PPV is killing boxing

This **** should all be on public television.

 

They're already working on that by airing the World Series of Boxing for free, which includes boxers from all types of backgrounds

 

This has been said in America for 20 years now.

 

PPV, boxers fighting once a year, a million orgs with a million belts per weight, promoters, the best not fighting the best, no non cable bouts on like channel 2, and a heap of other things have combined to hurt boxing

 

It was in the 80's.. And boxing was much more popular back then!

 

PPV can work if it's sparingly used and reserved for only major fights and are supplemented with well rounded under-cards.

Boxing can't afford, imv, to put out PPV duds that leave casual fans with a bad taste in their mouths.

 

Froch's fights used to be on ITV 4 which most people have for free but he's still pretty unknown to casual sports fans. I don't recall if his fight with Taylor was on it but I'm pretty fight with Pascal was and that didn't get anyone into boxing despite being a good fight.

I agree with you to an extent but it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing. Free to air stations won't pay enough because they don't think anyone will watch it, no-one will watch it because they don't know enough about the boxers. PPV probably contributed to boxings relative lack of popularity but scrapping it wouldn't necessarily lead to hordes of new fans straight away.

 

It has gotten out of control. JCC Jr. headlining ppvs is not a good sign for the direction boxing is going. I give Showtime a lot of credit cause they seem to air the biggest non-ppv fights the most.

 

True but you can't compare boxing from the 80's to now, those fighters were cut from a different cloth

 

Very true . . . but it's making boxers richer.

 

It's not really the PPV itself, it's the fact that boxing has a tough time getting sponsors, and often promoters put absolute **** on PPV.

The biggest fights weren't free before, they were on closed circuit, which is a lesser viewing experience IMO than PPV. But you also had boxing on network TV, a lot of good stuff on Saturday afternoons, and good stuff on HBO as well. Being on CBS should help a fighter's popularity/visibility than being on HBO, or some independent PPV.

 

Boxing was only more popular in the 1980's because many of the best fights were on public television.

How many new fight fans might the sport have won if Maidana - Morales had been on CBS. That fight was the equal of Duran - Barkley but how many got to see it.

 

This is the cable tv era. This is an individual sport and the only sport big enough for terrestial TV left is football in America. I don't agree that some fights should be PPV, but they wouldn't be put on at all otherwise. HBO and Showtime have a budget, they only will buy fights they see fit to air and that they know will be watched. Their budget only goes so far, they can't afford great big fights because of what it costs. So PPV is the way, I don't like it, but in order for it to be on terrestial tv again it can't be speratic, big fights would have to be weekly, or in a season so advertising space could be sold. American football gets billions of dollars a year from TV networks, but they can sell the ad space, and people know they can tune in every sunday for football september through January. It sucks but boxing the way it is with the money that is shelled out for one fight has to be on ppv, ESPN2 has friday night fights, this is available worldwide on espn3 live, all the best fighters fighting now started there. Kudos to ESPN for budgeting enough money so the average fan can see fights too. NBC tried a 5 week saturday fight card in 2005 I believe, sponsored by budweiser, it never came back, no ratings. That is where I first saw an undefeated Kermit Cintron. We have fight night club coming up this week too. The money is not there for big fighters without ppv, but the more up and comers we can get on cable or regular tv the better.

 

Boxing is being reborn now in it's new home, Germany, so I wouldn't worry about it to much. What a great Country Germany is for boxing, sold out massive football stadiums plus over 10 million viewers watching for free on their tv at home, fantastic. I expect within 20 years we will see at least 5 new World champions coming from Germany precisely because of this. Not forgetting that Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe are also just beginning to get the feel of watching their Country men compete at the highest level, again with millions of new viewers, central and Eastern Europe is going to become even bigger than it is now in the coming years. Boxing in Europe is really only starting to begin now and i'm looking forward to it. Let the USA and the UK kill the sport with ppv, plenty of other nations will show them how it's done.