Boxing is not dead!

Hello to all my boxing fans,

            I’ve created this blog as a medium for a sport that has long existed and many people say is out of its hay day. Mainstream sports have taken a drastic turn with the emergence of the popularity of the NFL and NBA, most importantly the emergence in popularity of Mixed Martial Arts. Boxing was long considered the most popular sport world wide with the exception of futbol (American soccer). Most recently CBS and NBC have begun to telecast more footage of boxing after almost fifteen years of no network television broadcast, thus the sports market was mainly exclusive to premium channels such as HBO and Showtime who to this day continue a bidding war. Floyd Mayweather Jr, who is by far the most popular name in the sport is also the highest paid athlete in the world, which is something most sports fans don’t know. This is a sign that the sport still does have a strong following and the market has never left if anything it’s just not promoted as in was in it’s days of the fabulous four (Hagler, Hearns, Duran and Leonard). With promoters such as Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank promotions in bidding wars against each other, this only hurts the sport and helps MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) as far as contact sports because it prevents major fights from happening. Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather Jr would have been the biggest fight in boxing history! The purse talk for this event reached upward of 250 million dollars, yet due to the promoters conflicts the fight never materialized and the biggest fight in history never happened. If the sport wants to thrive things like this can no longer happen, these “mega-fights” have to happen to draw the proper attention and attract fans back to the sport. Revenue is at an all time high yet fan attendance to events and fighter recognition is at an all time low. Today, most people wouldn’t be able to tell you who the heavyweight champion is and this would not be the case ten to fifteen years ago. Proper promotion and exposure would certainly alleviate this dilemma and introduce a whole next generation into boxing. The reported 250 million dollar contract that Mayweather has just signed with Showtime and CBS should go along way to help this situation. This is the first step that had to take place in order for boxing to take its place back into the homes across the wo