Photos: (Above) Ali and Foreman, near the end of their epic RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE in 1974.
I read an interesting article in the Globe and Mail this past Saturday titled Requiem for Boxing. The article postulates that Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has overtaken what was once the most popular sport in the world; boxing.
No one can deny that boxing has declined over the decades for a variety of reasons. In 1974 it's estimated that more than 1 billion television viewers around the globe watched Muhamed Ali and George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle broadcast via satellite from Zaire. This is outstanding for 1974 if you consider it was an era when global satellite broadcasts were relatively rare, and you had to stay up well into the morning in the Americas to watch the fight. It's doubtful that any combat sport would draw that kind of audience today.
Nonetheless, I was curious to see if I could find some statistics to bear out this claim about the popularity of MMA. So I had our media department run some numbers. Recent PMB research indicates that 8.1% of Canadians have watched MMA on television in the last year, compared to about 10.4% for boxing. The boxing audience skews older. There is some duplication between the audience for the two sports, but 55% of MMA fans don't watch boxing and 65% of boxing fans don't watch MMA.
So it seems that statistically, they're about even with boxing just a little ahead. So it's interesting that the hype has mixed martial arts as far more popular and growing. Neither sport draws an audience anything like what boxing used to command.
I think the Globe article correctly identifies that part of the reason boxing has declined in popularity is that — as a sport — it creates and requires story and romance. Boxing lore is filled with stories of underdogs and the underclasses achieving victory through grit, determination and hard work. Two recent popular movies — THE BOXER and CINDERELLA MAN - epitomize these kinds of romantic, underdog-makes-good legends.
Any great story needs a hero with whom the audience can identify. I don't see that in the boxing world today, or the UFC. There are talented athletes to be sure, but the romance is gone. And so to most people, all that remains is the technique, athletiscism and violence. Seems that this has appeal for roughly 10% of the population. Including me. But I don't see these sports achieving the mass audiences boxing used to command without some kind of compelling, character driven story to capture our imaginations.
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