DownSwinging.com

Last night Wladimir Klitschko defeated Rusian Chagaev to retain his title as Heavyweight Champion of the World. An avid sports fan would be forgiven for not knowing that the fight in Germany even took place last night. Is this surprising? Not really. An entire generation has been raised in a world where boxing is almost no longer even considered when thinking about sports. An afterthought. When I scroll my mouse over the “All Sports” tab on ESPN.com I see that Boxing is listed as the 16th sport on the list. It falls behind sports such as recruiting (one would think something like college football recruiting could be found within the college football section), Women’s College Basketball, High School sports and Racing. Racing, I might add, does not include the ever-popular NASCAR, as it has its own link. However, the mere fact that Boxing has ceased to be thought of in the realm of major American sports is just a sign of how far the mighty, primal exhibition of raw toughness has fallen. My thoughts are, if the Ultimate Fighting Championship can do it, so can Boxing. Here are five suggestions on how to improve the popularity of this once great American past time:

5. Eliminate Pay-Per-View: The all-time highest pay-per-view gate for a fight is $120 million in revenue for the May 5, 2007 fight between Oscar de la Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. Some would point out that the date is relatively recent, however, this by no means is that a sign that the system works. If boxing’s ultimate goal is to become a stable fixture in the minds of sports fans, it needs to become more available to the masses. That $120 million was due to 2.15 million purchases. This number adds up to an estimation of about 9 million viewers. For 9 million television viewers to make for the most ever means that not enought people are watching. Eliminating pay-per-view makes the bouts available to larger audiences. As of right now, a very mideval, violent sport is available almost exclusively to the upper-class. It just doesn’t make sense. Allow the big fights to be on pay-per-view to generate revenue; but the smaller fights should be free so as to create a following and generate interest.

4. Give it a Window: Boxing needs a night. Football has Sunday and Monday night, Basketball has Wednesday night and Friday Night Fights just isn’t working. Nobody is invested enough in the sport to stay at home on a weekend night. Boxing needs to be presented on a Tuesday Night on a channel like Versus or Spike. It could be seen as copying UFC’s business model that has taken the American sports world by storm. Allowing a particular pattern to form, picks-up viewers that will become loyal to the sport’s tradition.

3. Regional Classifications: Creating a regional system within the United States, would give casual viewers a sense of context and comfort with the sport. Creating four or five regions would, again, create a system where loyalty could be formed. Allowing each region to have Featherweight, Heavyweight and Welterweight boxers (who are all from the designated region) and could then be ranked within their class, could make boxing more emotional for the viewer due to geographical investment. The most popular sports are noted for their ability to evoke emotion from the viewer. At this point, boxing is all about shock value; very little is emotionally invested from the viewers’ point of view.

2. Improve the Visibility of Amateur Boxing: Allowing Universities to give out boxing scholarships would immediately create a deeper interest in the sport from the grassroots. It would create another avenue for the less privileged to access a formal education. As of right now, the less privileged are the main demographic to become boxers; therefore, this would create quite an efficient system. The only way for the scholarships to be allocated would be if the NCAA put more money at stake in Boxing competitions, thus creating an incentive for schools to seek the best boxers in the nation.

1. Grow an American Heavyweight: Lastly, America needs to produce another mighty heavyweight. We’ve had Ali, Liston, Foreman, Holyfield and Tyson. The main heavyweights in United States history have been far between, but great. America needs a Tiger Woods, or a Michael Jordan for the sport of boxing to become what it once was, and could be again. If America could produce a rival to Wladimir Klitschko, the marketing strategy would write itself. Until the United States produces another Heavyweight superstar, the sport of Boxing stands no chance in this country. It is a similar fate that has befallen Men’s Tennis since the retirements of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras..