What are you even attempting to say? Boxing is more popular now then ever? Wow interesting that HBO dropped boxing.Showtime following soon. USA network dropped boxing as well as about 90% of the major television stations. There was a reason why boxing got dropped by HBO and it was for sure not because it was gaining in popularity. Its the opposite. Why in the hell would the Olympics dropping boxing be GOOD for boxing? More polished fighters? What the hell do you think the amateur ranks are for? Hell back in the 80s you won the open New York Golden Gloves that was considered a huge accomplishment. They used to fight in front of sellout crowds of TWENTY THOUSAND people.
HBO dropped boxing (and tennis) five years ago because the management at the time wanted to focus on "scripted television." With scripted television, you can have content you can then sell to other people to show on their streaming platforms. (That's why some HBO shows are on other platforms now, like Tubi.) HBO couldn't resell old boxing broadcasts to other stations. HBO management changed and this year HBO became MAX, they've bundled HBO, Turner Classic Movies, CNN, Discovery, TLC, etc., and low and behold the management there decided to start showing sports again and will offer it as a special offering now. This week, you can watch a Major League Baseball playoff game, a National Hockey League game, and a Lakers basketball game. Sports weren't a part of the plan five years ago, now sports are part of the plan again under new management in a streaming world. CBS/Showtime this week dropped boxing (and MMA - is that dying, too?) because the current management wants to focus on "scripted television" ... and the same week (this one) NBC/Peacock decided they wanted boxing to be a part of their streaming offerings. (The complete opposite view of CBS.) Last year boxing was dying because there were no unifications. This year, boxing is dying because there are so many unifications champions aren't fighting their challengers. They used to have to hold fundraisers for one old champ after another. Now, more fighters are millionaires than ever before. Someone posted how Hopkins sounds like he has CTE today. But the guy is a part owner of Golden Boy, he's worth tens of millions, and nobody has to worry about him getting medical care. So people complain they make too much. I've been arguing with a guy all day who seems like he doesn't like the sport in the least. If it's on every channel that was bad for boxing, it it's not on every channel that's bad for boxing, if you pay people to show your boxing matches that means fans don't want it, if the services now want to pay you to televise you fights, that's bad, too. It never freaking ends with some of you. Honestly.
HBO is in the business of making MONEY if boxing drew people to subscribe to HBO I promise you they would not cancel something that makes them money period.Among some of the reasons HBO cited the reason why they chose to cancel boxing was the following: problems with the promoters,declining ratings AND LOSS OF INTEREST OF THE SPORT AMONG SUBSCRIBERS. For every Bernard Hopkins there are dozens of ex champs/contenders that are broke. Showtime dropped boxing because,and i quote, : THE SPORT ISNT PRODUCING THE NUMBERS NEEDED TO MAKE IT VIABLE. If boxing was so popular as you claim SHOWTIME who has been involved in boxing for 37 years wouldnt end something that has been so succesful for so many years.
Well that's another nail in the coffin for the sport of boxing. While it won't kill amateur boxing it will have a big impact. Funding for amateur boxing in many countries will now dry up. If this becomes a permanent decision to leave boxing out of the games then boxing will become more niche and the quality of those going into the sports at the grass roots will be greatly diminished. Much of the boxing boom in the UK in recent decades was due to lottery funding, without the chance of Olympic medals that money will now be directed towards other sports. Amateur boxing in the UK will return to what it was before all this funding, where we will likely only send a very small team of boxers, like when in 2004 when we sent one boxer to Athens which was Amir Khan. Just look at the decline of US boxing at the amateur level and how that's effected the pro game. US amateur boxing was surpassed by other countries throwing money at the sport but now these countries that no longer fund boxing at the grass roots will also see a decline. Ironically it might mean the US has more success as it will now be competing on a more even playing field as neither side will properly fund the sport at the amateur level.
The Olympics will be on its death bed. The west going to use it has s political tool next year and there is going to a massive blow back. When they try to ban Russia and China just pulls the pin and there goes the second biggest TV deal out the window and all these bric nations start leaving. Olympics is just a massive corruption train funded by TV money and jobs for the lads for family members and politicians of the host country. There is a chance it falls over this decade
the only place showing fights on tv that i know of is espn plus once in awhile. Comcast sports shows fights over a year old. You of course think the heavyweight factory builds careers, name one.
Who gives a ****. Corrupt as ****. Floyd Jones Jnr Sugar Shane robbed as well? Or told to go up a division because ODLH had already '' won '' it etc They can go and get ****ed. **** the lot of em.
Heh. Olympic boxing was how I started watching boxing when I was a small child in 1968. Then I learned about corruption in sports in the 1972 Olympics when they ripped off the USA team of the Gold Medal in basketball. I was so peeved because I was a big fan of Tom Henderson, who was the guard from the University of Hawaii. That team never accepted the Silver Medal for that 1972 Olympics. Whatever. We knew for a while this was coming. As others have said, it is just the continued downward spiral of boxing.
Boxing only has itself to blame. They were given clear instructions by the IOC to clean up their act and to frankly be less corrupt otherwise they would lose their status as an Olympic sport. They unsurprisingly completely ignored it, and now are playing the victim because the sport has lost its place as an Olympic sport. This marks an important key milestone in boxings decline, as without an Olympics, the amateur game where professionals come from will not receive funding or grants in the UK or other countries. This in turn impacts upon the quality of fighter becoming professional as well as the talent pool. All in all it seriously hurts the sport. A sport that in the UK that is seriously struggling as it is.