trade, and eventually to PPV fights on TV...
Less fighters, less fights. less competition, has eventually led us to where we are now...cheers M...

 

Burt, I dont for a minute doubt your 10-20 fights a year... because when I browse old records on BoxRec I can see with my own eyes that there was a time when many of the top boxers (and indeed many journeymen as well) fit this description. Especially back in the 20s and 30s there seems to have been a lot of boxers with extremely busy schedules... resulting in many 200-fight careers. However, what I would like to know is this: Can we reasonably assume, that if we take ALL the boxers who were active in a given year back then (for example in the 20s)... then we would come up with an AVERAGE number of fights for those boxers in that 10-20 range during that year? That would be very interesting to know!

 

It appears that California had over 1,000 professional boxing shows each year from 1925 to 1929. Since the average show had five bouts at the time, that would mean there were a total of about 25,000 or more bouts which took place in California during that five-year period. Yet BoxRec has results for only about 270,000 bouts which took place in the world during the 1920s.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Chuck Johnston

I found some interesting stats that supplement yours.

In 1927 New York State had 2000 licensed pro boxers and 900 boxing shows.

In 2006 New York State had 50 licensed pro boxers and 38 shows.

I think many small town newspapers didn't have sports news to begin with and many other small town newspapers probably haven't survived.

I also know that in the early part of the century there was an organized effort by "progressive" elements to limit newspaper coverage of boxing via advertising boycotts and the like. It was an era in which alcohol was banned first in most states and eventually all over by Constitutional amendment. Boxing was another "evil" under attack, and my guess is that it is almost impossible to tell how many records of fights were lost.

 

edward morbius, there was quite a bit of coverage of boxing in certain newspapers even during the Progressive Era. Yes, there was a very effective movement to ban professional boxing at the time, but it started losing steam in a big way during World War I.

- Chuck Johnston

 

The number of English boxers who had at least two hundred bouts is staggering, the great majority of them being active before World War II.

On BoxRec, you can find out how many listed boxing shows took place in a local venue, a city, a state or a country during a given year fairly quickly. I found such an exercise very interesting. There were a staggering number of listed shows in the U.S. during the late 1920s and in the United Kingdom during the 1930s.

- Chuck Johnston

 

BoxRec has a 268-page list of professional boxing shows which took place in the United States during 1929. Since each full page has 25 boxing shows, I multiplied 25 by 267. Then I added the number of shows on the remaining page to the total. According to my calculations, there are a total of 6,668 U.S. professional boxing shows on the list for 1929.

For 2013, BoxRec has a 26-page list of professional boxing shows which took place in the United States. According to my calculations, there are a total of 640 U.S. boxing shows on the list for that year.

- Chuck Johnston

 

BoxRec has a 99-page list of professional boxing shows which took place in the United Kingdom during 1931. According to my calculations, there are a total of a total of 2,464 U.K. boxing shows on the list for that year.

For 2013, BoxRec has a 10-page list of U.K. boxing shows. According to my calculations, there are a total of 226 U.K. boxing shows for that year.

- Chuck Johnston

 

This doesn't make much sense to me. To fight in New York (or any other state), you have to be licensed there -- even if you're from Alabama or Wyoming. So I find it impossible to believe that 50 fighters could fill those 38 shows.

I also find it beyond credible that there were only 50 active professional fighters fighting out of the state of New York that year, even if many of them fought only out of state.

 

Baseball is a weird sport. It still seems to get a great deal of attention and coverage, yet all you ever see is a mass of empty seats at those stadiums.

 

You raise very good questions. Those stats come from a review of Mike Silver's The Arc of Boxing by Clay Moyer, printed on Silver's web page. Moyer is quoting stats given in the book. This is the exact quote

". . . in 1927 there were 2000 licensed professional boxers residing in the state of New York and that over 900 boxing shows were promoted throughout the state. In 2006 the state licensed 50 pro boxers and staged just 38 shows."

Off the wording, I would interpret this to mean licensed boxers who resided in the state, and perhaps not those who came to the state just to box.

*I suppose another issue--with so many modern boxing shows at casinos on Indian reservations--does a boxer have to be licensed by the state to box on a reservation? I have no idea.

**For those who are not Americans--Indian tribes are considered independent nations under American law, and don't ask me to understand or explain all the legal complexities.

 

I was reading an article by Monte Cox, and came across another interesting statistic quoted by Cox from Matt Tegan

According to the records of the Washington state athletic commission, between July 1, 1933, and June 30, 1934, there were 770 boxing shows in the state of Washington.

Washington was not one of the more populous states back then, so it is impressive that so many boxing matches were staged there. This is not New York or Illinois.