Comments Thread For: Why Doesn't Boxing Attract More Young Fans?

[millcitymauler]

Breakdown of the family unit.

Mum's generally ain't into boxing.

Moms. That’s why...I always said I would train my boys to be world champs- fight in silvers, then golden gloves, Olympics, and then the pros. Well, I have 3 boys now with the oldest at 10
years old, and none have ever seen the inside of a gym. The wife will not let them take shots to the head. My oldest is named Marco Antonio after the great Mexican champ, and my 7 year old hits the hand pads like Mayweather. He asks me “do I punch hard dad, can I be like Floyd when I grow up?”.
The problem is, if you are in a stable and successful home, getting in fights for a living is the last thing a mother is going to allow. Believe me, it kills me to not let em even try, but deep down, I know she’s right.

[anonymous2.0]

I don't think boxers are promoted very well. Until DAZN the most ads I saw for a fight was maybe on the Yahoo news site or other websites IF I turned off my adblocker. DAZN and now others are at least is buying TV space for running commercials for boxing but that should be the bare bottom minimum. We should have boxers on late night TV, get them doing publicity skits, being in front of the cameras, rubbing elbows with celebrities and social media stars. Promoters need to promoter their fighter more then just running ads and commercials.

[Santa_]

My family and I live a privileged life on the better side of town. I'd much rather my kids watch tennis or water polo.

[Bronx2245]

I think the "Youth Leagues" are the biggest obstacle. Basketball, Football, Baseball, and recently soccer, are heavily invested on the youth level. AAU Basketball, for example, is way more popular in the communities that used to produce many of greatest fighters! In the Southeastern U.S., tackle football is king! Children start at age 9, and they play at H.S. stadiums with support from the entire community! Wilder and Breazeale wanted to be football players, and then chose Boxing only when the other opportunities failed! That wasn't the case for Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson, Bowe, and Holyfield. Different times now!

[57Blues]

The country of the United States has going soft. I mean that. Was a time when getting into a fight was a normal and natural as whistling at a pretty girl. But now if a kid gets in a fight they want to put him on a drug to knock that thought out of his head. I do not care how or why all that happened but no one has a chance to develp to the point of being involved in a fight these days. First time I wore boxing gloves was in school in relation to a fight I got into in a classroom. Try that now? The gym teacher would be fired sent to prison. It is not complicated to me. But in some area"s where they do not buy into the BS they still will knock you along side the head and some of those guys find themselves in a gym. AS far as the pretty girl I still whistle .....The writter always throws thoughts out like they are facts I do not know why T.H. does that a lot.

[boogbx]

It’s a different era and you are judging it by white people.

I work in a k-8 all Latino school and all the Mexican kids watch Canelo fights. Even the little kids so culturally Latinos still expose their children to the stars.

I grew up in the 80’s and you still had to go to the shoulders or fist fight.

By the age of 10 I already had at least 20 street fights.

Add slap boxing as one of the favorite past times in the hood And you understand it wasn’t so much I was drawn to Boxing but boxing was drawn to me as a street fighter.

That was most the kids around the way. The difference between me and the other kids was that the rage I carried as a child made me stick with boxing longer than most. Problem is that same rage lead to bad habits and vices that destroyed my boxing career.

All my god kids are on boxing and my nephew who just turned 2 watches boxing and my kids will also train.

This beta society needs to die with the Corona virus already.

[bojangles1987]

I can only speak for America, but boxing is a corrupt, increasingly irrelevant sport that sabotages itself constantly and hasn't been a major sport for like 20 years. Young fans aren't numerous because they grew up not giving a **** since there are better sports to watch and anyone with talent is pushed into team sports. The NFL, NBA, and MLB have set schedules with eventful seasons that make them easy to follow. I have to pay PPV to watch most decent fights, and the number of decent fights among popular divisions are increasingly slim. Boxing is a **** sport to follow and the number of people willing to follow it is naturally decreasing.

If boxing ever gets its act together, maybe it can rehab itself. I'm not holding my breath.

[bojangles1987]

This is a short attention span era. Traditional boxing fans can endure and enjoy a 12 to 15 round fight. Today's generation can only tolerate a quick fight. That's why a lot tend to gravitate towards MMA. Those fights are quick - even those that go to the scorecards. A lot of today's generation is also very soft. They don't watch sports like that anymore anyways.

Every popular sport is at least twice as long as any fight. People pay attention to those sports just fine.

Football is vicious as ****, people don't care that players are getting hurt. UFC is popular, too.

[////]

When kids think of boxing they think of grainy footage of some 70s guy in booty shorts. Or a boring Floyd fight. That's all they have exposure to.

The bitterness of the US boxing media towards European/Asian champions resulted in them pretending the 1970s never ended & endlessly rehashing the same fights, many of which just aren't that good unless you were 12 the first time you saw them.

[NachoMan]

My family and I live a privileged life on the better side of town. I'd much rather my kids watch tennis or water polo.

Okay, you went a bit far with water polo.