Tweet
Problem we got here is that markets and competition have brought us to this point. How you gonna tell 'em they gotta pay guys less if that means they gonna lose their biggest to the competition? The big promoters and distributors have been upbidding and overpaying in order to try to corner the market and attract the best fighters, but it was only sustainable in the short term... Haymon / SHO might have started bringing purses down to sustainable levels after they forced HBO out of the market, but then DAZN cam along and upped the ante again making the problem even worse.
Ain't really anyone to blame except the fractured governing and sanctioning bodies themselves and the Wild West nature in which the business of boxing has always been run... that's just the free market in action, man. Problem is I can't see anyway out of the cycle until or unless one ditribution and promotional outfit manages to create an effective monopoly (like the UFC for MMA) but that brings a whole raft of it's own problems.
Only other option is to establish a single overarching sanctioning and governing body for the global sport, but I beleive there's just too many entrenched interests each with their own fiefdoms not to mention ties to powerful and dangerous people who are never likely to give up the control they have willingly. Besides... it's kinda been tried before - each time someone tries to set up a new governing body to fix boxing's problems we just end up with a multiplication of 'em.
Haymons probably closest in the US with his strategy of dominating just a few key adjacent divisions and packing them with guys who will sell in that market, but I think the sport's too big and too international (not to mention the complex racial politics of the US being an obstacle) for him to be able to take over globally even if he establishes the lions share of US viewership... time will tell however. For the time being we just gotta do what we always do... enjoy the good fights and mutter and tut about the plentiful bullchit that gets served us on the regular.
All I can hope is that at some point the power players in the sport finally come to the conclusion that they'd all be better off with a slightly smaller portion of a bigger pie and that their ****** internecine wars are hurting all of us and their own bottom lines.
Ain't really anyone to blame except the fractured governing and sanctioning bodies themselves and the Wild West nature in which the business of boxing has always been run... that's just the free market in action, man. Problem is I can't see anyway out of the cycle until or unless one ditribution and promotional outfit manages to create an effective monopoly (like the UFC for MMA) but that brings a whole raft of it's own problems.
Only other option is to establish a single overarching sanctioning and governing body for the global sport, but I beleive there's just too many entrenched interests each with their own fiefdoms not to mention ties to powerful and dangerous people who are never likely to give up the control they have willingly. Besides... it's kinda been tried before - each time someone tries to set up a new governing body to fix boxing's problems we just end up with a multiplication of 'em.
Haymons probably closest in the US with his strategy of dominating just a few key adjacent divisions and packing them with guys who will sell in that market, but I think the sport's too big and too international (not to mention the complex racial politics of the US being an obstacle) for him to be able to take over globally even if he establishes the lions share of US viewership... time will tell however. For the time being we just gotta do what we always do... enjoy the good fights and mutter and tut about the plentiful bullchit that gets served us on the regular.
All I can hope is that at some point the power players in the sport finally come to the conclusion that they'd all be better off with a slightly smaller portion of a bigger pie and that their ****** internecine wars are hurting all of us and their own bottom lines.
Comment