Post by len on Apr 6, 2006 10:45:57 GMT -5
I was trying to get some details on yesterday's Fight Card at the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City. I found no local media coverage of the event. What a far cry from the 1950s when I first started following Boxing.
In those days, only baseball, horse racing, and occationally college football would get more sports coverage. Then, pro football and college basketball exploded in the 1960, followed by pro basketball, and in the northern states, pro hockey.
Boxing, hampered by some ring deaths and overexposure on TV which killed off a lot of local club cards, diminished in the 1960s. It was already becoming a nitch sport in the 1970s just as Women's pro boxing was taking off. Today, most big city newspapers and TV stations fail to mention or cover local cards unless a very prominent local fighter is on that card.
Today we have a polygot of sports (skate and snow boarding, ice dancing, triathalons, paint ball, strongest men competitions, and hundreds of other pseudo or X-sports that were not imagined 30 years ago) and boxing (and to a lesser extent baseball) has suffered.
Part of that is an image problem. Boxing was the sport of the poor and the slums. Now basketball is the king of the inner city, and anyone can get a skateboard.
Boxing clubs, like minor league baseball, began disappearing, and media coverage disappered with it. Ironically, boxing is in a catch-22 situation. Boxing is considered by some to be too violent a sport, yet extreme fighting, toughmen contests, fistfight clubs and other more violent forms proliferate.
I have no answer to this dilemma, I am merely venting my frustration. However, I thought this forum might serve as a focal point of discussion as to how to overcome the problem of media coverage. Only with expanded coverage can the sport grow again.
In those days, only baseball, horse racing, and occationally college football would get more sports coverage. Then, pro football and college basketball exploded in the 1960, followed by pro basketball, and in the northern states, pro hockey.
Boxing, hampered by some ring deaths and overexposure on TV which killed off a lot of local club cards, diminished in the 1960s. It was already becoming a nitch sport in the 1970s just as Women's pro boxing was taking off. Today, most big city newspapers and TV stations fail to mention or cover local cards unless a very prominent local fighter is on that card.
Today we have a polygot of sports (skate and snow boarding, ice dancing, triathalons, paint ball, strongest men competitions, and hundreds of other pseudo or X-sports that were not imagined 30 years ago) and boxing (and to a lesser extent baseball) has suffered.
Part of that is an image problem. Boxing was the sport of the poor and the slums. Now basketball is the king of the inner city, and anyone can get a skateboard.
Boxing clubs, like minor league baseball, began disappearing, and media coverage disappered with it. Ironically, boxing is in a catch-22 situation. Boxing is considered by some to be too violent a sport, yet extreme fighting, toughmen contests, fistfight clubs and other more violent forms proliferate.
I have no answer to this dilemma, I am merely venting my frustration. However, I thought this forum might serve as a focal point of discussion as to how to overcome the problem of media coverage. Only with expanded coverage can the sport grow again.
