What will it take for boxing to be the most popular sport?

Good idea. Line them all up against a wall and take them out with machine gun fire Valentine's Day Massacre style. :kenny :kenny :kenny :kenny



:yep

 

The belts and PPV's are a problem.... but the biggest problem is just society changing. With Internet and 50 channel TV's, everything must be fast these days. MMA and K1 have great success because their fights are only 3-4 rounds long. People don't take time to appreciate a 12 round strategy. Plus, with fights that are 4 times shorter than a boxing match, you get to see 4 times more names, and name recognition is one of the main aspects of getting hooked up with a sport.

Plus, American people (like every nationality) like it when their own guys do best. Right now there is only one American contender in the heavyweight division, and in the lower weight classes they are becoming more and more rare as well. The up side is that boxing has never been bigger in Europe, most particularly Germany, but also Eastern Europe and Great Britain (with recent successes like Lewis, Hamed, Calzaghe, Hatton, Haye, etc). It would be great if boxing became popular in China, that would bring a tremendous talent pool to the lower weight classes. In that sense i was happy that China won a couple of gold medals at the Olympics; it's bound to inspire some Chinese youngsters and that's where it all starts.


Fortunately, there will always be boxing fans because it's inside us humans to like the modern gladiators. I just hope it will remain on big time television like it is now. Pac-Hatton certainly helped, at least.

 

it never will be the most popular sport simply because of the brutality of it.
to be honest the way the world is going i wont be surprised if boxing is banned as people cant keep there ****ing opinions to themselves.

to get more popular at present though they need to to force champs to fight the other champs in there weight class.
that would make some interesting fights and attract more fans.
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get rid of all these organizations. one belt per division. i think the whole ABC nonsense is ridiculous. anyone can be handed a belt these days. also, while i dont mind spending money on ppv's (because on principle i believe the fighters deserve as much money as they can earn), the whole ppv concept keeps access to boxing limited to established fans. if boxing were to be mainstream again, it needs to be accesible. also, i think nowadays people might be split in their opinion of the sport, since it's a blood sport at it's most basic level

 

Boxing needs to attract the best athletes. At the moment, they are being attracted to other sport where its easier to guarantee a lucrative career e.g. American Football and basketball in the states, soccer in the rest of the world. No idea how that could happen though.

 

I think the main thing it needs to do is be better at marketing itself and more easy to understand, like you have with UFC. I don't mind the abc belts because it gives fighters and fans a fight that they want to see being an undisputed/unified champ is bigger and to me better then being a longer reigning champ who just beat dangerous contenders. But something needs to be done about these bs belts which need to be cut, get rid of all the inter-continental, wbu, ibo belts and leave it with national, continental and the 3 world titles (ibf,wba,wbc) and also recognise the ring magazine belt.
Fighters need to be fighting more often, it is ridiculous that big name fighters are only out 1 or 2 times a year, I think that unless they have been in a war they should be out 3 times a year.

In all honesty though the only way it would become mainstream number 1 or major again would be if they cut the number of rounds down to something like 8, also you have the original 8 weight divisions and fighters are out 5/6 times a year.

 

Having one Pacquiao in every division.

 

- if fighters stopped cherrypicking
- if they only had 1-3 PPV's a year
- if they only had one divisional title

...would it be the MOST popular sport? no, cuzz some people still think it's barbaric, but this would help alot