Why is BOXING so low on the Totem pole in AMERICA?

[hectari]

Nah, you have to realize that Handball is a lot bigger in Europe than it is in the States.

But you know, I don't know too many boxing fans around. And I live in one of the largest cities in Germany. My friends don't care about the sport. And after I've once forced a good friend to watch Hagler-Mugabi I've learnt my lessen and wont do it again. In fact I don't know one single person in my family or of my friends (and I know quite a lot of people) that really care about boxing.

You don't get to see most of the PPVs over here. That tells you a lot. Some of the freeTV bouts (like all of Valuevs fights) have some decent audience ratings but that's it.

Sad but true.

That is sad! I bet your friend didnt even enjoy that fight!

Man I tried to show my friend the pacquiao vs morales fight I got like half the people in my work to pay for that and then they got dissappointed the only one who liked it was a girl but she had a crush on me, they kept telling me I thought you said this guy PACMAN was devastating.

[hectari]

Baseball and basketball market themselves as wholesome family entertainment. I take my son to the ballgame but not to the fights (In fact, the casino here won't let minors into the fights). When I go to the baseball game with my son I feel like a good father. When I go to the casino without my family to watch boxing I feel kind of selfish. I think that the fact that boxing is not family friendly accounts for its low popularity.

Back in the 40s and 50s families used to sit in the living room on fridays to listen to the radio or watch the tv when a fight came on! It used to be a real family friendly activity.

[BigDozer260]

The average TV viewer/sports fan does not want to have to pay for boxing, doesn't want to have to stay up til midnight on a Saturday to watch boxing, doesn't know 10 active fighters, and their main images of modern boxing are guys getting arrested, having riots during press conferences, biting ears (one guy has a lot to do with much of this paragraph...lol)

Where I work, the list would be 1. Nascar 2. NBA or NFL (depends on the time of year - NBA gets more interest after football ends) 3. Golf
4. Pro wrestling

I agree wit cha, most people simply won't pay to watch fighters they never heard of before, especially $49.99. To also agree with most boxing anylist , the heavyweight division is the flagship division, and the heavyweight division really sucks! A bunch of 250lbs sloths in the ring, no athleticism what so ever just punching mostly missing, hugging, running, and a bunch of staring at each other from 2 feet away. Nobody wants to see a buch of 5'4" 125 pounders, no disrespect, but the casual fan has no interest in men of such non heroic stature. Also promoters are killing mainstream interest in boxing. As I stated earlier, most promoters use the excuse: "Pay per view fights are to guarantee more money for the fighters"???!!! WTF! The pay per views do nothing but add extra money to the promoters pockets, the fighters see a very small portion of ppv, live gates pay more bill for fighters than anything else. How did Ali, Frazier, and Foreman get paid back in the 70's? No ppv back then, just televised fights ,they still got paid millions. Go Figure.

[Kenny Blankenship]

Wrestling is way different than boxing. I've been watching wrestling on and off since 1975.
Wrestling started off showing main events and good cards on primetime free tv in the 50's and 60's.
The 70's and 80's were a bit different, they stopped showing the main events on tv, it was 99% scrubs against quality wrestlers and it was mostly a Saturday afternoon or early evening show.
It was broadcast to promote storylines for the main events that would come to your local arena, or PPV (in the mid-late 80's).
That changed in the 90's when it went back to prime time tv. They started having main events on free tv, not just crappy guys getting squashed by talent.
Yes, nowadays wrestling is an ad to promote their PPV's. However, they do stage quality main event matches on free tv. Example: rematches of a PPV on regular tv the very next night after a PPV.
You get to see the same caliber of matches on free tv now as you do on PPV. Main event guys wrestling main event guys. Wrestling's free monday night tv is almost as good, or just as good as the PPV's are, sometimes it's even better.
Boxing doesn't have that, ESPN's FNF is mostly awful.

[guru]

one thing also hurts boxing is the lack of regulation... ratings, fights and decisions are always being manipulted by money... golota signs with king and goes from unranked to ranked, to receiving 3 consecutive title shots... the public percieves boxing as a shady sport and it is...

[neils7147933]

Baseball and basketball market themselves as wholesome family entertainment. I take my son to the ballgame but not to the fights (In fact, the casino here won't let minors into the fights). When I go to the baseball game with my son I feel like a good father. When I go to the casino without my family to watch boxing I feel kind of selfish. I think that the fact that boxing is not family friendly accounts for its low popularity.

You can sit in the lower box seats at a minor league baseball game for like 11 bucks, too, at least the AAA affiliate here in Indianapolis. It's at least 5 times that for a boxing event with similarly calibered fighters.

How many heads of families can afford to drop 250, 500, 1000 dollars on tickets for their kids to come watch the fights? Even if you sit in the nosebleed section, you're still spending NBA money for an event where there could be, and usually is, large breaks in the action, potentially short competition, etc. I rarely see a family at a boxing event; if they're there, they're often related to someone competing...

[Bombardier]

I've mentioned this before when this topic has come up: do you guys really want boxing to be more popular? As it is there are plenty of hardcore fans that support it and good fighters can make more than a decent living, so why do we need millions of "casual" fans to start following along? You know those numbskulls at work who make all kinds of dumbass comments after watching the SuperBowl, which is probably the only NFL game they watch every year? Would you really want the same idiots ruining the best fights by offering up their half-assed opinions of them afterwards?

Plus in the business world companies make so many references trying to compare themselves to the Red Sox and Patriots and other championship teams that it kills any enjoyment I might have had watching these teams win. If I had to listen to our CEO compare this company to Diego Corrales' comeback win I'd ****ing throw up right then and there. Better to have these people ignorant of the sport then to have them wrecking it for those who truly appreciate it.

Plus having more fans would do little to change boxing's crooked ways, imo. That change has to come from within, not without.

[IwatchBoxing]

Ruining what? Do you live in a box? If not than you live with them same people for the rest of your life, and they are (keyword) peoples...the more the marrier. I dont understand how someone thinks their so superior in thinking to shut out the masses and just let the "in crowd" only. More fans would take boxing out the dark, and corruption would have to be more secertly, and wont be done so very often.

[Bombardier]

Ruining what? Do you live in a box? If not than you live with them same people for the rest of your life, and they are (keyword) peoples...the more the marrier. I dont understand how someone thinks their so superior in thinking to shut out the masses and just let the "in crowd" only. More fans would take boxing out the dark, and corruption would have to be more secertly, and wont be done so very often.

It's not a superiority thing, guy. If someone wants to become a boxing fan, that's great, but "the masses" generally ruin anything they touch, and if you have any warm and fuzzy ideas to the contrary then you obviously haven't been exposed enough to the real world. People doing or following things in a half-assed way does nothing to benefit whatever it is they're focusing on, case closed.

Big money has ruined all major pro sports. Big money comes from popularity. And when the masses like something it has to be cleaned up so that nobody is offended. Things get PC and corporate. Do you want boxers wearing headgear? If they did, the sports acceptance among mainstream folks would probably increase. They would perceive that the sport was somehow "safer" and true fans would suffer. It's like the people that want to take fighting out of hockey so that it doesn't scare off the TV networks as much. Popularity means sanitization. It's the reason most movies shoot for a PG-rating and are carefully manufactured to appeal to the "average" person. Uniqueness and creativity get drained. Do you want that to happen to boxing?

[BadMagick]

The average TV viewer/sports fan does not want to have to pay for boxing, doesn't want to have to stay up til midnight on a Saturday to watch boxing, doesn't know 10 active fighters, and their main images of modern boxing are guys getting arrested, having riots during press conferences, biting ears (one guy has a lot to do with much of this paragraph...lol)

Where I work, the list would be 1. Nascar 2. NBA or NFL (depends on the time of year - NBA gets more interest after football ends) 3. Golf
4. Pro wrestling

Yeah, well, at least the #2 spot is normally occupied by a good sport. Who watches ****ing NASCAR, though? Honestly.

I wish boxing was a bit more mainstream. I'd like to be able to talk to people around where I live about boxing sometimes, rather than basically lecturing people on boxing. An actual discussion would be nice. The few people I know who like boxing don't know what they're talking about, or are so ****ing biased it's sick.

Bombardier has some good points, but a slight insurgence of casual fans would also bring in some more hardcore fans. If they aren't even watching the sport then they'll never be able to appreciate it.

And, to be honest, it doesn't bother me that morons go off about this team or that team. I just ignore it if they're ******. I only talk to people who really know the sport about the sport.