<<<<<Marketing and the fall of Boxing>>>>>

[KingArthur]

I often sit and ask myself why, why does the sport I love fail to attract the audience (and the revenue that comes with it) other sports attract? Why does Boxing no longer have the following it once had? I began to think it was a generation situation, where the current generation much rather see a 5 minute toe-to-toe, barbaric brawl (I’m referring to the UFC) with much more enthusiasm rather than a 12 round tactical battle. I quickly realized that not all UFC (which is our sports biggest competition) fights are only five minutes long as well as action packed and not every boxing match is a 12 round jab-fest which is oh so painful to watch. I than came to realization that the masterful marketing job done by the UFC has creating this fantasy. This belief that every single UFC fight is a must see because we just don’t know what will happen or when and how it will end and ONLY the UFC can offer that. That belief and fantasy is just that…….a fantasy. Boxing offers the same atmosphere and situation, it just hasn’t been marketed as such.

When it comes to mainstream Boxing offers a couple of superstars. Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather fought and the world watched. That fight was mainstream and it broke PPV records as well as gate records, this was boxings chance to show the world what our sports is made of and it struck out. We showed the world a boring, 12 rounds of jabbing and moving, minimal action fight. Now I want you to imagine if the same audience that come out and watched the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather fight came out and watched the Margarito vs. Cotto fight or the Mijares vs. Darchinyan fight or any one of the Marquez vs. Vasquez fights, how would they view the sport of boxing? If anything Boxing would become a mainstream sport again because viewer would see its real value. Everything involved in a boxing fight, whether it be training for the fight or fighting the actual fight, is viewed by me as one of the hardest things in this entire world. Jim Lampley had a great quote during Morales vs. Paquiao where he said “There's nowhere else in sports you'll find greater passion, greater courage, greater sheer guts than what this guys are showing you, this is boxing at its best” and yes indeed it was boxing at it’s best, only if our audience was large enough to see exactly what Boxing has to offer. Frank Bruno once said “Boxing is just show business with blood” except boxing needs to put those two back together for right now, Boxing is EITHER show business or blood.

[KingArthur]

comments are welcome

[lefthook2daliva]

First of all, I'm not altogether sure that this problem exists to the same extent outside of the US. Having said that ;

Attention span maybe plays a role? Everything is so geared toward instant gratification now that, as you say, not that many folks are willing to watch a tactical match. Also, the nanny-culture frowns upon violent entertainment so maybe alot of folks are pre-disposed to dislike it? The fact that most of the big names only want to fight on PPV has to play a large role...no more Wide World of Sports with Ali-Frazier class bouts on a Saturday evening anymore so the leading lights of the sport are less likely to get endorsements for common goods and therefore are not in every other commercial you see on TV anymore. Remember Hagler with the deoderant commercial and Sugar Ray Leonard with Coca Cola (or was it 7up? I don't remember)? Even if they get a major commercial alot of folks Tivo and skip them anyway. Finally (and this also might speak to the nanny-culture problem somewhat) , I've read some posts from seemingly very knowledgeable people that decry the current state of the amateur program in the US. Less kids boxing means less kids grow up to be rabid and knowledgeable fans and as heads of their own households impart their love of the sport to their kids...?

A few thoughts...

[MANGLER]

PPV is the biggest problem. People pay enuf for cable TV as it is. Gettin charged an extra $50 everytime a big fight comes on is bull****, and many people just **** on it.

[Soda Popinski]

Ah well a couple of things to mention. First and foremost: All UFC is Mixed Martial Arts, but not all Mixed Martial Arts is UFC. The UFC is like it's own boxing club that puts on it's own fights with it's own fighters.

MMA fights that are sanctioned in the US by and large have 3 rounds that last 5min a piece. The title fights are 5 rounds, each of them 5min. So don't think it's only boxing that can be considered long and boring. There's nothing worse than seeing a guy who specializes in striking (which has you expecting a highlight reel KO) get taken down and laid on and maybe punched in the kidney twice a minute by his opponent for 25min. Especially when you paid the $45 for the PPV. That just plain ****ing sucks.

Second, you're very correct about the marketing goals of the UFC. They create a buzz with every card they feature and it's working wonders. Occasionally the main event fight fails to live up to the hype, but generally it will be overshadowed by another great fight on the card, which brings me to my third point.

The UFC does an incredible job of putting the hype machine behind the up and coming fighters. In boxing, you don't even know who's on the undercard most of the time. All you know hear about is DLH vs. Mayweather or Barrera vs. Pacquiao. What about the guys who will be fighting when these 4 retire?? Just a year in the UFC can take a guy from being a nobody to being mobbed by fans when he's out in public, even if he doesn't hold a belt. A good example is Roger Huerta, he goes from fighting small shows for a few hundred bucks on the weekend to the cover of Sports Illustrated in a little over a year. It boils down to this: If someone shows up to fight and gives 100% when he's in the cage, the UFC will do everything they can to make sure you know who he is because in turn it makes their product look better and has you coming back for more. That brings me to my next point.

When the UFC puts on a card, they'll use the downtime between fights to hype the next big event. You NEVER see that in boxing. In boxing, it's all about tonight. The fighters may be working with another promoter next time, so why would you want to line that guy's pockets by generating hype for his event?? HBO will give a brief rundown of it's upcoming schedule maybe once or twice, and that's only for HBO or HBO PPV events. It's every fighter and every promoter for himself, which is why the sport is so divided. Like I said earlier, the UFC is like a club that matches up it's own fighters. All of the fighters are employees of the UFC and are under contract. That way, the control over the sport is exponentially higher than in boxing.

A good example of that control is when someone gets hurt last minute and there's a hole in the main event, the UFC isn't scrambling to find someone who isn't signed onto some other promoter's card or who is going to piss and moan about his PPV percentage. They make a phone call or two and find a replacement in no time (because he's an employee), and chances are that whoever they find is going to have name recognition within the MMA community. It could even end up being a better match up than the one it's replacing which happened just recently.

A good example of how sporadic boxing is: How many belts are there?? There are what, 15 recognized weight divisions?? Multiply that by the number of organizations and you've got a cluster**** on your hands. It's really overwhelming to the casual fans who just want to want to watch good fights and maybe have an idea of who's the champ in what division. Instead there are belts for every 3 letter acronym you can think of, some fights are a mandatory non-title rematch and some are against the mandatory #1 who you've never heard of etc. Makes it tough for the casual fans to follow and tougher to know what they're talking about.

The UFC has 5 divisions, 1 champ in each.

I love boxing too and I don't think the sports need to compete against each other. I think there's enough room for both, I don't compare them because they're too different. I do however think that boxing could take a few pointers from the UFC.

Now personally, saying that boxing is boring is like taking a Porsche through a mud pit, then complaining that it sucks. No **** it sucks, it's not designed to do that. Take the thing around a racetrack and it's the ride of your life. I tell my MMA friends that constantly: Appreciate boxing for what it is, not for what you want it to be.

[KingArthur]

First of all, I'm not altogether sure that this problem exists to the same extent outside of the US. Having said that ;

Attention span maybe plays a role? Everything is so geared toward instant gratification now that, as you say, not that many folks are willing to watch a tactical match. Also, the nanny-culture frowns upon violent entertainment so maybe alot of folks are pre-disposed to dislike it? The fact that most of the big names only want to fight on PPV has to play a large role...no more Wide World of Sports with Ali-Frazier class bouts on a Saturday evening anymore so the leading lights of the sport are less likely to get endorsements for common goods and therefore are not in every other commercial you see on TV anymore. Remember Hagler with the deoderant commercial and Sugar Ray Leonard with Coca Cola (or was it 7up? I don't remember)? Even if they get a major commercial alot of folks Tivo and skip them anyway. Finally (and this also might speak to the nanny-culture problem somewhat) , I've read some posts from seemingly very knowledgeable people that decry the current state of the amateur program in the US. Less kids boxing means less kids grow up to be rabid and knowledgeable fans and as heads of their own households impart their love of the sport to their kids...?

A few thoughts...

The instant gratification comment was right on and that comes with the new generation, I believe. They, I should say we because I'm only 23 yrs old but I love boxing, want everything faster and quicker. The "Computer Era" has played a role in spoiling us this way as well, anyone who has an iPhone has EVERYTHING they want faster and quicker in the palm of their hands. Therefore 90% of my generation has an iPhone, instant and quick gratification.


The problem I see with the nanny culture argument is; Why is UFC doing soooooo much better? Heres a few stats BoxingScene.com is worth approx. $230,000.00 where as SherDog.com is worth 1.1 MILLION dollars. Same informational and news based websites, different sports. The worth of these websites is based on daily, weekly, and monthly traffic reports and Sherdog.com approx. 8 times the traffic. So if it was the nanny culture argument, UFC would be in the same position, which it definetly is not


When it comes to mainstream commericals I think your right. Who is our mainstream, super-star fighter? I'd say Floyd, now image a conversation about Floyd in a friendly gathering in which interest in boxing is only premature.......

Friend 1: "Who is this Floyd guy everyone talks about"
Friend 2: "Just a boxer, I mean he has great tactic, great jab, good defence but he's a bit boring"
Friend 2: "Boring?"
Friend 1: "Ya I mean sometimes watching him for 12 rounds might be a little drag, I wanna see action"

Now imagine this same conversation about Margarito, Juan Diaz, Vic Darchinyan, Michael Katsidis (even thought Michael won't ever win a big fight he is action packed) Kelly Pavlik......you get my drift.

BTW::::::::::::::::::
Please dont bring up the Gatti and Corrales fights because I'm talking about the now, and Floyds fights NOW. And dont bring up Hatton either because if you know anything about boxing you'd know Mayweather was going to do that.

[KingArthur]

Ah well a couple of things to mention. First and foremost: All UFC is Mixed Martial Arts, but not all Mixed Martial Arts is UFC. The UFC is like it's own boxing club that puts on it's own fights with it's own fighters.
Which is exactly what I said, A boxing fight can be more entertaining than a UFC fight and a UFC fight can be more boring than a Boxing fight



Now personally, saying that boxing is boring is like taking a Porsche through a mud pit, then complaining that it sucks. No **** it sucks, it's not designed to do that. Take the thing around a racetrack and it's the ride of your life. I tell my MMA friends that constantly: Appreciate boxing for what it is, not for what you want it to be.

Great point but I believe boxing CAN and HAS BEEN what they've wanted it to be, it just they havn't had the chance to see it.

[Soda Popinski]

Great point but I believe boxing CAN and HAS BEEN what they've wanted it to be, it just they havn't had the chance to see it.

And I agree with that to an extent. A lot of guys just like to watch combat sports, but get turned off by boxing because it's very one dimensional. Then instead of taking the time to appreciate that one dimension and learn that in fact that one dimension has many different aspects in and of itself, they'll go to MMA which offers multi-dimensional combat sport entertainment that doesn't require such a finely tuned perspective. It definitely plays into that "instant gratification" angle mentioned earlier.

[KingArthur]

And I agree with that to an extent. A lot of guys just like to watch combat sports, but get turned off by boxing because it's very one dimensional. Then instead of taking the time to appreciate that one dimension and learn that in fact that one dimension has many different aspects in and of itself, they'll go to MMA which offers multi-dimensional combat sport entertainment that doesn't require such a finely tuned perspective. It definitely plays into that "instant gratification" angle mentioned earlier.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Great post, simply great!

[KingArthur]

bump.....for afternoon audience