The Decline of the Popularity of Boxing in the United States

Very enlightening! I very much appreciate it.

 

The decline had to do with cherry picking, bad decisions and politics.

 

Back in my day, the future was better than the past.

 

I guarantee I will be using this one!

 

Boxing has become the cockroach of professional sports. It’s hard to kill because it is such a fundamental sport at its base two people literally trying to impose their will on the other. No goofy baskets, goals or arbitrary lines.

On the ugly side is the fact that no one is really looking out for the sport itself. Every other sport, including UFC, how’s a league or owner that at least has an interest in the long-term health of the sport.instead Boxing has alphabet organizations, the puppets of the promoters looking for a quick buck, I would not let a Don King or a Jose Sulaiman care for my pets. Nobody who cared about the sport would sanction the McGregor Mayweather debacle.

 

We're very lucky, that while boxing isn't what it used to be in the US, it's doing fine in other parts of the world. If that wasn't the case, the sport would indeed be in bad shape.

 

Here I'll respectfully disagree.

Mayweather / Mcgregor is one of those weird fights where both sports came away with good publicity and talking points after the extravaganza was over. Complete opposite of, say, Ali v Inoki.

 

The manipulation of the 15 round distance, the networks, and the drug era, help contrib ute to the decline of boxing.

 

The sport has survived being illegal, competing on barges, race riots, the color line, huge mob control, the influence of groups like the NOI, DON KING... A few rule tweaks, some suspect supplimentation and a sport composed largely of men rolling in embrace on the ground aren't going to stop it.

 

another reason for the decline is the safety first attitude of some of the marquee fighters (cough, mayweather) of today. imagine if ali, sugar robinson, hagler etc... only took on fighters when they knew that they were just past their prime?
a good example is pacquio vs mayweather. mayweather waited for years to fight him until he knew he could take him. result was a universally snooze fest.
throw in dodgy scoring by judges, (miss byrd at canelo vs golovkin, looking at you!) and you will have fans turning away.

 

Aside from the shot at MMA, I agree with this.

Boxing is as close as a sport will ever get to being unkillable. (Except perhaps for running, jumping, wrestling, and throwing things.) It's survived 300+ years in the modern period, is in the Olympics, and has spread globally. It isn't going anywhere.

Also, boxing's sleazier and criminal elements might actually help it. Boxing's fringe elements will insulate it from future moral crusaders who try to make boxing unfashionable among The Right Sort Of People. Boxing doesn't depend on soccer moms, and never has.

Let me give just one, pretty unpleasant example: American football may not survive the publicity about concussions and brain damage. At the least, American football might see a drop in participation among younger people. Now contrast that situation with boxing. The concussion issue will make very little difference in boxing, because some of its backers are crooks who have known about brain damaged fighters for 300 years, and don't care.

 

I think in very simplified terms it was like this:

You had boxing on TV every week on USA Network and ESPN. And the networks had fights pretty much every weekend.

This exposure built up attractions that HBO and (to a lesser extent at the time) Showtime would then pluck, taking them off TV (their subscriber bases were much lower then, and cable for a long time had like 13 channels and then like 30, etc.).

So the bigger names became closed circuit/PPV stars by getting early TV exposure available to the masses and then became draws to make people subscribe to HBO and such.

And then they became PPV stars and they raked in the money. Tyson, Holyfield, etc.

But the well started to dry up. The networks stopped running boxing (used to even have big prime-time cards as well as weekend fare) and the cable outlets (USA and ESPN) began to lose interest. So you had a generation that finally phased out, and new stars weren’t being created.

Sure, an HBO could make a de la Hoya a star (but he was an Olympic star when that still meant something, built up on NBC) and a few others, but then that generation phased out.

And all of a sudden there were no more stars. A few popped up and got created, like Mayweather (again, an Olympian), but not a generation of stars. And to even see them you had to pay subscrition fees to HBO and Showtime. So their fan bases were smaller and, for the most part, less invested.

Now the cycle continues. There’s a bit of a revival but Floyd is gone, Manny is on a respirator, we have Canelo and ... next up is an attempt to make Wilder into an attraction starting with the Fury fight.

Heck, I remember when there were monthly TVKO PPVs that were like $20 and had fights like Morrison-Mercer, kind of second-tier stuff, and there were enough fans to sustain it.

I miss those days.

 

It's been around since Mesopotamia.

I think boxing will always be bigger than MMA.
Why?

For one, I think the notion that MMA fighters would beat Boxers on the street to be probably true, but insignificant.
There have always been more effective ways to subdue our fellow humans than just using our fists.

Boxing will always survive because it is the most ubiquitous form of planned, sanctioned combat.

 

Oh, I'm sure it will survive MMA, just based on its track record alone.

 

I actually like MMA and have a high level of respect for its participants. But most people can't see it's finer points (nor can they see boxing's) and think it's just two dudes rolling around on a mat.