4 World Champions; 1 future hall of famer couldn't draw a crowd of more than 5,000!

[fan johnny]

4,920 people trooped to MGM Grand Garden Arena to watch the fight.

Marquez / Katsidis - Berto / Hernandez

Willaims / Martinez drew a crowd of 5,202

Arum narrows list of Pac-Man foes - Boxing - Yahoo! Sports

Wow! those are good attendance numbers for a good fighter, but for an elite fighter and three more world title holders those are pretty lousy numbers. Perhaps the promoters made a mistake by picking Thanksgiving weekend? The UFC is drawing crowds near or over 10,000 for larger events.

Could it be that a World Title Belt means less and less and the P4P list now has more value? Are the casual fans disregarding the alphabet soup belts and paying more attention to the P4P list? Is this what is happening to boxing. It appears that the only fans showing up at the live gate are boxing fans. After seeing those numbers I don't think Arum has a choice for Pacquiao. I think Mosley gets the nod.

[Julius Rain]

that is shocking

[therealremi]

I'm under the impression that's it's not all about how good you are but about how many fans do you bring to the table. You have many fans, then suddenly everyone wants to fight you and TV wants to show you. Adamek has no belt currently and he easily draws 15000 to Prudential Center.

[El Kabong]

It was poor planning as it was Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend one doesn't usually associate with boxing

[TheMacMagician]

4,920 people trooped to MGM Grand Garden Arena to watch the fight.

Marquez / Katsidis - Berto / Hernandez

Willaims / Martinez drew a crowd of 5,202

Arum narrows list of Pac-Man foes - Boxing - Yahoo! Sports



Wow! those are good attendance numbers for a good fighter, but for an elite fighter and three more world title holders those are pretty lousy numbers. Perhaps the promoters made a mistake by picking Thanksgiving weekend? The UFC is drawing crowds near or over 10,000 for larger events.

Could it be that a World Title Belt means less and less and the P4P list now has more value? Are the casual fans disregarding the alphabet soup belts and paying more attention to the P4P list? Is this what is happening to boxing. It appears that the only fans showing up at the live gate are boxing fans. After seeing those numbers I don't think Arum has a choice for Pacquiao. I think Mosley gets the nod.

P4P list in my opinion is complete bullshit and will never replace a lineal champion. That's ridiculous. P4P is a mythical standing, and no fighter can really fight for the top P4P, not truly. only fighters in adjacent or nearly adjacent divisions can have any say what so ever. Montiel and Bute could never match-up as a plain straight example. Its all opinion and should stay that way. P4P is another element along with In-House Promotions fighting and pathetic organisations that is spoiling boxing IMO. All hail the lineal champs.

Plus, one thing I think rarely gets a mention in terms of a major downturn in attendance just simply has to be Internet Streams. Can't not be an influence.

In addition, another major player in low attendance is fighters seem a lot less willing to self promote, getting themselves out there. Which is added to by serious Stay At Home fighters. Fighters like Andre Ward should take a long hard look at themselves and see what a bad job they are doing of promoting boxing. No-One gives a shit about him outside of Oakland. Soon as these fighters realise that the better and put themselves out a bit.

[rjj tszyu]

It was poor planning as it was Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend one doesn't usually associate with boxing

I think (and hope) you might be right here, obviously it's an holiday we don't celebrate but from what I can make out, you Americans take it very seriously.

[Mar]

It was poor planning as it was Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend one doesn't usually associate with boxing

I think (and hope) you might be right here, obviously it's an holiday we don't celebrate but from what I can make out, you Americans take it very seriously.

i surprised there were even that many people there. They starve us all year for decent bouts then they finally throw us a bone on a holiday weekend when everyone is traveling and spending time with family. What's really sad is people were breaking their necks to watch the football games but come fight day came around no i knew could care less. Boxing isn't dying but it sure isn't very popular. Can't make up for a whole year of garbage with one or two desperate cards at the end of the year.

[generalbulldog]

It was poor planning as it was Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend one doesn't usually associate with boxing

I think (and hope) you might be right here, obviously it's an holiday we don't celebrate but from what I can make out, you Americans take it very seriously.

This is true, it's our 2nd most favorite holiday after Christmas. And I think GBP messed up by having it so close to that holiday.

And Mar was right, for some reason myself and friends that I know who are also fight fans were looking forward to the NFL games on Thanksgiving day and the weekend more so than any fights, as I've said it's a huge mistake having it so close to Thanksgiving, not to mentioned also competing with the NFL.

[Hulk]

It was poor planning as it was Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend one doesn't usually associate with boxing

I think (and hope) you might be right here, obviously it's an holiday we don't celebrate but from what I can make out, you Americans take it very seriously.

We tricked the native people, ate with them, then murdered them and fucked them outta their land. Whats not to love !?

[0james0]

I don't think you can measure a fights popularity by the number of people at the event, or even PPV buys.

With all the live streams and full fight downloads available, it distorts how many people actually watched it. I bet most boxing fans have now watched the fight.

[therealremi]

I don't think you can measure a fights popularity by the number of people at the event, or even PPV buys.

With all the live streams and full fight downloads available, it distorts how many people actually watched it. I bet most boxing fans have now watched the fight.

Live streams are pretty much limited to Americas due to time difference. As to downloads, there are not so many of them, at least I was struggling to find those fights at the usual torrent sites and then it downloaded quite slowly (never had those problems with UFC torrents). I would say this way of watching boxing is for the patient and determined, there can't be so many of us.

[TheMacMagician]

I don't think you can measure a fights popularity by the number of people at the event, or even PPV buys.

With all the live streams and full fight downloads available, it distorts how many people actually watched it. I bet most boxing fans have now watched the fight.

Live streams are pretty much limited to Americas due to time difference. As to downloads, there are not so many of them, at least I was struggling to find those fights at the usual torrent sites and then it downloaded quite slowly (never had those problems with UFC torrents). I would say this way of watching boxing is for the patient and determined, there can't be so many of us.

If your struggling for day after downloads then your looking in the wrong place man. Get posting a little more and you'll have access to the file sharing area man. I try to keep that place moving every fight weekend man.

[armin]

Those numbers are dam low, but yeah let's hope it was due to it being the holiday weekend. That said if that card had taken place within a few hours of me I would have been there, holiday or not. As it is instead I just get a bunch of no namer fights with 2-15 records, if and even that's only a couple times a year.

[fan johnny]

I don't think you can measure a fights popularity by the number of people at the event, or even PPV buys.

With all the live streams and full fight downloads available, it distorts how many people actually watched it. I bet most boxing fans have now watched the fight.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The purpose of a boxing event is to sell viewership and promote the sport itself. If people don't show up for a live championship event, where is the sport headed? If more and more people are showing up to watch UFC events vs Boxing events were less people are showing up, its an indicator of what? I don't have the stats to even know if that statement is even correct, it's just an observation.

You say piracy is a big problem, and it may be. Yet there are UFC event streams are all over the net, and their sport patronage continues to grow. I think boxing promotion might have a serious problem and this is just one of the indicators. Williams / Martinez II was not over the thanksgiving weekend and drew just 5,202 live ticket sales when it was being sold as a candidate for fight of the year.

My thought is, it might in part have to do with the ranking system and the multiple sanctioning bodies. Causal fans can't keep track of who are the champions. The mainstream media seems to be paying more attention to who is ranked as on the P4P list. Basically they are telling the general public who the champions of boxing are. While in reality they ignoring the sanctioning bodies ranked champions.

[InTheNeutralCorner]

I don't think you can measure a fights popularity by the number of people at the event, or even PPV buys.

With all the live streams and full fight downloads available, it distorts how many people actually watched it. I bet most boxing fans have now watched the fight.

But if a huge number of people are willing to watch the event live or subscribe to the PPV instead of watching the live stream, then the fight is indeed that popular. So the popularity of a fight will be based on this. Whatever cannot be counted will just be speculation. But I know where you are coming from.