Bernard Hopkins just took part of the light heavyweight belt from Antonio Tarver in a one-sided beating in Atlantic City. Hopkins proves once again that he is one of the best fighters in boxing history.
On the same night, Miguel Cotto defeated Paul Malignaggi to keep his share of the belt in the junior welterweight division in a tough fight at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Question. How many people know that these tips were carried out? How many people saw this live? In general, not many.
Boxing is a sport that usually costs a lot of money to see it live. Tickets typically range from $ 30 to $ 40 to more than $ 2,500. Therefore, most of the people are expelled and watch it on television.
To make matters worse, most “unpaid” television networks like ABC or CBS have basically stopped showing boxing. Cable channels such as ESPN, HBO or Showtime have intervened and have become the great boxing providers of the moment. HBO in particular is legendary in the boxing community. The network has shown and continues to show the biggest fights year after year. This has helped the sport as HBO is the largest payment network. However, nothing is like “free” television.
Unfortunately, another creature has gotten into this. It is known as “Pay-Per-View”.
Of course, “Pay-Per-View” was a concept that would promote the best of everything. This is how it started. People would deposit their hard-earned money at “premium” events. As usual, time is always on the side of the vultures and the quality of these events today is mediocre to disastrous. The Hopkins-Tarver fight cost $ 50. The Cotto-Malinaggi fight was $ 40. Too much.
Worse still, various promoters have labeled people “dumb” for buying events that didn’t go very well. Guys like promoters Bob Arum and Don King shrug their shoulders when people complain that they’ve been cheated on.
PPV events are very smart because they build the main event and put less and less on the card, which for any true boxing fan is a big deal. So less money is paid to undercard fighters and more goes into the promoter’s pockets. Fans? Yes, they screw you again. The card will often have finished fighters or a sideshow like “Butterbean,” which is (was) “King of the four rounds.” Women’s fights will sometimes be thrown into the PPV craze due to the fact that female wrestlers, with rare exceptions, make less money than their male counterparts. In some cases, a title fight will be between men of a very low weight class, as they are paid less. Such fighters could “head butt” you on the street and you would have no idea who they are.
Obviously, money is being made. But at what cost? Fewer and fewer people are exposed to boxing due to PPV. Basically the hardcore fanatic is shelling out more and more. And only a few are making dollars from this concept. You don’t even know tons of fighters because a lot of the big fights go to pay-per-view. Again, there is no exposure from CBS, ABC, or FOX. Anyway, how many boxers can fight on PPV? Not many.
HBO is now heavily involved in the PPV concept. They basically show the main event of the PPV broadcast on their channel the following week, but without a billboard. So it seems like a lot of people just wait the following week to see the event.
Boxing was once among the elite of all sports. Now it is definitely a “niche” sport. Bad promotions, limited access to major networks, high costs, and now Pay-Per-View is limiting your exposure to the masses of people. Too bad because on a good night he can compete against any other sport in the world in terms of build-up, excitement, drama, and ferocity. Hopefully, PPV will slowly return to its original intentions: big main events with a solid undercard at a reasonable cost. $ 50? See ya.
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