Why can't American fighters sell the same amount of tickets as UK fighters?

[TitoFan]

I've just been reading about how AJ has sold 230,000 tickets in his last 3 fights compared to Wilders 42,000
We all know that Wilder isn't a huge star in America despite being HW champ and a KO artist but what sort of tickets to Thurman, Crawford and Spence sell?

In the UK we have a fight on TV pretty much every Saturday whether it be on Sky Sports, BoxNation or Sky PPV, Does America have cards on TV that often, over here we get all the big fights from across the pond but do you have domestic fights televised every week that we don't see, what is the promotion like for them, should they be doing more to get peoples interest?

It seems that the UK turn out in their droves for a fair few of our fighters, and boxing in general seems to be gaining more and more popularity over here, as much as I hate to say it credit has to go to Hearn for that, aside from the Sky promotion machine he puts time into building the youngsters up, putting televised cards on of a Friday night just to showcase the 'NXTGEN' fighters, its clever in the sense that he can just chuck some of the kids on a PPV undercard and they are names that people recognize and they won't cost Matchroom the earth to get them on.

At the same time the way they promote absolute meaningless fights like Bellew v Haye, I think that the big wigs in charge realize that the hardened boxing fan won't have a lot of interest but the casuals will eat it up, do American fights get the same sort of promotion or is it only the real big fights that get that sort of treatment?

Is it because America is so much bigger than the UK that people find it harder to throw their support behind American fighters whereas over here we feel that fighters from London to Newcastle are 'our own'

I don't mean for this to become a 'UK v USA' thread, I'm genuinely interested about the promotion and regularity of your fight nights.

Frankly, I had never seen you write more than 3 sentences before.



Anyway, it's an interesting subject, so I'll add my thoughts.

Boxing popularity in the U.S. is on the decline. Here's a few reasons why:



1. UFC has taken a big bite out of boxing. Let's face it... before UFC it was either boxing or pro wrestling. Not much of a choice, IMO. Now that UFC exists, many fans, particularly younger ones, have gravitated toward that instead of boxing.

2. The U.S. currently lacks marquee stars in the sport. Other than Wilder, there has been a huge void in U.S. heavyweights since the days of Holmes and Tyson. So interest in general has waned, because like I've always said, casual fans only like to see big guys fighting. They couldn't care less about the lighter guys.

3. The few transcendent U.S. stars in boxing as of late have been, let's say..... difficult to rally behind. Think Mayweather, who more people hate than not. Think Ward, who used to fight every other year before he up and beat Kovalev twice.... then retired.

4. U.S. fans tend to lose interest in sports where they are not dominating. Sounds harsh, but it's true. The converse is also true. When they begin to dominate, popularity picks up. Look at curling. Curling's always been viewed as the laughing stock of Winter Olympic sports in the U.S. All of a sudden, the men win the gold, and now it seems curling popularity has picked way up.

5. U.S. boxing has always been a smaller piece of the sports panorama pie than its counterpart in the UK. Meaning that U.S. sports fans have infinitely more sports interests to divvy up its attention. Boxing is seen as a fringe sport. Look up any sports site, and you'll see a dozen links for major sports up on top, followed by the "Other Sports" category. In that category, you'll find boxing.



The UK has always been constant in its support of its boxers, and has suffered through time periods of "drought". So now that the number of champs has increased and the level in general has been upped.... the interest is obviously going to be multiplied.

[Master]

Everyone is insulting Batman today.

[Batman]

Everyone is insulting Batman today.

Bastards the lot of ya

[powerpuncher]

Boxing in the states in way down on list of important sports. Baseball, American football, and basketball are by far the biggest. Americans like highlights. That’s why football (soccer to us Americans) isn’t as big. It’s looked at as boring. Although it is getting much bigger here and there is becoming a huge niche. UFC is also pretty popular. People talk about it a lot. I have a brother and a cousin who used to watch boxing but have basically quit and only watch UFC now.

The US is huge too and boxing is only popular in specific areas. Like Wilder is from Alabama and that is not a boxing state. Crawford is from Nebraska which is not a boxing state. I never run into boxing fans and I live in a city. It’s just not that popular here. Americans have too many other sports they focus on.

We can fill huge stadiums for professional and college sports. Stadiums of 100,000 but not for boxing. Just doesn’t have the demand.

[Master]

Boxing in the states in way down on list of important sports. Baseball, American football, and basketball are by far the biggest. Americans like highlights. That’s why football (soccer to us Americans) isn’t as big. It’s looked at as boring. Although it is getting much bigger here and there is becoming a huge niche. UFC is also pretty popular. People talk about it a lot. I have a brother and a cousin who used to watch boxing but have basically quit and only watch UFC now.

The US is huge too and boxing is only popular in specific areas. Like Wilder is from Alabama and that is not a boxing state. Crawford is from Nebraska which is not a boxing state. I never run into boxing fans and I live in a city. It’s just not that popular here. Americans have too many other sports they focus on.

We can fill huge stadiums for professional and college sports. Stadiums of 100,000 but not for boxing. Just doesn’t have the demand.

How times have changed....