Comments Thread For: HBO is Leaving Boxing After 45 Years, Network Announces

[j.razor]

lol dude theyre not shutting down the network are you slow ? lol

I meant boxing wise.

[Don Pichardo]

I'm sad tbh. To watch something so great from my childhood, as long as I can remember, die the way HBO boxing did sucks. My Dad was a boxing fan with KO ****zine and RING lol. I was born into watching boxing and loved it. I have so many great memories of fights and fighters on HBO boxing. I got to watch Floyd go from a young Champion all the way through his prime on HBO boxing. I got to watch prime Roy Jones go from middleweight up to Heavyweight. Besides the guys listed before here is a list of fighters I liked watching on HBO: Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad, Ike Quartey, Fernando Vargas, Ricardo Mayorga, Vernon Forrest, Pernell Whitaker, Miguel Cotto, Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Rid**** Bowe, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, James Toney, David Tua, Arturo Gatti, Johnny Tapia, Naseem Hamed, David Reid, Diego Corrales, Acelino Freitas, Jose Luis Castillo, Zab Judah, Jermain Taylor, Kelly Pavlik, etc... etc... lol

I’m with you brother. Those were the glory days. I always missed that time.

Jim used to be very good announcer. He gets on my nerves now. I’ll miss Roy Jones as an announcer. He was historical and had great insight.

Hbo boxing shall be missed.

[dibzvincent143]

That's what happens when ya'll try to discredit the good fighters like T.B.E. & try to hype up other ones like Triple L....LMMFAO!

OH so it was about Floyd who retired years ago. Great
Could you stop being a fan boy even for a second??

[N/A]

Boxing in the US though is in decline and I think it will continue.

More money is being spent by US networks on boxing than any other point in history. By far. This is the biggest boom US boxing has had in decades. Not sure how you can say it's in decline when the sport is getting more exposure and more viewers than in decades.

[Diego Rodriguez]

More money is being spent by US networks on boxing than any other point in history. By far. This is the biggest boom US boxing has had in decades. Now sure how you can say it's in decline when the sport is getting more exposure and more viewers than in decades.

More money is spent in all sports. Horse racing has never had bigger purses and yet it has seen tremendous decline in popularity.

You aren’t arguing that boxing is more popular in the US than in 80’s, 90’s or even in the beginning of this century?

[N/A]

More money is spent in all sports. Horse racing has never had bigger purses and yet it has seen tremendous decline in popularity.

You aren’t arguing that boxing is more popular in the US than in 80’s, 90’s or even in the beginning of this century?

I said more money being spent AND more exposure AND more viewers.

Boxing is more popular in the US right now than it was the past decade or two for sure. Look at the PPV records from back then compared to now. Look at the viewership for the biggest fights then compared to now.

Sure, we can't compare now to the early 80s when major fights were still on network TV, but the move in the 80s and 90s & 00s of big fights only being on premium TV or PPV shrunk the audience immensely.

In recent years, PBC has had fights on NBC, CBS and FOX that have done MILLIONS OF VIEWERS. Floyd has had multiple PPVs with OVER FOUR MILLION US BUYS.

The numbers don't lie. More people watch boxing now in the US than at any point in the last decade or two for sure. Is boxing as popular as Tyson's peak? No. But we've got more fans now than we had 15 years ago, no question.

[Diego Rodriguez]

I said more money being spent AND more exposure AND more viewers.

Boxing is more popular in the US right now than it was the past decade or two for sure. Look at the PPV records from back then compared to now. Look at the viewership for the biggest fights then compared to now.

Sure, we can't compare now to the early 80s when major fights were still on network TV, but the move in the 80s and 90s & 00s of big fights only being on premium TV or PPV shrunk the audience immensely.

In recent years, PBC has had fights on NBC, CBS and FOX that have done MILLIONS OF VIEWERS. Floyd has had multiple PPVs with OVER FOUR MILLION US BUYS.

The numbers don't lie. More people watch boxing now in the US than at any point in the last decade or two for sure. Is boxing as popular as Tyson's peak? No. But we've got more fans now than we had 15 years ago, no question.

I will come on this with a little more time.

The one saving grace is the Latino population growth over the last decade. Boxing is not mainstream as it once was that is clear. It is dying with most of the white and substantial parts of the black population.

You can’t compare PPV now vs. previous eras. The distribution plan has changed.

I think what you are going to see over the next ten years is PPV numbers fall, assumption that pricing is still the same.

I think one of the reasons Mayweather garnered the numbers he did was because there was so few other compelling fighters in boxing. I think what you are seeing now is the aftermath. Canelo is about the only guy who can carry a PPV now and even he IMO is capped.

I don’t think boxing is going away in the states but it simply is no where near as popular as it was in 80s and 90’s. And clearly not before those decades.

I do agree that the audience shrunk because of PPVs and the more you move away from mass distribution and it becomes tailored the more that market place is going to shrink or stagnant.

[N/A]

I don’t think boxing is going away in the states but it simply is no where near as popular as it was in 80s and 90’s. And clearly not before those decades.

Right, but that can be true, and in addition to that, it can also be true that this is the most popular it's been in 20 years.

It lost popularity due to being premium only for so long.

But now that there are fewer PPVs, not that boxing is on FOX, FS1, ESPN, etc. Now that Showtime can be purchased ala carte for $8.99 and you get a ton of great fights, etc. The cost of being a fan now is the lowest it's been in a very long time. And the mainstream exposure has led to millions watching that weren't watching in a long time.

Boxing is on the upswing.

[Diego Rodriguez]

I think this article states it pretty well.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndica...ience.amp.html

[Diego Rodriguez]

The real question in the end isn’t what happened in the past but what will happen in the future.

I think boxing in the US will continue to have a place. I do not see it growing any longer. There may be some stars that pop up and individually do great numbers but overall I just don’t see it growing. Just my two cents and I hope I’m wrong because at its best watching great fighters square off is as good as it gets in sports.