Unpopular opinions

By the 60s the NFL was integrated

Look at an athlete like Jim Brown

I always find the NFL and nba argument silly

There are other reasons for decline here

 

There's additional reasons, but these sports are a big part of it.

To play football or basketball in America, all one has to do is go to school and go out for the team. To take up boxing at school age, you've got to find a gym and go to it after school every day, and if you're not old enough to drive (or don't have a car) or there's no public transport, you've got to run or walk or bicycle to it, etc.

Football and basketball are part of the school system in this country and there are scholarships to continue it beyond grade school if you're any good. Boxing doesn't offer this. It's an easier and more natural path and there's exposure to football and basketball to young potential athletes.

 

I don't disagree that there are potentially other reasons but I do not think it out of hand to consider what's happened in the development, recruitment and remuneration in other sports, for inclusion in the reasoning.

 

Totally agree.

 

Wlad was making more money than any NFL'er during his prime years. And the average NFL player has a 3.3 year career, making just $1.9 million.

Additionally, I would add that the world is full of large sized dude, more now than ever, and in places boxing is just now fully exploiting or has yet to exploit, Eastern Europe, Africa... someday perhaps China. Yank football and basketball have almost zero pull in these places.

 

The average NFL salary in 1980 was $78,000 a year. Today, the average NFL salary is $1.4 million a year. The NFL is the biggest sport in the U.S. It's a monster. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, it was not even considered one of the major U.S. sports. Baseball, Boxing, College Football and Horse racing were bigger than the NFL.

There was the famous "HEIDI" game in the NFL in 1968. Where NBC left a game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets (the two biggest TV markets in the country - California and New York) with several minutes left in the game to show a made-for-TV movie "Heidi." And the Jets came back with two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game.

Can you imagine that today? NEVER in a million years.

Hell, in 1979, Larry Holmes, the WBC heavyweight champion, was making $2.5 million to defend against Earnie Shavers. Today, (nearly 40 years later) the WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder makes HALF THAT to defend his title on TV.

How popular do you think the NFL would be today if top players were making HALF what top players made in 1979?

And the NBA salaries are even more ridiculous now. The MINIMUM salary of a second year NBA player is more than $800,000. EVERYBODY in the NBA gets AT LEAST that much. The worst players in the league make $800,000 in year two. And many of them are only 20 years old.

IF EVERY GUY WHO BOXED WAS GUARANTEED $800,000 a YEAR in their second year as a pro, REGARDLESS OF HOW BAD THEY WERE, how many people do you think would take up BOXING?

EVERY AFRICAN AMERICAN BOXER in the U.S. would give up boxing to play in the NBA. Every last one of them. Hell, forget heavyweights, Manny Pacquiao would give up boxing if he could play in the NBA. Roy Jones never would've stepped foot in a ring if he could've played in the NBA. Deontay Wilder, the reigning WBC heavyweight champion, never would've boxed if he could've played in the NBA.

 

Tyson Fury would take a sh!t in a super bowl though.

 

I've never found this theory persuasive. I'm more of a believer in the (widely-embraced) theory of deliberate practice, in which people master skills through focused, highly-structured practice (or training). Would seem to me that boxers with high-quality trainers and training regimens improve their skills in the gym, through hours and hours of work (including sparring), way more than they learn on fight night.

 

No comparison, for all the reasons people have already explained. I would also emphasize the college connection (lots of kids and families see basketball or football prowess as a means to college scholarships) and the overall social factor (basketball and football are "cool" and popular, and provide status and inclusion for American kids who make their school's teams).

 

I am extremely familiar with the NFL. As a sport, i's horrible today but it used to be excellent. And still, the average career of its players is only 3 years. There are no guaranteed contracts. You get injured, you are likely out of a job.

And Wlad was able to pull down $30 million a year.

I just did not know that 7% of the US population represented the entire 3.8 billion males on the planet. Basketball is still a relative afterthought in Europe, well behind motorsports and FOOTBALL, behind many other sports in the non-Mediterranean countries... It is barely known in South America and basically an oddity in Africa and Asia.

 

Of course there are other reasons too. I've always felt that the decline of American cities, deindustrialization, the growth of urban street gangs, and mass incarceration policies play a huge role in the decline of American boxing.

 

Wouldn't these factors also contribute to a decline in the NBA and NFL?

 

They certainly deprive the NFL and NBA of a ton of potential talent but those sports are much better at drawing talent from American suburbs (and in the case of the NBA, from abroad). I think a lot of people would be surprised to realize how relatively few of the African American athletes in those leagues actually grew up in inner-city poverty. Also, even in the worst neighborhoods, the most promising young basketball players are often protected and steered away from street life to focus on athletic success.

 

I'm not sure I'd consider Wlad's prime career earnings as being representative of the average Pro Heavyweight Boxer's takings. There is limited opportunity to gain exposure in Heavyweight Boxing and, I suspect, unless one is somewhere within the top 5% of competitors (just guessing on that ratio), earnings could be much, much less than the average Pro Footballer's income.

There are also the more obvious health risks in Boxing, which means, if there is an opportunity to make a very good living and perhaps a name for oneself in sport, without getting your head punched, then that's going to be the preferred option. That's not to say Football can't be considered a dangerous sport because it can be - but the more obvious and present risk is clear to everyone, where boxing is concerned.

Competing in the NBA, of course, has all the benefits of being high profile and very safe. Some of the earnings for the top players in this league and the NFL are substantial, too. Top players will likely have longer careers and, with greater exposure, be more likely to get endorsement deals worth millions.

With regard to other countries throwing their respective hats into the Heavyweight prize ring and developing an advanced training program for would-be Pro Boxers of the future, we will have to wait and see.

 

And doesn't boxing draw talent much better now from Eastern Europe and Asia? And the UK and Latin American remain consistent providers, also. Does the sport even need US born participants?