Article on the Future of Boxing
miklia
Posts: 1,295 ✭✭✭
There's a great article on the future of boxing in today's times. A few choice grafs below:
In a Corner of China, Boxing’s New Frontier
By GREG BISHOP
"Inside the Friars Club, at a table near the back, Bob Arum leaned forward. His eyes widened. His voice rose. Here came another vision, another sell — the next future of boxing, which followed the last next future of boxing, which followed the future of boxing before that — and Arum had seen it, experienced it and planned to capitalize on it.
The fight promoter Bob Arum said, “Look into the future, and the truth is, the U.S. market is going to be secondary.”
Of course he had.
For much of his 81 years, for more than six decades, Arum has sold his sport, his fighters and himself. He has sold fights all over the world, from the Orange Bowl to Cowboys Stadium to a cow pasture in Gardnerville, Nev.; from Ohio to South Africa and so many points in between. He has worked through several boxing generations, from Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao, as his sport shifted from a national treasure to a mainstream sports staple, and now from a niche sport in the United States to an increasingly global one.
But Arum had not seen it all. Not until this month. Not until he put on a bout in Macau, China’s gambling enclave, and looked over the numbers and so many of them were staggering. Arum knew then that he had seen the next frontier, both for boxing and, to a greater extent, for sports. That is the vision he is selling. That is his next next.
“There’s a real story there,” Arum said excitedly, his hands moving as he talked. “Look into the future, and the truth is, the U.S. market is going to be secondary. The opportunities in the Asian market far exceed what you can do here.”
Arum insisted that he had seen the future of boxing, and that it was in China and Singapore and would perhaps spread elsewhere in Asia, like the Philippines. That April 6 bout in China, the country that once banned boxing because it was too Western and too violent, featured a decorated Olympian from China in his professional debut, boosted gambling revenue at and drew high rollers to the Venetian Macau hotel and casino, and came with a favorable tax rate.
...
Before Pacquiao became a global superstar, Arum envisioned showcasing him in Asia. He targeted Macau in particular. Then the Ultimate Fighting Championship held a mixed martial arts event there in 2012, and it went well, and Arum had his aha moment. Earlier this year, he heard from the agent for Zou Shiming, the Chinese boxer with two Olympic gold medals. There it was, the final piece. Like most everyone in sports, including the power brokers for professional leagues in the United States, Arum wanted into China, with its population of more than 1.3 billion and heightened interest in Western culture, sports included. Kobe Bryant ran a basketball clinic in Macau. Rory McIlroy stopped there during a seven-day, seven-city golf tour. The Venetian sponsored a golf tournament on the Asian Tour.
...
Boxing, a sport long proclaimed dead or dying in the United States, has become increasingly global in recent years. Arum cited the sport’s popularity among Hispanics; the fights staged in England, Germany and Montreal; how in America boxing’s “center of gravity has shifted to the west and southwest.”
Arum claimed that if the model in China worked, it would boost boxing’s popularity stateside, because it would show a global interest and because boxing would have made the inroads in China coveted by other sports and by the television networks. That is the sell, at least.
“This is an intriguing part of boxing’s globalization,” Merchant said. “What’s intriguing is the newness and the numbers. The number of zeros on the estimates are staggering, unprecedented and tantalizing to a promoter. Where it goes, nobody knows.”
This is an odd time in boxing, even by boxing’s typically strange standards. Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is scheduled to return to the ring in early May, jumped to Showtime from HBO. HBO made what Arum called an unprecedented announcement and said it would no longer work with fighters from Golden Boy Promotions, the company established by the former world champion Oscar De La Hoya.
While this chaos ensued, Arum turned toward Asia, toward the future of boxing or simply another site for Top Rank to showcase a fight, or five. Those events will need to make sense, the way Shiming made sense, the way Pacquiao makes sense. The future, Arum called it.
Follow the money."
If Chinese basketball buyers get into the boxing card scene, look out.
In a Corner of China, Boxing’s New Frontier
By GREG BISHOP
"Inside the Friars Club, at a table near the back, Bob Arum leaned forward. His eyes widened. His voice rose. Here came another vision, another sell — the next future of boxing, which followed the last next future of boxing, which followed the future of boxing before that — and Arum had seen it, experienced it and planned to capitalize on it.
The fight promoter Bob Arum said, “Look into the future, and the truth is, the U.S. market is going to be secondary.”
Of course he had.
For much of his 81 years, for more than six decades, Arum has sold his sport, his fighters and himself. He has sold fights all over the world, from the Orange Bowl to Cowboys Stadium to a cow pasture in Gardnerville, Nev.; from Ohio to South Africa and so many points in between. He has worked through several boxing generations, from Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao, as his sport shifted from a national treasure to a mainstream sports staple, and now from a niche sport in the United States to an increasingly global one.
But Arum had not seen it all. Not until this month. Not until he put on a bout in Macau, China’s gambling enclave, and looked over the numbers and so many of them were staggering. Arum knew then that he had seen the next frontier, both for boxing and, to a greater extent, for sports. That is the vision he is selling. That is his next next.
“There’s a real story there,” Arum said excitedly, his hands moving as he talked. “Look into the future, and the truth is, the U.S. market is going to be secondary. The opportunities in the Asian market far exceed what you can do here.”
Arum insisted that he had seen the future of boxing, and that it was in China and Singapore and would perhaps spread elsewhere in Asia, like the Philippines. That April 6 bout in China, the country that once banned boxing because it was too Western and too violent, featured a decorated Olympian from China in his professional debut, boosted gambling revenue at and drew high rollers to the Venetian Macau hotel and casino, and came with a favorable tax rate.
...
Before Pacquiao became a global superstar, Arum envisioned showcasing him in Asia. He targeted Macau in particular. Then the Ultimate Fighting Championship held a mixed martial arts event there in 2012, and it went well, and Arum had his aha moment. Earlier this year, he heard from the agent for Zou Shiming, the Chinese boxer with two Olympic gold medals. There it was, the final piece. Like most everyone in sports, including the power brokers for professional leagues in the United States, Arum wanted into China, with its population of more than 1.3 billion and heightened interest in Western culture, sports included. Kobe Bryant ran a basketball clinic in Macau. Rory McIlroy stopped there during a seven-day, seven-city golf tour. The Venetian sponsored a golf tournament on the Asian Tour.
...
Boxing, a sport long proclaimed dead or dying in the United States, has become increasingly global in recent years. Arum cited the sport’s popularity among Hispanics; the fights staged in England, Germany and Montreal; how in America boxing’s “center of gravity has shifted to the west and southwest.”
Arum claimed that if the model in China worked, it would boost boxing’s popularity stateside, because it would show a global interest and because boxing would have made the inroads in China coveted by other sports and by the television networks. That is the sell, at least.
“This is an intriguing part of boxing’s globalization,” Merchant said. “What’s intriguing is the newness and the numbers. The number of zeros on the estimates are staggering, unprecedented and tantalizing to a promoter. Where it goes, nobody knows.”
This is an odd time in boxing, even by boxing’s typically strange standards. Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is scheduled to return to the ring in early May, jumped to Showtime from HBO. HBO made what Arum called an unprecedented announcement and said it would no longer work with fighters from Golden Boy Promotions, the company established by the former world champion Oscar De La Hoya.
While this chaos ensued, Arum turned toward Asia, toward the future of boxing or simply another site for Top Rank to showcase a fight, or five. Those events will need to make sense, the way Shiming made sense, the way Pacquiao makes sense. The future, Arum called it.
Follow the money."
If Chinese basketball buyers get into the boxing card scene, look out.
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Comments
Ugh
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
-Maybe in the middle 90's it was coming apart. 1992.
Before that it seemed like the big boxing matches were "EVENTS". Fights with Sugar Ray Leonard, Duran....those were EVENTS. People talked about them the next day.
It seemed like the money $$$ really increased in the 90's. And then came the politics, wrong fights set up, etc. Remember how long it took Lennox Lewis to fight Holyfield? Or Lewis vs Tyson.
The weakening of the heavyweight belt hasn't helped. No one cares about WBA, IBF. They want to know who the best boxer in the world is, and who holds their respective belt. There should be a lineage of the heavyweight title.....from the days of Ali, or Joe Louis, to Tyson, or current fighters.
It would be like the NBA giving one world championship to Minneapolis or Boston in the 50's vs a different world championship today.
I miss the big fights in Vegas with Tyson or Holyfield. Those were electric. There was an excitment and energy you don't find in events today.