Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a post comparing the action in boxing to eSports, like people do with football. Personally, I think most comparisons to the NFL are far too ambitious. It’s like comparing your current girlfriend to a supermodel. Unless your girlfriend is Jessica Alba, she’s going to seem ugly. We should be starting low and working our way up. Your girlfriend looks a lot prettier, and everybody’s happy because you tell her that.
eSports doesn’t look nearly as bad when you compare it to the NHL. Sure, we only have programming on channel 101 on DirecTV, but they’re on Versus. At least I know where to find the eSports channel; it’s right there in the name. I’d need a guide to find Versus. And not the TV guide, I’m talking about a person to help me navigate the dense channel jungle and make sure I don’t pick up any diseases like Seacrest-itis (symptoms include obnoxiousness and being short).
Even still, hockey is probably too ambitious. It’s on ESPN, or at least ESPN2. They cover the highlights, but they also broadcast games along with some of the regular network channels. Plus, they have a Hall of Fame, unions, TV contracts, and fans willing to pay money to see the games. eSports still dreams about those things.
So we need to take it down a couple more notches. I think we should look at boxing. It used to be wildly popular, but if it keeps falling this quickly it’s going to start losing viewers to Oxy-clean infomercials. In fact, I think the talk about how boxing can regain the limelight doubles as advice for eSports.
First of all, you need to understand how much I know about boxing: virtually nothing. I don’t follow the sport, I only hear occasional news stories when sports shows like Pardon the Interruption are obligated to talk about it. The talk is almost always focused on the decline in viewership and fanbase, though, because my lack of knowledge seems to be a generational trait. There are two major problems with eSports and boxing, in my mind: lack of access to the product, and not enough organization.
You would think organization wouldn’t be a problem in boxing, considering how long it’s been around. Then you look at the list of weight classes and current champions and realize if you’re going to spend that much time memorizing anything, it might as well be one-liners from Office Space. Yeeeeeaaah.
Right now, there are four people claiming to be the heavyweight champion of the world. This seems like the perfect situation for a fight.
Boxer 1: “I’m the heavyweight champion of the world!”
Boxer 2: “No! I’m the heavyweight champion of the world!”
Boxer 1: “Let’s fight!”
Apparently, it doesn’t happen as often as you would think. That's what I call bad organization.
The eSports correlation is, obviously, the number of tournaments and games. There are champions for ESWC, CPL, WCG, CAL, CEVO, NEL, and lord only knows how many other leagues. And that’s just for Counter-Strike. The list is even longer if you take console games and other PC games into account.
The most popular sports don’t have this problem. There’s one championship every year, and in some cases an Olympic champion. That’s it. The most telling leagues are NASCAR and the PGA Tour. They’ve both adopted a points-per-win system that leads into a championship at the end of the competitive year. These are recent changes to the old tournament/race system that’s similar to what eSports and boxing have today. If they thought it was a good change, considering their popularity, I’m not going to argue.
The other major component is product exposure. Boxing is almost completely pay-per-view, and pundits suggest that’s part of the problem with creating new fans. Leagues like the CGS and the WSVG are trying to increase their TV exposure, both on cable and network television.
Basically, the lacks of exposure and confusing systems have one huge effect: losing, or ignoring, the casual fan.
For boxing, they have better things to spend their money on than pay-per-view fights (like beer, beer mugs, and beer hats). The NBA, the NFL, and MLB do a better job of catering to those people. They have special promotions, easy access to the games, and the Wrigley field bleachers. You don’t have to drop $50 to watch your local team. They come to you inside the television.
I’d give an eSports example, but I don’t think we’ve ever had casual fans. In my mind, that’s what the CGS is charged with. They should have more exposure and a more intuitive championship/league structure. (Whether they do or not is another thing, but they should.) Even those don’t guarantee success (I’m looking at you, U.S. soccer and hockey), but it’s something all the major sports do very well, and something boxing has done horribly as they take the popularity plunge. I don’t know if those are the only causes, but it seems logical that they have a significant role.
Unfortunately, making those fans isn’t something that happens in a month or a year. It’s a gradual process. So hopefully, in a couple years, we’ll pass boxing as we go in opposite directions. Maybe we’ll even kick the NHL off Versus.
Or ESPN. Either one would be fine.
