We boxing and media fans live in a bubble. We assure ourselves that all is well, boxing is as healthy as ever. Anyone who says otherwise is a hater, an old critic who just wants to ruin the sport we love.
And to support our case, we’ll point to research by analytics firm Two Circles and a subsequent survey by Harris Poll that found boxing to be the fourth most popular sport in the US with Generation Z youth.
Forget about the research that shows that very few people who “like” boxing know anything about the actual evolution of the sport. The Harris poll found that most people who call themselves boxing fans can’t name an active boxer. Highest on the list of recognizable names among active fighters are Tyson Fury (37%), Saul Alvarez and Ryan Garcia (26%) and Deontay Wilder (24%). Only 29% of respondents who identify as boxing fans can name any upcoming boxing matches.
But, okay, we told each other in our rehearsal room that 2023 was the year the boxing renaissance began. Just last Saturday, we saw Mauricio Lara-Leigh Wood and Luis Nery-Azat Hovhannisyan in terrifying battles that left us speechless. We have Plant-Benavidez coming up. Then, Inoue-Fulton. What about the Davis-Ryan Garcia tank? Looks like we’re getting that too.
But, guess what? Take the live viewership numbers for Lara-Wood, Nery-Hovhannisyan, Plant-Benavidez, Inoue-Fulton, and Davis-Garcia, then populate the viewership numbers for Josh Taylor-Teofimo Lopez and Eimantas Stanionis-Vergil Ortiz Jr. ..add them all…and the viewership will still be less than David Reid vs Laurent Boudouani on HBO in 1999.
If good fights happen and only the same 100K, 200K, 300K, 400K fans are there to watch them, what good is boxing? If a tree falls in the forest…
Boxing, at least in the US, has a big problem at hand when it comes to bringing in new fans. With everything stuck behind fee walls– a self-limiting strategy that began with the emergence of the HBO/Showtime premium cable business model more than 40 years ago– entrepreneurs of The sport has completely abandoned its intention of reaching out to attract new fans. Instead, the business strategy seems to focus on attracting more and more money from loyal fans who still cling to their fandom.
I don’t entirely blame the entrepreneurs for hating the fans. They are facing the reality of drifting into oblivion if they don’t find a way to meet the budget needs of the boxers and bring them to the ring.
More and more second-tier fights are being sold as high-profile events, often because money won’t be available for fights where boxers are supposed to be blockbusters. For event organizers, it’s much better to put their men in the ring against a “next best” person, than to try to compete for the economics involved in a real “top” fight. the.
Boxing did this to itself. It was clear from the start, when the sport was first seen as exclusive, paid content, that short-term rewards would come at the expense of long-term growth. And now we are beginning to see the results of all those years of shortsightedness in business policy.
“Most people don’t know what the hell is going on,” promoter Lou DiBella told Fighthype’s The Mandatory in a recent interview. “Once upon a time they went up they went up” [to me and say] ‘Damn it, Naseem Hamed, man, the show has Kevin Kelly, is it crazy that Hamed is going to fight next? I can’t wait for HBO’s next big show.’ [Now] No one knows what the hell is going on…
“Right now, we’re not as imbued with pop culture as we are…We don’t have a super boxing superstar in America. We do not. We don’t have any pop culture icons. No Ali, no Tyson, not even Holyfield, not even De La Hoya. Canelo is Mexican. Gervonta Davis is one of our larger attractions…[But] he didn’t make a million purchases or half a million purchases. He’s buying more than most people. He’s on TMZ a lot. He’s easier to fit into pop culture than a lot of our other fighters… but he’s not a superstar.”
If pointing this out makes me (and Lou DiBella) a jerk, so be it.
As a fan, I’m really excited about some of the matches on the schedule. But I am already a fan, as are the readers of this column. Making us happy, as fans, is great. We should be rewarded for our loyalty. But these great matches mean nothing to anyone other than the relatively few that have been sold on the product, and they mean nothing when it comes to growing the sport, making the sport better. This sport is healthier. What about building a new base? What about adding more fans to the mix, so that advertising, alone, can pay for fights and fans don’t have to pay for everything, all the time? As for finding a way to bring boxing — a sport that is so prominent in our culture and one that consumers really want to find reasons to support — back into the mainstream. what about again?
The boxing business model has been artificially supported by newcomers in the streaming age who are willing to overpay and operate at a loss for the right to collect some exclusive sports content. Final rights are available under the contract. They have all witnessed the incompetence of boxing and have not yielded any kind of significant profit.
Again, if pointing this out makes me a jerk, so be it.
In DiBella’s interview with The Mandatory, he talked about the silly idea of Spence-Crawford making a million pay-per-view-based purchases. He doubts whether there are a million sports fans in the US who even know “what the game means or who both of them are”.
He told the sad truth. The number of viewers supports him greatly on this.
A few years ago, I was invited to mentor several entrepreneurs who wanted to test and evaluate the possibility of creating a real boxing network. I was tasked with building a self-sustaining business model and programming strategy for the network. I’ve written about it before, so I’ll just paste what I wrote:
“The goal was to create an ESPN-level network, entirely dedicated to boxing, with each major promoter holding a piece of the business.
So while Top Rank can, for example, broadcast their own battles (and profit from those fights), as part network owners they also benefit seeing Golden Boy or DiBella succeed (and vice versa, of course).
I like this project for many reasons, but the real genius of this boxing network idea is that it is forced to work together for the common good. In other words, it would be in everyone’s favor if everything went smoothly and the fights were made. It will completely kill, at least to a large extent, the handcuff work of boxing that keeps some of the biggest fights from getting off the ground. No more promoter vs promoter wars or network complexity due to exclusive deals with specific fighters. All boxing of the era will be in one place, under one umbrella, perpetuated by business interests that need to cooperate for their common good.
I admit it’s the heavenly cake. I know better than to believe that the idea is going anywhere or that it could be implemented any time soon. But I get paid for the ideas, not the definitive implementation. However, it will succeed if given the real chance. And it will come at the right time, as more and more loyal fans are being asked to pay more for less and simply walk away in disgust (or just piracy every single one of them). rank).
But this notion of failure raises a bigger question.
What will it take for boxing entrepreneurs to realize that working together is the only way to grow the sport (and make more money for themselves in the long run)? What will they do to invest in growth and outreach to rebuild the fan base?
Perhaps an outright economic collapse is the only answer. Sometimes you have to destroy the village to save it.
As a fan, I’m selfish. I’ll take Inoue-Fulton, Plant-Benavidez and Tank-Garcia. But I want more. I want good fights every week and I want them to be free (or as free as possible). The only way to get there is if the sport is at least as healthy as it was 25-30 years ago.
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