What happened to the popularity of boxing from the 70s to today?

That's actually incorrect. Boxing was indeed exceptionally mainstream, from the bareknuckle days clear up thru the 50's and 60's. Second most popular sport in the country behind baseball until then.

It has indeed fallen way, way below what it had been. I can't sit here and tell you anything about whether there is a burgeoning talent pool in Uzbekistan now; unless it translates to what I personally see here, my own reality remains the same. If that sounds U.S.-centric, so be it. All I can comment on is what goes on here, or what the vibe is here.

 

Yeah, I get what you mean! Being from the US, you have of course experienced how boxing has gone from being a big thing... to being nothing but a niche sport these days. So it's understandable, that you feel the way you do.

However, some posters (and I'm not saying you) often translate this feeling into something that sounds overly harsh on today's boxing/boxers. You can find the strangest posts here on Classic, where the sole purpose, apparently, is to denigrate modern boxers. Why this is so, is a mystery to me - as there clearly are fine boxers even today. Just as there were "back in the day"!

 

mancini killed kim, boxing left major network tv to more premium networks and became a niche sport that became less accessible with ppv

i think that might be too simplistic but i do think that fight did a lot to get things to where they are now

 

Just some thoughts, not facts:

Growing up in the “states” during the 70’s and 80’s boxing era, the sport was still as recognizable as any other mainstream one. The coverage of Ali, SRL, Duran, Hagler were as recognizable as OJ, Pele, Namath, Dr. J, Magic and Bird. They were in commercials and magazines that were not even sports related. Sugar Ray and Mean Joe Green commercials still etched in my memory as well as Charles Barkley and Marvin Hagler Uncivilized old spice advertisements.

It seems to me from the Holmes years to the Tyson years boxing fell off of the general public map (not me from a family of boxing enthusiasts, but for the general public).

What changed? Loss of a charismatic figurehead? 12- rounds instead of 15 (bothers me but probably has little to do with waning interest)? Removal from free tv to closed circuit and PPV (my family was not wealthy enough to afford cable or AC lol, so for a few years my own interest and knowledge declined). The rise in popularity of NBA and NFL stole most of my focus as well. To many champs not willing to unify and fight for supremacy! Tyson became an anomaly where every knee him, but most sports fans couldn’t tell you much about other weight classes. So boxing settled in as a fringe sport.

Now my sons 21 & 19 and thier friends talk about MMA much more than boxing and unless it is a mega fight or I convince them to spend some time with dad watching boxing...I don’t think they would even pay attention. UFC at least promises many of the best against the best that boxing does not. I equate it to:
Golden State WBA champs
Cleveland Cavs WBO champs
Boston IBF champs

And then none of them playing each other? Who would tune in or care if no one established dominance?

Then there is American elitist snobbery where we think through a US lens. If it is not big here it does not matter anywhere...faulty and not expressed verbally in those words but true nonetheless.

My sons know the names of GGG Canelo Floyd and Pac and Loma, but even growing up in a boxing home they don’t recognize other great boxes of today to really discuss them.

While globally other nations have picked up the slack and asserted themselves into boxing’s present and future landscape. Increasing global popularity even as American interest wanes.

I think it is good for boxing overall even if it is to its detriment state side. Due to nostalgia I miss the days of old, but I still love the sweet science, and boxers of today!

 

I appreciate the reply, and mea cupla on the downgrading of modern boxers in this forum. I do it routinely, and fully admit to it.

I will also admit that a good portion of it has to do with simple old-fogeyism. I've been 70 years old for a very long time now, and the old order changeth hard. I would also note though, that there is also real basis of fact regarding U.S. fighters that for many of the reasons noted previously, boxing has very much become a fringe sport. As a sport that has been so marginalized, so too have the sources of production of good fighters and their availability to improve. Supply and demand. What used to be something that a lot of youngsters did is now inhabited only by a precious few, so the turnout of great fighters must therefore decline in kind. It's not a declaration of war on the whippersnappers, it's just plain math. Fewer regular fight venues and cards = fewer gyms = fewer good trainers = fewer great fighters.

To me, the logic of that is inescapable.

 

Boxers earning more now doesn't prove that the sport is more popular, it proves that the economy has changed and of course back in the 70's there was no PPV and the fights shown on TV back then I'm sure didn't make anywhere near as much as now from advertisers (factoring inflation in of course).

 

Spending some time with my auntie who I just learned from; she and all her siblings gathered around the radio to listen to Louis vs Schmelling. Folks packed the little house to hear the biggest sport behind baseball. So I concur!

But there is a problem with boxing in how the kids have adapted, or not. When I grew up in the 1980s, most kids at school, playground could name at least a dozen boxers.

Most of my nephews can name but a few outside of pac & Floyd. I'm ashamed & angry to know so many still don't know who Deontay Wilder is, let alone AJ or Fury. Still naming Lennox, Tyson, old dudes.

Yet, PPV when marketed can makes so many millions, that it (seems) boxing hasn't died. My guess is die hard fans are far & few in the States, but enough casual fans will buy to keep it afloat.

 

All the PPV numbers signify is that they charge a lot for them. It's not necessarily reflective of a huge number of buys.

 

I don't mind text walls, but others might. Bukkake did about as good an analysis as one could expect with such limited information, but I'm extremely wary of using recorded fights per year as a proxy for the number of unique active fighters at a given time. I'd much prefer to see decade by decade figures on how many fighters had twenty fights or more, and it would be even better to see this broken down by weight class.

 

I would love to have that kind of detailed data to get either a more concrete confirmation or refuting of my thesis.

 

It can be interpreted to be a measure of the public's thirst for the event. In that sense the collective demand, whether in depth or breadth, has never been measurably higher.

 

In the real world, nobody will ever be able to prove anything definitively with the data one way or the other. Your position seems pretty coherent and plausible to me though, especially in the absence of any compelling data to the contrary.

 

MMA plus LEVEL OF COMP