Ok it's time for a rant. They say boxing is dying, but it should actually be growing. Just take a look at the past 5 weeks. In November you had Darchinyan-Mijares, Calzaghe-RJJ, Taylor, Abraham, Sturm, David Haye, Golota, all in action. After that you had Hatton-Malignaggi, Williams-Phillips, Brewster, Arreola, and tonight the dream match. Next week, Klitschko-Rahman, Toney-Thompson, Holt-Torres and more. This is enough boxing action to keep a fan going for months, and there are so many fights I didn't even mention. The problem is, the average boxing fan would only manage to watch a couple of these fights, if any at all. The F1 fans watch every race on mainstream television. The major football (aka soccer) tournaments are also on mainstream. Tennis, same thing. They even show long, boring cycling races on television. The funniest thing is, even if you wanted to pay for the fight you would have to live in the US or the UK. A global boxing channel with a subscription would still be reasonable, but there's no such thing. If your average television viewer has almost 0 chance of ever switching on the television and seeing a bout, how the heck do you expect the sport to grow. The sportsmen who you watch on mainstream TV also make millions in prize money or wages, so the cash shouldn't be an excuse. PS: You guessed correctly, I'm missing out on the dream match.
Amen. Think when the sport was at its biggest, the big fights were all shown on free to air television. I think it would take off if given the same chance as other sports.
It definitely would. It's very marketable and it's the kind of thing that appeals to a lot of young people. The timing is also pretty good (mainly saturday nights). Even people who weren't VERY interested would end up watching it with friends for social reasons. I don't even watch Formula 1, and I know lots of other people who don't, but we all watched the final race of the season. Something like Pacman-De La Hoya is much more appealing than watching Lewis Hamilton make 5th place. Also, the 24/7's would pull in a big crowd. People watch much lamer reality shows. But this is all secondary anyway. If the fans can watch boxing I don't even care too much about what everyone else does, but the problem is even the fans can't watch fights that they've been hearing about for months.
I couldn't agree with you more, but I'll go one step further. And hear me out for a second before you disagree with my initial statement. I don't know that boxing is that that much less popular right now that it ever was. Look at attendance figures, look at ppv numbers, look at the international popularity, which is no doubt at an all time high. Plus today, even if you isolate it to just the sports world, there is a lot more competing for your money and your attention. Outside of the problem you mentioned above, I think the second biggest problem is that ESPN and Sports Illustrated simply no longer cover boxing. They've made that decision, and because of that, boxing is "no longer mainstream". Sadly, all the common sports fan knows is what is on ESPN or what is in Sports Illustrated. For example, do you think worldwide poker phenomenon would have happened if it wasn't for ESPN? No way. I guess my point is, things aren't as bad as we think they are, and boxing is really only a few small changes from being recognized for what it is, one of the most popular worldwide sports.
just as long as you don't have Ruiz, Maglinaggi, Void Gayrunner Jr., Spinks Jr., and other boring fighters stinking out the joint because as we have all seen, people WILL walk out of a fight if it sucks.
I agree with everyone's sentiments here. So many fights (often good ones) are never aired because of either a lack of network coverage or the fighters not being network house fighters. I get the impression that networks would rather go under than even discuss fighters that don't have contracts with them. It's really sad because this type of attitude and behavior reduces boxing to just a small group of names. Additionally it seems the networks (for the most part) enjoy focusing on over the hill and sometimes shot fighters rather than current or upcoming contenders. PPV's are far to expensive and frequent. Viewership and popularity would grow if the majority of PPV's where aired on HBO, Showtime, or ESPN for free. In fact as an HBO subscriber I feel like PPV's on that network should be part of my subscription package. It's like HBO is asking me to subscribe to their network and then pay extra for a premium, premium paid network. I too wish the satellite and cable providers had a channel dedicated to strictly boxing. This channel's subscription should include all PPV's at no additional cost, along with all free fights for one monthly rate. Another poster suggested that such a channel also air 24/7 type of programming...another good idea. HBO should step up and create "HBO Boxing" or something like that. Alternativly I'd love to see a boxing channel or subscription service that works like DirecTV's NFL package so that for a monthly fee I can pick and watch any fight in the world, including PPV's! .....just my two cents
Well I guess there were actually two discussions that I started in this thread. One is popularity. You're right, boxing still has a strong fan base, and of course people are paying the money to go abroad, buy tickets, stay in hotels and come back, and they aren't all rich. But it would definitely be much much more popular if more people had access to it. I know people who box (as a hobby, not as a profession) but don't even know who Oscar De La Hoya or PBF are (let alone everyone they faced). They'll know Tyson and Ali, and that might be it. Now the other discussion, and what concerns me more, are the lack of options for us, the current fans. I don't really care too much if boxing doesn't become mainstream (although if it did it would solve this problem), but as a boxing fan I want to be able to watch these fights. The fans in the US and the UK have to pay for PPV's on top of having the channels in the first place, and the fans outside these countries CANT EVEN pay for a PPV, because it doesn't exist! The sport will survive, without a doubt, but the fans aren't getting what they should.
No idea, and the boxing only last 1-2 hours, depending on what they show. The cycling goes on for the WHOLE DAY, or at least it seems to be on every time I switch on the tv during the summer break.
What don't people get? If the networks can't sell advertising to the sponsors who ARE NOT interested in boxing then there is NO MONEY to buy the rights to the fights. Thus boxing becomes a niche sport supported by only the aging fan who are willing to buy PPV. There is no network televised boxing because there is no money available for it! PERIOD!! Boxers, promoters and production companies do not work for free just because fans want to see the fights.
exactly. ufc uses advertisers and tv to make money on alot of their prime fights. boxing seems to exclusively use the general public to pay for their cash.
Well, where I live free televison has showed 2 fights during last 12 months: Hatton-Malinaggi and Hatton-Mayweather:?
