Does the sport of boxing have a future? ‘Boxing has failed to replace and replenish its audience’ 

Exactly five years ago, HBO pulled out of the boxing business, which was a shock to the sport.

“I had heard about it before I read about it,” recalled Seth Abraham, the former head of HBO Sports on its demise. He was president of Madison Square Garden at the time. “It was very, very sad to see that brand sort of go away.”

And away it did with all its great pugilistic memories.

HBO’s first big fight was Joe Frazier vs. George Foreman for the heavyweight championship in 1974, followed by classics like Foreman-Muhammad Ali, Ali-Frazier III, Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns I and II, Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas, Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jr., and the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward trilogy to name a few.

Now Showtime Sports, HBO’s longtime rival in televising the sweet science, took a ten count.

The final “Showtime Championship Boxing” broadcast was Saturday, Dec. 16 featuring WBA “regular” super middleweight champ David Morrell Jr. vs. Sena Agbeko.

Their final pay-per-view bout was the David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade bout on Nov. 25 for the WBA interim super middleweight crown won by Benavidez by sixth-round stoppage.

Showtime has had its own run of memorable events like: Marvelous Marvin Hagler-John “The Beast” Mugabi (debut 1986), Tyson-Donovan Ruddock I and II, Tyson-Evander Holyfield I and II, Pernell Whitaker-Julio Cesar Chavez, Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez, Mayweather-Conor McGregor, Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury I, and Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford.

HBO and Showtime even partnered up for Lennox Lewis vs. Tyson and Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao. Now they are both gone.

Boxing fans have always suffered withdrawals as they’ve seen staples like Gillette’s Cavalcade of Sports, USA Tuesday Night Fights and even the Daily News Golden Gloves tournament become extinct.

Just five months ago in a RingTV.com article, Stephen Espinoza, 12 years the president of Showtime Sports stated proudly:

“This is the healthiest boxing has been since I’ve been president of Showtime Sports. The sport is in a fantastic place.”

So, what happened to boxing that just 50 years ago was still a major draw for sports fans? The glory of the 1976 Olympic boxing team hadn’t come into fruition yet. George Foreman was the heavyweight champion of the world and  Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraizer were still fighting.

Roberto Duran was still a force at lightweight and “No Mas” wouldn’t happen until 1980.

Closed circuit TV was booming, but now the sport has become the niche-iest of niche sports.

Boxing has done much of the damage to itself.

Take October’s freak show where the WBC heavyweight champion of the world — Tyson Fury — decides to take a non-title fight against the former UFC heavyweight champ who never had a pro boxing match.

Instead of fighting Anthony Joshua which would have been a mega-fight in the UK, or unifying the titles against WBA, IBF and WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk, (which is now a go for Feb. 17 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), he fights Francis Ngannou, gets dropped in the third round of a scheduled 10-rounder and wins a dubious split decision.

The biggest problem with boxing are the organizations. If you look at the ratings of the four organizations they have regular champs, super champs, interim champs, champs in recess and don’t forget the “Franchise” champ, whatever that is.

There are also too many weight divisions as two more have been recently added.

The WBC created the bridgerweight division for fighters weighing between 190-224 pounds. It was named after a six-year-old (named Bridger) who saved his sister from a stray dog. True.

Earlier this month, the WBA followed up by creating the super cruiserweight division (200-224) minus the canine hook.

Of course, sanctioning fees will be required for all fighting for these prestigious titles.

The WBC also showed their stupidity by not sanctioning undisputed featherweight champ Amanda Serrano’s October successful title defense against Danila Ramos.

The Brooklyn native was not allowed to defend the WBC portion of her title because she decided to fight, just like the men, in a 12-round, three minute championship contest. The women’s championship bouts are 10-rounds and two minutes.

“The WBC has refused to evolve the sport for equality,” she said to  ESPN.com. “So, I am relinquishing their title.”

Then there are the “stripped” champs.

Terence Crawford defeated Errol Spence Jr. in July to unify the welterweight division for the first time in the four-belt era. Crawford added Spence’s IBF, WBA and WBC belts to his own WBO title.

Four months later, the IBF stripped Crawford of their strap and anointed Jaron “Boots” Ennis their new title holder, moving him up from his “interim champ” status.

Got it?

By the way, after Ngannou lost to Fury, the WBC, in its wisdom, installed him at No. 10 in the ratings even after a loss and with a record of 0-1.

Go figure.

Boxing can’t get out of its own way even when they have a good thing going.

This two-part series will take a look at why boxing had such a high broadcast kill rate for HBO and Showtime, and if the sport can be rebuilt.

Boxing, thy name is niche.

* * *

Showtime’s bottom line for 2023 should have made any bean counter flush with joy.

“This year the industry had its first million buy event in April with the Tank Davis-Ryan Garcia fight,” points out R. Thomas Umstead, Senior Content Producer, Programming for Multi-Channel News and Broadcasting and Cable. “Hadn’t seen that in a couple of years and that wasn’t even a fight where you would consider it being a million buy fight.

“There was a lot of marketing in there. It brought in a new audience that we hadn’t seen before in younger viewers.”

Boxing has a numbers problem not with the amount of viewers, but with their age, points out Abraham.

“One of the never ending problems [with boxing] is its audience dying,” he declares. “Men 60, 70, 80 and older who grew up with boxing, they’re dying. Young men [it’s] mixed martial arts. That’s what they’re interested in and the WWE.

“Boxing has failed to replace and replenish its audience.”

Showtime had been in the boxing business for 37 years and was highly successful, but then their parent company — Paramount Global — decided to go in another direction with scripted entertainment and not boxing.

“There will still be boxing,” predicts Abraham. “There’s no question that this sport will exist, but it will exist on a microscopic level, on a very small level, and it will continue to lose fans.”

And what of boxing’s long-term outlook?

“Smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller,” warns Abraham, “and one day pickleball will jump over it.”

Hopefully, that’s far off in the future but boxing better come up with new ideas — and fast.

* * *

The death of newspapers and the loss of boxing writers has also damaged the sport. Sadly, Keith Idec of BoxingScene.com and Mike Coppinger of ESPN.com are the only two full-time boxing writers left in the U.S.

Major newspapers have had no dedicated boxing writer for years and that medium helped grow the sport just like another did in the past.

“The first fight I ever heard on the radio was Joe Louis and Max Schmeling when I was seven-years old,” recalls former HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant, now 92-years old. Besides working for HBO, Merchant covered sports as a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Post. “That made me want to hear other fights that were on the radio.

“I got interested in Henry Armstrong and Sugar Ray Robinson and others. That’s how it works in America because we do have so much competition.”

Pickleball, anyone?

* * *

For Stephen Espinoza, the head of Showtime Sports, it’s a bittersweet time.

“It’s been 12 years since I embarked on this pretty drastic career change going from an entertainment attorney who had never worked at a TV network before to being the head of a sports division responsible for programming and content,” he said, five weeks before the big shutdown. “I’ve never second guessed or doubted that decision once.”

But as the leader comes the tough decisions especially with layoffs during the holidays.

“It was brutal,” said Espinoza. “Anyone who does sports television makes tremendous sacrifice. We just did a pay-per-view (Benavidez-Andrade) on Thanksgiving [weekend] and to have to deliver this kind of news to people who have dedicated themselves personally and professionally to supporting the sport was absolutely brutal.

“We’ve got several employees who are in excess of 30 year employees and a handful who have been here since the very start of Showtime sports in 1986. That was truly the end of an era and the passing of something really important, not just in the sport of boxing but for televised media overall.”

In Part 2 of this series, boxing experts predict the future of the sport.