Why General Sports Fans Have Left Boxing

By Dr. Howard Reynolds-April 21, 2007

I am conducting an ongoing, very unscientific survey of friends and acquaintances who are rabid sports fans. Guys and a couple of gals who closely follow football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, just about anything.

But not Boxing.

Nearly all my friends whom I have known for a number of years and who share my passion for all sports used to follow boxing. I used to watch bouts on TV with these guys regularly. This is true for most sports fans that I encounter; in the past they looked forward to a big championship fight the same way they anticipated March Madness, a September baseball pennant race or a December NFL game between playoff contenders.

Recently I was with a group of such intense sports fans, many of whom I was meeting for the first time. About a dozen of us had assembled for a fantasy baseball league player draft, combined with watching the Final Four college hoops telecast and playing some poker.

Such a gathering provides ideal subjects for my ongoing survey. The first question, I always get a variation of the same answer. “Sure, I used to watch boxing all the time. I never missed (Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, depending on the age of the subject) back in the day. But I don’t pay much attention anymore.”

The reasons they have lost interest in boxing are interesting, if not surprising to those of us who are active fans. They are the some of the same problems that constantly frustrate us, detracting from our enjoyment of the sport. I share these same complaints, but I want to report their responses, not just repeat my own opinions. The reasons overlap a bit, but fall into five areas:

Lack of accessibility

Too many fights are on ppv.

Too many champions/belts.

Too many mismatches.

No compelling personalities.

Number one answer: lack of accessibility. Boxing used to be a staple of regular broadcast television, before cable TV had well-established networks drawing viewers away from ABC, NBC and CBS. It was difficult to avoid boxing on weekend afternoons on network TV. And while the biggest championship fights were on closed circuit TV in the local movie theater, or more recently on pay-per view, there were still great fights regularly on free TV.

But this is not a lament for the good ol’ days. Accessibility is not simply a move to pay TV; there are many aspects to the situation, and many solutions well within the reach of the powers that be.

There are plenty of fights offered on basic cable. Too bad they are all on Friday night. Between ESPN2, Telefutura and Telemundo, most Friday nights have two or three televised boxing shows, often overlapping.

With the success of “The Sopranos,” “Sex in the City” and other dramatic shows, now approximately 33 million homes subscribe to HBO. Too bad they and their rival premium network Showtime (with 14 million subscribers) offer so many of their bouts on Fridays competing with the basic cable fights, but they seem intent on counter programming each other. HBO and Showtime have both subscribed to the strategy of scheduling head to head. Having to choose which to watch, even if you subscribe to both services, leads to another form of inaccessibility.

Lack of coverage of boxing in the mainstream sports media contributes to inaccessibility. Casual fans are often unaware of upcoming televised bouts on basic or premium cable. Many fans are unaware of the Spanish language boxing shows regularly presented on Friday nights. Most newspapers don’t cover boxing at all anymore. The rise of boxing websites will eventually overcome this condition, but these sports fans I spoke with were surprised to learn that sites like RSR have become the major source of information and publicity for the sport.

The casual boxing fans accepted that a Mike Tyson championship fight was going to cost extra. They don’t accept that a Manny Pacquaio tune up is going to cost $44.95. Sadly the willingness of the hardcore fans to shell out the cash (similar to the willingness of the hard core heroin and meth fans to shell out cash to their respective promoters) dictate the economics of pay-per-view.

Not only the hoarding of fights to PPV productions, but the scheduling of other bouts looking to future PPV match ups results in too many “showcase” mismatches. I received an email from one of my survey subjects soon afterwards. “Hey Howard; after discussions with you I really wanted to enjoy boxing again but both the (Amir) Kahn (vs Steffy Bull) and (Joe) Calzaghe (vs Peter Manfredo) fights were mismatches.

“I just hope that Calzhage gets a couple of top quality bouts in the next year so I get to see how good he really is. I don’t see how you can tell from 3 rounds against that Contender dude. I can’t believe he couldn’t get better fare after the Lacey fight last year when his stock was at its highest point.”

That card, last weekend on HBO, made sense as far as name recognition. But both mismatches were foreseeable; especially on the under card, instead of highlighting Kahn with a retired, overmatched walkover opponent, a no-name competitive bout would have been more interesting.

When so many bouts are scheduled in preparation for a future huge PPV payday, or to preserve an undefeated record, mismatches even on under card bouts are the rule, not the exception.

Of course, tied to the problem of matchmaking is the plethora of belts and champions. With so many champions and championship fights, the casual fan is bound to tune out. In my survey group, the frequent answer to “who is the heavyweight champion of the world” was “some Russian dude.” Four heavyweight champions equals lack of interest.

Finally the most surprising (to me) reason cited that these general sports fans have drifted away is the lack of fighters with star power. No Tyson, Leonard or Ali to capture the imagination of the casual fan. Part of this is due to the above conditions. However, I find boxers as a group to be far more interesting personally than athletes from other sports. Sure, Wladimir Klitschko or Antonio Margarito would arouse more interest if the general sporting public could identify them as the singular heavyweight and welterweight champs. The personalities are here; there must be a failure in the manner in which boxers are presented, or reported, beyond the other problems of the sport.

To read more check out Ringside Report 

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