By Tom Donelson
Boxing's marketing is at all-time low as boxing continues its downward decline in popularity. As a sport that once was one of America’s major sports is now simply part of that group called others. While there is much gnashing of teeth of this dilemma, all is not lost and there are strategies that can be used to arrest the decline and expand the sport's popularity again.
We must understand the media market. In the late 70’s, there were three major networks and cable was a fledging portion of the market with little impact. Sports were available on “free TV” and only boxing used any form of PPV’s to move outside Free TV. With just three networks, there was only so much time to broadcast sports. Major networks restricted sports coverage to the major sports including boxing.
In 1979, ESPN began broadcasting along with TBS. The rise of the Superstations TBS and WGN along with ESPN broke the first chain of the major network monopoly. With CNN's 24 hours news network- Americans were now presented with new choices including sports viewing.
This produced the following events. Broadcast monopoly was broken and major sports found themselves competing with other sports for viewers’ attention. As the cost of broadcasting sports increased, major networks started to rethink their own commitment to sport coverage. Sports went from being profit centers to profit losers. Many sports cost networks money and the first victims were the smaller sports such as boxing.
As the 90’s approached, cable started to become a major player in the major sports. In 1987, ESPN began covering professional football and baseball fans could follow the exploits of the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs because of the Super stations.
Today, cable is the main provider of sports. Most baseball and basketball games are seen on cable. Only football can state that the majority of their sport is televised on network television. The vast majority of television viewers are hooked into either cable or direct television. There is no such thing as “free television.” Now you can add Internet, which includes streaming sporting events upon a sport fanatic’s home computer. And the introduction of Sirrus, satellite radio adds yet another venue for sports.
Sports promoters need to understand the new markets before designing the right strategy. With the explosion of the new media, there are new opportunities to expand boxing coverage. Boxing must begin to get its own house in order. What I will talk about is consider mission impossible. With the proliferation of sanctioning bodies, there are too many champions in each divisions and this has diverted attention from the sports.
Could you imagine if NFL had four different teams claiming they are the Super Bowl champion? On this front, there are positive developments. While the sanctioning bodies still hold sway, outside pressures are starting to exert itself. Ring Magazine, ESPN and others have begun the process of ranking fighters independent of the sanctioning bodies.
There are no immediate solutions to the mess that the sanctioning bodies have gotten boxing into or for that, the mess that many promoters have allowed to happen for short term greed. The only real rationale for the sanctioning bodies is ranking fighters and setting rules. Take the ranking from the bodies and you have eliminated a major reason for their existence.
The first step that can be done is to simply refuse to recognize every “champion” as champion. With the exception of the heavyweight, the best fighters in each division are easy to pick. Each independent ranking have similar fighters at the top of each division. There are consensuses developing of the best fighters in each division. Think of each sanctioning bodies as divisional champions and each division has but one super champion.
For example, the undisputed Welterweight champion is Carlos Baldomir. (Even if he chose to save some money and stiff the WBA and IBF by not paying them their fees.) And there are two top contenders, WBO divisional champ Antonio Margrito and Floyd Mayweather. Other divisions are similar. All sports need focus and any thing, no matter how small, can put a little focus in boxing is good. Focus means allowing fans to concentrate on the real champions and real contenders.
Another step is to take advantage of cable regional approach. Comstat and Fox Sports are organized on regional basis and this allows for televising young and rising stars on a local basis. For example, my cable provider carries Comcast Chicago, and Chicago is filled with boxing promotion teams as well as some young hungry boxers.
Chicago has been the home to some big fights over the past year and there are close to two boxing programs a month. Guilty productions televises fights between up and coming fighters plus Fox Sports has their own fight cards. The problems is that many of these fights are often repeats and in some cases, several months old. Broadcasting live bouts or repeats of a previous week fight would be better. Or better yet, maybe even broadcast on a delayed basis European fights.
Organizing regional broadcasts featuring young boxers creates new heroes. Joe Mesi began his rise as a regional star in Northern New York before becoming a contender. Matt Vanda is a young fighter who draws the crowd in Minneapolis and in Chicago; 8 Count Productions has their own stable of fighters. Many of these fighters like Vanda may not make it beyond the regional area, but they do bring in local fans- thus enhancing the popularity of the sport.
