Why is UK boxing more popular?

[Juof]

If top fights were still on free view TV fighters would be so much more popular today.

[Bodyshot3]

Why is boxing in the UK more popular in the U.S. when we have the best fighters fighting over here?

Great venues, good promoters, a long history in the sport and a small, but exciting list of world champions and prospects.

What's not to like about seeing guys like Froch and Frampton fight? Some divisions are also extremely strong....SMW you've got Degale, Froch and Groves all operating....with lots of good guys bubbling under. In the heavyweights you've got Tyson Fury and the chance to follow the professional career of the Olympic SHW gold medallist.....

[chocolate]

The British public (me included) are suckers for grudge matches. Eubank and Benn era for example was insane at how much publicity them guys got with the coverage on newspapers and TV air time.

[soul_survivor]

Boxing hasn't always been massively popular in the UK and was relegated to 2 inch columns on the back pages in the years following Eubank/Benn.

But with Hatton and then Khan, boxing really took off. Khan was heavily promoted on national television and boxed in front of a tv audience of millions on a regular basis before his move to Sky and then the US. That helped fund the sport at the amateur level, leading to success in the Olympics in 08...which has lead to the current crop of top level fighters and some pretty recognisable names, not to mention with Froch slowing working his way into the public conscience in recent years.

Sky themselves have heavily invested in the sport, like they did with football, darts and cricket in the 90s. It's been a cleverly planned move by the men behind the men on camera and it has massively paid off. The US however is embroiled in network wars, promotional disputes and what not. Not to mention no sports network seems to promote boxing outside of HBO/SHO for PPVs and ESPN for some small time shows. All of this has coincided with a drop in amateur quality, which leads to even fewer top level American prospects.

[TheCleaner]

MMA is bigger here in the UK I think. Participation is increasing as more clubs open having developed from 'classes' in other venues. There's less overheads to start out as both a club and fighter, dont need space for a ring, etc, and can pretty quickly be getting fights which pull in decent sized crowds. Thats actually pushed boxing further out, I often hear lads say boxing is p###y, and a take down would finish so n so.

As for boxing being more popular here than the US, is it? per 1000 population I'd imagine its similar, and wouldn't participation for US immigrant descent communities be higher too?

[TheCleaner]

MMA is bigger here in the UK I think. Participation is increasing as more clubs open having developed from 'classes' in other venues. There's less overheads to start out as both a club and fighter, dont need space for a ring, etc, and can pretty quickly be getting fights which pull in decent sized crowds. Thats actually pushed boxing further out, I often hear lads say boxing is p###y, and a take down would finish so n so.

As for boxing being more popular here than the US, is it? per 1000 population I'd imagine its similar, and wouldn't participation for US immigrant descent communities be higher too?

[davros1000]

MMA is bigger here in the UK I think. Participation is increasing as more clubs open having developed from 'classes' in other venues. There's less overheads to start out as both a club and fighter, dont need space for a ring, etc, and can pretty quickly be getting fights which pull in decent sized crowds. Thats actually pushed boxing further out, I often hear lads say boxing is p###y, and a take down would finish so n so.

As for boxing being more popular here than the US, is it? per 1000 population I'd imagine its similar, and wouldn't participation for US immigrant descent communities be higher too?

I don't agree with this at all. Based off of viewing figures from channel 5 fights and there MMA show there was a minimum 50% larger viewing figure for boxing vs MMA. Also based off Amateur boxing England there has been a large increase in boxing participation since London 2012. There are now 150,100 people participating in England amateur programs vs 139,200 pre 2012.

Look at the Froch vs Groves fights, almost everyone at work was talking about this contest and it had massive media attention. If that will be sustained is another question.

I have been doing a lot of research into boxing participation for a book I'm writing and boxing is in great health in the UK. The government has brought in a lot of boxing programmes to schools, that is boosting the participation levels. For team GB it is about gaining medals and more funding has been allocated to boxing as it is a high medal output team. Amateur boxing also got a big BBC1 Saturday afternoon time slot during the commonwealth games a few months ago.

Despite what I have mentioned earlier the one real bonus for British boxing vs it's American counter-part is image. Boxing has a horrible tarnished image in America, that will be difficult shift. British boxing lost support in the late 90's, but it still retained a decent image.

British boxing is on the rise and if managed well has a solid future ahead. It is still dwarfed by the likes of football, cycling and running as far as participation is concerned and I can't see that gap closing significantly in my lifetime.

[LacedUp]

Because it's better.

[MPX309]

People in the UK love an event, I think alot of fans of boxing are also football (soccer) fans too, where the rowdy singing comes from, but I don't think alot of people that actually attend boxing matches like the one last night for Warrington are huge boxing fans in general. . . A large handful are yes, but boxfit or circuit training is big in the UK, alot of women are involved in that, and that also gets them interested in boxing, if the gym they go to holds actual live boxing events aswell.

Glastonbury for example, tickets went on sale today at 9am and were sold out under half hour (something like 120'000?) People love the festival, but not everyone goes for the music lol. Just like with some boxing events in the UK, people love the event, atmosphere, but not everyone goes because they love boxing.

[Ric1889]

One of the main reasons its more popular is that the fans are tribal for their local guys.

Kell brook is huge in Sheffield, Hatton in Manchester, Froch in Nottingham. And those are the world level fighters, then there's guys like Gavin Reese, Anthony Crolla, Tommy Coyle who are massive in their home town, even though they never made it / will make it into guys that are frequently on the world scene.

Even fighters who open cards before the televised show can sell a lot of tickets in their home town (Adam Etches for example).

Compare this to the US where a genuine world ranked guy like Lamont Peterson cant sell out his home venue in a fight with someone like Khan.

I think people just support their local guys more, maybe because its a smaller country?