Back in the 80's and 90's, "hotboxes" (illegal cable where u get all the premium channels and ppv events for free) were everywhere. At least here in NYC they were. Dont know about the rest of the country/world. We are now in the digital era where illegal cable is almost impossible to obtain. Fans have no choice BUT to pay to see a ppv boxing match unlike before. Point of this thread is, I feel that if not for illegal cable back in those days, the current record of 2.4m buys would have been made and exceeded that of Floyd/Oscar. Most likely by Mike Tyson. Anyone here agree or disagree?
What about sites that stream events for free in this day and age? They take away from PPV buys as well.
Who cares about actual PPV numbers, 100x more people watched live events involving Ali and Tyson, and thats the truth.
Streams are pretty crappy and unreliable. Those hotboxes were big in those days. I paid $250 for a box, and I had it for 6yrs before cable switched over to digital. Best investment ever!
Boxing was more mainstream in the 80s than nowadays so surely the PPV buys would be greater then if all else was equal.
Ali/Spinks II had 80,000,000 viewers on ABC in 1978. Imagine that today, it would be on PPV and no one would care.
Yes I agree with that. Cutting out illegal boxes and sat cards has only helped the numbers, as boxing has not gotten bigger since the days of Tyson.
Eveybody had the black boxes. I used mine up until probably the mid 00's, I never had to buy any payperview until then