Celebrities are everywhere and their impact is huge. No longer the quasi-mythical characters we would see on television once or twice a week, they are now on our phones and in our ears every waking hour. Ignoring them is not as easy as it used to be.
Once upon a time a ‘celebrity’ would be the presenter of game shows on Saturday nights but now they’re not just presenting, they’re the audience and they’re the contestants, drawing the spotlight stage and robbed his poor Joe Bloggs the chance to win a well-deserved speedboat. They’re ‘writing’ best-selling books, recording chart-topping podcasts, marketing energy drinks and lending their vocal cords to the kind of songs our kids are listening to and then after. that vomited at an alarming volume. That they seem to have no apparent talent – creating the illusion that they are getting rich without much effort – so it is not surprising that today’s teenagers are not focused on becoming doctors, teachers. or firemen, instead they were busy filming videos on it. their phones in the hopes that one will go viral on TikTok.
The homemade celebrity phenomenon has accelerated since the turn of the century. And now, in 2023, it is feared that they will also rule the boxing world. And the boxers, the real boxers, who have been doing their craft since they were kids, are starting to get a little annoyed that things like KSI can invade and sell out an arena while they are scrambling to try to move enough tickets to just break even.
“If true boxing fans support us like boxing fans on YouTube support them, we will get paid like them!” former Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion Lyndon Arthur wrote on Twitter last weekend following Misfits’ latest boxing card. “You whine a lot about PPV… and don’t join the arena until it’s almost [sic] The main event begins.”
While Arthur’s annoyance is understandable, it’s not the fans’ fault that so many underdogs are filled with one-sided fights and mismanaged broadcasters and broadcasters. long-term development strategy of boxing for a long time. The fact that many promoters and broadcasters are now fully supportive of ‘celebrity boxing’ will highlight the broader issue.
Think about it. We live in an era where Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jnr are considered two of the best boxers in the entire sport, they are (almost) clinging to their peak and although they are active In the same weight class, we’ll never see them fight like we did five years ago. You can blame Crawford and you can blame Spence, you can also blame the promoters and rival networks. But if those promoters and networks really believe that Spence-Crawford will the Massive crossover event to not only justify the purses that the boxers are demanding, but also generate substantial profits, perhaps this match has been made. But the sport – thanks to the rise of ‘world’ titles, advertisers pulling in different directions, relentlessly fails to produce high-level matches that engage and keep audiences entertained. marginalized further by sticking everything worthwhile behind a wall of fees – nothing as appealing or accessible to the public as it once was. So while you and I know how gruesome the battle of Crawford-Spence is going to be, surely anyone but die-hard boxing fans has even the slightest clue as to who they are. .
One suspects that damage has been done to Spence and Crawford. But that doesn’t mean the next generation has to suffer, too. Like it or not, friends, these celebrity boxing cards are giving fans what they want. It’s not boxing, not even fighting in some cases, but when the fans – the payers – are happy and not constantly whining about everything being a waste of money, then’ Famous boxing’ is doing what ‘real boxing’ cannot do.
Spence and Crawford don’t have as many fans or followers as the likes of KSI and Jake Paul. It is a fact we cannot avoid. What celebrity boxing is taking advantage of is the age of the social media fanbase and its sheer size and loyalty. ‘Interactive funnel’ is an old marketing term but it has some value here, so bear with me. Essentially, it’s important to build an audience at the top of the funnel with the hope that when that audience bottoms out, more people will become paying customers. KSI and the like come to boxing with tens of millions of fans, so, in a way, the hard work is done. Conversion rates – and interest rates – will always be high.
Boxing’s interactive channel is different. Long before many top boxers became famous, honest household name, they find themselves fighting for bogus titles on pay-per-view or obscure channels that don’t help with reach. So while there may be an odd short-term financial gain thanks to the additional price tag, we are still alienating a lot of our potential markets. In essence, we are blocking the channel at the earliest entry point. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to tell you that’s a bad strategy.
If only fighters like Spence and Crawford had built up considerable interest along the way, through their competitions being witnessed by as many sports fans as possible, and Their work is arranged so that a collision is not only inevitable, but the interest is – certainly – will be significantly greater. So it should come as no surprise that broadcasters like DAZN and promoters like Sauerlands realize ‘celebrity boxing’ is a quick solution. A loving audience was there. In this case, promoters or broadcasters don’t need to spend years building profiles of gladiators or making matches. For them, it’s easy.
The problem will become increasingly apparent in the coming months and years as more and more time is devoted to these types of events because the real things have become too much like hard work. When real laziness comes into play and the lack of structure in boxing – a dominant unorganized sport demanding the best match, the best match – becomes an insurmountable obstacle when generate genuine interest, as opposed to permissiveness. -control the system as it is today.
Some boxers realize all this already. This weekend’s pay-per-view A-side, Chris Eubank Jnr, has long been aware of all of the above. In many ways, he’s the aforementioned quick fix that promoters love. It’s also why no one has banned Eubank from participating and around super heavyweight or middleweight, Gennadiy Golovkin is a debatable exception that could lift Liam Smith to the box office. Crucially, Eubank wasn’t the best boxer in Smith’s catch, he was simply the most popular.
Fame, as we should know by now, can take you places where mere talent cannot. However, let’s be clear. This is not a plea for boxers to jump around on social media in an effort to get themselves noticed. Achieving celebrity status is not as easy as KSI, and even Eubank Jnr, made it appear. It’s more of a plea for the sport’s power brokers to return to the drawing board and, once there, realize that the current system – divided titles, meaningless rankings, no working together – not the way to make this sport. a main player. It might make for an oddly striking star, but not enough for the rest of the world to really notice.
Let the famous boxing for the celebrities; It’s time to rescue the real thing.
