Reasons why boxing is unfortunately not so popular in the U.S.

[Tha_Greatest]

No one wants to become boxers. It's high risk and low reward. You look at the boxing greats, most have turned out bad. Louis Robinson Tyson Holyfeild Ali and so on. When kids see this they are turned off. Now compare to NBA or NFL. You got guys like Jordan who is retired yet is still cashing it in. Then you got guys like Lebron Kobe Howard and so on. They are getting paid million for playing a sport without risking their lives.

Also people would rather follow a team sport than a individual sport.

Boxing is falling off big time around the USA.

hey homeless, do you want to make 2 dollars, horus the horse has a job for you tonight

[worldchampion]

yeah, I think boxing in the u.s would benefit greatly, popularity wise if there was an elite white american boxer. Pavlik still has a chance but a lot of people abandoned him after he lost to Bernard

He doesnt have to be white he just has to be from the US

[them_apples]

imagine if the fights were free, damn the following would grow immensely. Nobody wants to drop 50 on a TV screen.

[MJ406]

Good quality post and I agree.

Also thank you for not bringing up a ****** point like many belive that MMA takes away from Boxing, what people don't realize is that MMA takes away from WWE.

but at the same time don't you think the WWE takes away from both? since it appears on basic cable weekly and probably is bigger in popularity than both fight sports.

granted I see your point regarding the MMA/WWE comparison, since demographically they target the same market (18-35 white males I believe)

but don't you think that the WWE's popularity would leak over ... just generally speaking? and what fanbase does/is boxing supposed to target, I'd like to know.

and regarding the original topic, I felt this was one of the stronger points.

"2. No more boxing on free TV. They have the Friday Night fights on ESPN but those are usually up and comers or past their prime fighters, there are no championship bouts or even big names that fight on regular TV. You must have HBO or Showtime which both cost more money on the bill so most people dont have them."

as if your your trying to market a sport (be it football, golf, baseball or in this case boxing) a good idea to expand that potential fanbase is to have the sport seen by as many people as possible.

which leads into the second part I bolded. Since so many of the big boxing fights are on either, PPV, HBO or Showtime, boxing is doing the exact opposite of expanding their potential market as widely as possible .... there limiting it to those who have Premium cable and or PPV buyers.

[Cadillac Man]

Another reason is today's youth that have the attention span of a 2yr old. They would rather see guys winging wild,sloppy,looping punches than appreciate a fighter displaying defense and technique. Boxing will be fine but unfortuantley it will never be mainstream again unless it gets good fights on regular cable and gets rid of sanctioning bodies which will never happen.

[DeepSleep]

The alphabet soup titles prevent a true champion being established and confuses the average fan. Also the fights in general are sub-par. The best don't fight the best, so why would people drop 50 bones to see one good matchup that may or may not turnout to be a great fight. Until boxing is ran like a real sport where the best fight the best it will continue to struggle.

[Contenders]

No one wants to become boxers. It's high risk and low reward. You look at the boxing greats, most have turned out bad. Louis Robinson Tyson Holyfeild Ali and so on. When kids see this they are turned off. Now compare to NBA or NFL. You got guys like Jordan who is retired yet is still cashing it in. Then you got guys like Lebron Kobe Howard and so on. They are getting paid million for playing a sport without risking their lives.

Also people would rather follow a team sport than a individual sport.

Boxing is falling off big time around the USA.

Depending on where you live, there's still plenty of interest in the sport among our youth. Boxing has been pretty much at the same level for awhile now, not really dropping off anymore and most-likely won't. But it most-likely won't rise up again either unless some serious changes are made.

For the most part you have to be pretty tall to make it in basketball and pretty big to make it in football...in general. I can see how this affects the heavyweight division and lack of quality American fighters in that weight class, but boxing allows athletes of different sizes to compete and potentially become champions and stars.

[Davros?]

Boxing is doing very well in the UK at the moment.

[Mr.Sharapova]

What a great inspiration Mayweather is for all American fans!

[Mr.Sharapova]

They would love to see his downfall though.