Is Boxing currently more popular than UFC in America?

[TMLT87]

This is not even a debate anymore.

UFC makes more money than all other MMA promotions and all boxing promotions combined.

UFC gets billion dollar broadcasting deals. Boxing can't keep broadcasters, never mind get billion dollar deals.

UFC prelims featuring nobodies do better ratings than boxing stars like Shakur, Beterbiev, Ortiz, etc on the same network.

There's no observable metric that boxing does better in other than maybe 2-3 gates a year.

Doesnt Top Rank generally do better ratings than the UFC on ESPN? obviously its apples to oranges to a degree because the UFC keeps most of its bigger stuff for PPV.

Anyway as far as the observable metrics, boxing still has significantly more participants, last year I think (its hard to say for sure these days because the UFC rarely gives out PPV numbers anymore) Tank/Garcia, Canelo/Charlo and Spence/Crawford did better than any UFC PPV. Tank/Garcia broke a million, UFC hasnt done that since 2021.

Also the biggest attendances are mostly boxing cards, usually UK stadium shows.

I do think the UFC is a lot more "consistent" in the sense that it acts more like a sports league, it rolls along every week at a certain baseline of popularity regardless of whos fighting.

[TMLT87]

Most people will think of only UFC when it comes to MMA, but in fact MMA has many other organizations worldwide

Yeah I think people who dont follow MMA seriously underestimate this. The whole stereotype of MMA just being the UFC and it being solely an "American" thing is very inacccurate nowadays. Obviously the UFC is the biggest by a lot but there are promotions in double figures operating at a decent scale both in terms of the quality of competition and also production values etc etc. Tbh as someone that watches a ton of both I feel like theres probably more MMA that gets filmed, has commentary, overall production values etc than boxing. Boxing has more cards happening but most of them are at such a small scale that you wont even be able to find footage.

[henrykk123456]

Doesnt Top Rank generally do better ratings than the UFC on ESPN? obviously its apples to oranges to a degree because the UFC keeps most of its bigger stuff for PPV.

Anyway as far as the observable metrics, boxing still has significantly more participants, last year I think (its hard to say for sure these days because the UFC rarely gives out PPV numbers anymore) Tank/Garcia, Canelo/Charlo and Spence/Crawford did better than any UFC PPV. Tank/Garcia broke a million, UFC hasnt done that since 2021.

Also the biggest attendances are mostly boxing cards, usually UK stadium shows.

I do think the UFC is a lot more "consistent" in the sense that it acts more like a sports league, it rolls along every week at a certain baseline of popularity regardless of whos fighting.

No. It's easily looked up. Teofimo's recent fight had 584k. Recent UFC prelims were over a million. And Teofimo is big name in boxing.

Big PPVs are an indication of individual stars, not the popularity of the sport. Mayweather and Pac fights were bigger than anything in the NBA/MLB/NHL besides the finals. Does that mean boxing was bigger than NBA/MLB/NHL? No, just that Mayweather and Pac were stars.

And attendance in England is irrelevant to the question of America.

[boogbx]

MMA has run things stateside for some time. In Latin America boxing still reigns supreme. I prefer boxing and that’s all that matters.

[TMLT87]

No. It's easily looked up. Teofimo's recent fight had 584k. Recent UFC prelims were over a million. And Teofimo is big name in boxing.

Big PPVs are an indication of individual stars, not the popularity of the sport. Mayweather and Pac fights were bigger than anything in the NBA/MLB/NHL besides the finals. Does that mean boxing was bigger than NBA/MLB/NHL? No, just that Mayweather and Pac were stars.

And attendance in England is irrelevant to the question of America.

Sorry the "in America" criteria slipped my mind lol.

Even so, didnt Canelo/BJS in Texas do a bigger crowd than any UFC event ever? i'm not sure the UFC has ever done a bigger attendance in the US than Spence/Ugas got too.

Where are you looking up these ratings? I used to use MMAPayout but it died a few years back. Back then there was a clear trend, PBC on Fox got the highest ratings (as it should since its network tv), Top Rank typically got higher ratings than the UFC on ESPN, and boxing outdrew Bellator on Showtime.

If the UFC is outdrawing Top Rank now i'd be surprised tbh. Maybe if theres good prelims to a big PPV card, but a ton of the UFCs free cards nowadays are Apex cards and pretty damn bad.

[henrykk123456]

Sorry the "in America" criteria slipped my mind lol.

Even so, didnt Canelo/BJS in Texas do a bigger crowd than any UFC event ever? i'm not sure the UFC has ever done a bigger attendance in the US than Spence/Ugas got too.

Where are you looking up these ratings? I used to use MMAPayout but it died a few years back. Back then there was a clear trend, PBC on Fox got the highest ratings (as it should since its network tv), Top Rank typically got higher ratings than the UFC on ESPN, and boxing outdrew Bellator on Showtime.

If the UFC is outdrawing Top Rank now i'd be surprised tbh. Maybe if theres good prelims to a big PPV card, but a ton of the UFCs free cards nowadays are Apex cards and pretty damn bad.

I was just getting the ratings by google search but here is a ratings site I just found: https://ustvdb.com/networks/espn/shows/top-rank-boxing/ https://ustvdb.com/networks/espn/shows/ufc-ppv-prelims/.

Also those garbage Apex cards aren't usually on ESPN but the streaming service ESPN+. Viewership for that is never released as far as I know.

[N/A]

Nothing can beat Professional wrestling in the USA and having UFC now officially as a rough form of it, so it must be more popular than boxing. I am joking (mocking), but assuming as well.

[TMLT87]

Nothing can beat Professional wrestling in the USA and having UFC now officially as a rough form of it, so it must be more popular than boxing. I am joking (mocking), but assuming as well.

The WWE is an absolute behemoth tbh. Imagine the kind of revenue they must be bringing in. Multiple events a week year round doing as good or better attendances than UFC or Top Rank, PBC etc events, multiple shows per week on network tv, their own streaming service, merchandising deals for toys, video games, t shirts etc etc. They are definitely much bigger than any boxing promotion and even the UFC.

[Joseph]

It may be region-specific, but I live in the South Atlantic and I see far more advertisements for UFC events than I do for boxing. In fact, I haven't seen an ad for any boxing event, anywhere, period, since the mid-90s. Actually, I did see a Roku cityscape banner of the Benavidez vs Andrade bout, but that's all I can remember.

[Bullrider]

Nothing can beat Professional wrestling in the USA and having UFC now officially as a rough form of it, so it must be more popular than boxing. I am joking (mocking), but assuming as well.

Yep. I see most of it on my cable more than boxing/MMA combined. It looks 10x more violent, yet even kids are allowed to watch it.