How well do kids know boxing in the UK/How well known is Pacquiao compared to Khan

[warp1432]

Hey I have a question for people who live in the UK. Here in America kids rarely know anything about boxing, but they know quite a bit about the popular sports. Are teens like this in the UK for boxing? Can they name other people outside Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe. If I were to say "Who is Paul Williams" would they be able to answer?

Second question, if Hatton-Khan were on PPV there would it do more buys then Pacquiao-Hatton? Or what would people be talking about more?

Thanks in advance.

[Clegg]

For the first question, I'd say that it's pretty similar to the US. Most teenagers can name football players who are not in the top 100 in the country, but I think they'd be unfamiliar with most of the names on the P4P list.

I don't think any non-boxing fan would know who Paul Williams is. I remember telling some friends about Pavlik in the run up to the Lockett fight, and they hadn't heard of him. Williams-Quintana 2 was not live on UK TV.

For the second question, I think Khan-Hatton would probably do better. Obviously marketing would have something to do with it; a lot of people didn't know who Mayweather was over here, but the fight got a lot of promotion, and so got more PPV buys than any other fight.

Boxing used to be on regular TV, and get 10+ million viewers for fighters like Benn, Eubank and Bruno. Then that stopped around 1995 (the first ever PPV fight here was Bruno-Tyson 2 in '96), when it switched to Sky, which most people did not have. Since then only Amir Khan and Audley Harrisson have fought live on one of the main 2 channels on a regular basis. Calzaghe has about 2-3 times.

Most fights here aren't on PPV, but they are on channels that you have to pay a subscription fee in order to watch.

Apparently, Khan-Kristjansen got 6m viewers, and Hatton-Mayweather got 1.25m ppv buys. I would be very surprised if any Pacquiao fight had gotten more than 200,000 viewers, as the channel he fights on is not that popular.

It's possible that they'd promote Pacquiao enough that he'd do better, but I don't think so.

[Mayfeather]

If your talking about the kids then I think that they are only going to know what they see on TV and what they hear others speaking about so I believe that they would be more likely to know Khan over Pacquiao. We have a friday fight night on our sports channel (Sky Sports) but it does focus a lot on English fighters so there is more chance of them fighters being recognised.

I think its fair to say that if Hatton Vs Khan was on PPV there would be a lot of talk about it, obviously with two of our most famous active fighters going at it, it would be hard not to talk about it. But im not sure that it would outsell Hatton Vs Pacquiao and more real boxing fans would be buying that one

[Joe2608]

I agree with whats already been said, my mates don't know anything about boxing apart from Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and Amir Khan.

[-----------]

In Britain Khan-Hatton would be MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger than Pacquiao-Hatton

[Mayfeather]

I really wish that more people over here knew about International boxing though. Would much rather go to the pub and chat about that, than chat about football

[black.ink]

Non-boxing fans in general (not just the teenagers) wouldn't know anybody outside of Hatton, Khan and Calzaghe.

Nobody cared for Cotto/Margarito, people barely knew Mayweather before the Hatton fight and now only know him as the man that beat Hatton. I'm not so sure many people knoe Roy Jones Jr, the same goes for Hopkins before the Calzaghe fight.

Boxing is not huge in England, unless the likes of Khan, Hatton or Calzaghe were featured on terrestial TV. Putting Khan on box office is a huge mistake.

As for Hatton/Khan, that could potentially be the biggest fight in British history as they are the 2 most popular boxers, it would no doubt do better then Hatton/Pacquiao.

[Mayfeather]

Yeah I cant see Khan on box office selling much, I dont know anyone who is buying it

[Vasyl’s dad]

My kids 8 and 6, know a few guys, DLH, Morales, Pacquiao, because I watch boxing practically every day.

Every time they have to use the restroom, they have to see one of dads Ring ****zines in the ****ter.

They'll be well versed by the time they're teens.

[S1MANC]

I have to agree with all the comments, UK teenagers could quite easily reel of the top of their head 100+ footballers (Soccer) names, previous clubs and transfer costs. Yet find it difficult to name 5 non uk boxers currently fighting...

It's a shame as the likes of Frank Warren who have made a healthy fortune from the sport just continue to bleed it rather than try and make the sport more accessible. (which in the long run would benefit his enterprise) Putting Khan on ppv is a perfect example - feeding his pockets and making it even more unaccessible to the younger generation.