The British General Public & Boxing

I think the tzsyu fight was on itv? but i agree that mostly hes been on sky/ppv

 

Tszyu fight was on PPV

 

Are you sure??? im pretty certain i watched it at my girlfriends where she has no sky tv,

 

there must be many people who are interested in boxing and would watch but just don't have the access to even watch the british fighters how do we expect them to know taylor, cotto, pacquiao and even lesser known fighters around the world

uk population- 60mill

those with satelite tv sky/setanta- 7-9 million more or less and these networks don't even cover boxing hugely

 

it was ppv

i won't make any comments on your girlfriend, what state you were in at the time or why you thought she didn't have sky

 

was it at 2am uk time although it was at the men?

 

I know one lad who knows boxing. He doesn't follow it that closely these days so I give him the heads up when there is action on Sky or whatever.

He knows his stuff though, and his history.

I know a handful of others who, other than opponents Brits have fought, would also know pacman, Cotto and at a push the likes of Pavlik and Marquez.

Then there are the majority of people who have good all round knowledge of sport but only know the bigger UK boxing names and likely no international names at all.


However I doubt this state of affairs was so different 25 years ago.

I think the British public has an appetite for boxing that is satisfied by having a few high profile names to follow, ideally who can fight each other.

 

ok ok ok just found thew promo o you tube, must have been the jc lacy fight im getting confused with watching at gf"s!!!

hatton looked very young in the promo considering it was only 3 1/2 yrs ago!!

 

Yep.

 

I think you need a a connection wi the fans, ricky has it, calzaghe eventually earnd it, Bruno, Eubank and all them seemed to have ti as well. I must say though, a lot of my pals are slowly getting more into boxing with all the media hype of hatton, calzaghe etc. not sure if thats just my mates personally or generally the public warming to it a little again. I wonder what ITV's ratings for boxing are?

 

I agree. Jones has probably been one of the biggest names in the sport for the last ten to 15 years and yet his exposure to the public in the UK has been largely minimal. Few still know who he is...

Probably post early 1990's, I think the sport has just dropped off big time with the general public (with a few exceptions of big British fighters).

 

BUt it is clear that once the top british fighters ( eubank bruno benn collins lewis.......) went to sky , public interest in the sport has lessened

 

Agreed, it was around that time (they lost interest) and probably no coincidence.

Late 80s the general public had even the likes of Mike Tyson fights live on ITV.

 

even if there was a round up show, similar to bunces but with highlights on itv or bbc on a sat afternoon it would give a mainstream more accesesibilty to the sport, and then more likely to get sky/setanta for ppvs etc

 

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That's the thing, Football has grown (in some ways) since going to subscription - the opposite of boxing.

I guess it's a different game, a domestic game.

The likes of Hatton are extremely well known, but it's boxers as a whole, on a world level, who just aren't so well know as they used to be.

I'm not sure if highlight reels, re-runs, work for boxing, like they do for football.