Is boxing in the top 10 most popular sports in the world?

Compared to the days of Lewis, Benn, Eubank and Naz, today's boxing is in a more low-key state. I mean, noone in the UK is even bothering to show the Alvarez-Hatton fight.

 

I have no statistical type of data to back that up, but I would say boxing is definitely a top 10 worldwide sport.

 

It's terrible. His run in the most innovative boxing tournament in recent time has seen him reach the semi-finals, and barely anyone in the UK is even aware of it.

 

If you watch CNN, boxing is probably about the least popular sport. That ****** news channel would report all kinds of football and cricket results but hardly says anything about boxing.

 

Boxing is one of the most popular sports in the world. Do you know how many boxing shows/events take place every weekend accross the world and cities across the U.S.? Hundreds. Boxing has its ups and down just like any sport. The NBA ,MLB, NHL, Nascar all have lost millions and many teams have reported losses. Lockouts are being mention and have occur in most major sports in the past years. Now you tell me what year did boxing fail to provide at least a decent fight for a year?

 

This reply is acualy making me teary IE. remanisig but with that said


TUESDAY NIGHT FIGHTS was not only a family tradition but a naborhood tradition and IMHO (im probaly wrong) (TUESDAY NIGHT FIGHTS CANCELLED) but thats when the decline started up till then it was still fairly main strem and you could go to the store and here the avrage joe talking/arguig about what ever big match up was aprouching N E WAS I could b way off base but since my dads passig i find my self thinking about tuesdaynight fight days and cant help think about all the good times with the family frineds and even people you dont realy know watchig the fights and even with the massive hag over you know u r going to have on your way to work u know it was worth it.

n e ways i think we as a sport need somting like that to bring the sport back

TUESDAY NIGHT FIGHTS best memories i have.

 

If you talking about participation and not necessarily about $$...

Soccer
Basketball
Golf
Baseball
Tennis
Hockey
Car racing (NASCAR, F1, etc)

(Am Football, volleyball, cricket, etc)


I guess it is possible but unlikely. Boxing is probably in the top 20.

 

boxing is amazing, and to be honest im not a football/soccer fan, i hate it. but everywhere you look its football. football has its own channels all over sky, they dominate everything.

Its a bunch of ***gtos, wife beaters and rapists crawling around a pitch for 90 minutes crying because of a scratch. they should try boxing or MMA, make some men out of the little boys

 

Top ten? Yes . . . easily. It's part of the olympics isn't it? :deal

 

1. Tiger Woods – $90,508,163 - golf
2. Roger Federer – $61,768,110 - tennis
3. Phil Mickelson – $61,660,757 - golf
4. Floyd Mayweather Jr. - $60,250,000 - boxing
5. LeBron James – $45,779,912 - basketball
6. Lionel Messi – $44,000,000 - football, not handegg
7. David Beckham – $40,500,000 - football, not handegg
8. Cristiano Ronaldo – $40,000,000 - football, not handegg
9. Manny Pacquiao – $38,000,000 - boxing
0. Alex Rodriguez – $37,000,000 - baseball

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/fortunate50-2010/index.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/fortunate50-2010/index.20.html

So, you have 3 footballers, two for golf and boxing, one for tennis, one for basketball and one for baseball. Guess American Football is dying.

 

Probably not. The only time boxing events draw much interest is when there is a megafight on.

Alot of sports draw more interest throughout the year:

Football
Basketball
Golf
Tennis
Netball
Rugby
Cricket
Motor Racing
Baseball
American Football

And then for specific countries you have national sports eg, Ireland - Gaelic Football, Australia - Aussie Rules Football, Rugby League, Japan - Volleyball, China - Table Tennis lol..etc..

The mainstream has been shutout with the emergence of PPV, so mainstream news outlets don't feel it necessary to cover it. Just as you would for fights themselves, for news related to boxing you also have to go searching for it.

 

A major issue that boxing has to contend with is that almost all other major sports have constant programming and league fixtures whereby you can watch your favourite team week in, week out. MAJOR boxing events take place maybe every month or so? Most major boxers only fight 2 or maybe 3 times a year. Absolute superfights take place very rarely, and involve prolonged negotiations to get there.

With football (the real football), you are guaranteed massive matches every season - you know your going to get El Classico at least twice a season, sometimes 4, 5 or 6 times. You know that in cricket, the Ashes take place every 18 months. In golf, the big players play every week and are involved in about 7 or 8 massive tournaments every year.

I would say that when big fights take place, boxing becomes a very popular sport. When a Pacquiao v Mayweather level of fight takes place, then boxing is one of the most popular sports in the world. But then the very next week you might be lumped with Audley Harrison versus Butterbean, and then more people will watch a replay of Friends.

 

More people watch one Formula 1 race than watch the entire football Premiership in the UK i.e. it's a global phenomenon with Billions of viewers each year so is higher than people think.

Boxing used to get 100's of millions viewing. PPV means it's nowhere near that.

In terms of viewing figures for single events approx it's:

1) Olympics (at least a few billion, but it's a month event -100m final is probably still in top 3 on its own)

2) World Cup (Soccer - billions watch. again a 2 week event, but the final is huge close to a billion on its own)

3) F1 (500m+ per race, billions per season)

4) Superbowl (the only American Football event that is globally viewed, but for a single event it's over the 100m mark in the US alone I believe)

5) Golf major final (guess-10m+ in UK watch certain alone)

6) Tennis Slam final (Guess - 10m+ watch in UK alone)

7) NBA Playoff final (less than 100m)

8) Baseball (less than 100m)

9) Boxing (10 times the PPV figures minimum, plus streams)
so at least 10-20m)

Id say from 5 to 8 are pretty similar probably.

American Football, Baseball and Basketball are not truly global, but due to the commercial nature of the TV deals in the US market the money involved is huge (similiar to Football in the UK).

Football/Soccer is global and will have much higher participation/viewing rates than the US centric sports (although not neccessarily higher pay).

Cricket is maybe just outsode the top 10 as it is global. Rugby I'm unsure about, it's big in some Coutries, but not entirely global i.e. 6 Nations. Either way Cricket and Rugby are in a different league to the list up top.

Just looking at the earnings figures doesn't tell the whole story. A typical team sportman will earn around 3 times more on the field than off. A typical individual sportsman will earn 3 times off the field as on. Tiger probably makes 10times + off (or used to), Anna Cornawhateverhernamekova used to make 16times more off the tennis court than on. Boxing bucks this trend due to the fact viewing figures are down, which means the boxers will make much less through sponsorship than in the ring.

Plus in team sports the top 100-200 are millionaires, in individual sports all the money is skewed to the top 10.

The issue with Boxing is that PPV has killed it's profile. Wheras 10-14million+ in the UK alone used to tune in the 80's and 90's to watch a fight it's now more profitable to have 500k watch it on PPV. This means slowly it's lost it's profile and because you no longer have boxers building their careers infront on millions of viewers only the few ever become PPV draws i.e. back in the day just before PPV all the champs had exposure of millions of people as potential PPV customers. They no longer have that.

This also causes issues at getting the big fights set up as just because you're a champ doesn't mean you're a draw and big inequities arrise e.g. Calzaghe was never going to fight Froch or Dawson when they couldn't sell out a 4000 seat areana in their own town. It's more profitable to put on a pantomime show vs draws.

The ideal is to start your career on standard TV and once you have a base move to PPV. However, it's now a catch 22 and standard TV channels don't want back in as it's hard to guarantee the viewers. The only people who signed decent standard TV deals in the UK was Audley and Kahn due to their Olympic success. I believe Warren couldn't get a similar deal for DeGale and co (or at least one that even nearly matched Sky's offer).

That brings me onto the way promoters are getting around this lack of profile. They're signing Olympic stars and taking advantage of the profile that event brings. The issue is that the promoters then have to protect these fighters and keep them away from tough challenges as even if they're not as good as decent domestic fighter they are worth more money.


I wish I hadn't bought the Tyson/Bruno fight (1st PPV in the UK) and I wish no one else did either. If that fight flopped they'd never have tried it again!


Even though the figures are down in boxing, nothing stimulates interest like a super fight. Even if it's not watched live (either PPV or at the event) people still want to know who won. You also have to remember that 1million ppv's is probably 10million watching it via venues or in a shared house. The streams and reruns probably add millions more.

Note: these figures and stats may be a bit out as they are based on me remembering facts from my Post Grad Major in the early 2000's.

Woah, looking at this I wrote a book. Sorry, I started and couldn't stop!

 

ya its top 10 . that isnt sayin much. it aint a top 3 or 5 .