Boxing, a British tradition, is being lost.
Boxing is one of those sports that have traditionally fascinated the British since the beginning of the last century, when English boxers (and their Irish “cousins”) were the pride and joy for every Briton. Yet in recent years, the love for this discipline has gradually waned and consequently even bettors, except for the experts, hardly know all the useful data and bonus to place a precise bet on boxing. But why this general distancing of the audience for such a popular sport?
Surely, the first distinction in boxing must be made between amateurs and professionals: at the moment British boxing can count on very few professionals. The amateurs, albeit famous and recognized in the circuit, do not whet the attention of television broadcasters for obvious economic reasons. Professionals grab attention with great matches with titles and earnings at stake.
One of the causes that boxing lovers contest regarding the lack of consideration for this sport is the infrequent television broadcasts of the matches. In fact, matches are often broadcast exclusively as pay-per-view events; moreover, most of the matches take place overseas, mainly in the United States and Asia, and therefore are broadcast late at night.
Precisely because boxing is an extremely widespread sport in the USA, there is no doubt that most of the attractive events, even for British bettors, take place in American territory. This precludes the possibility for the normal audience to attend these matches, as opposed to what happens to other sports.
Another cause that affects the loss of media value of boxing, concerns the rise of combat sports such as MMA. The UFC is considered much more spectacular, at least in television speaking. More and more young people are passionate about the exploits of the fighters, who now have multimillionaire earnings like the most famous boxers in the world.
For the reasons mentioned above, not all bookmakers include boxing matches in their sports schedule, unlike the other most followed and broadcast sports in the UK. So even the most assiduous bettors do not have a wide range of odds and markets to choose from, thus finding themselves always relying on the same platforms, without a real possibility of choice, in particular if they want to use a coupon.
It must be said, however, that there is a part of players who are truly linked to boxing, who attend the matches and bet online on this discipline with commitment and diligence. They live the sport and, in part, the income related to it; we are still a long way from the flow of money that runs in the US or Asia, but it is a concomitance of determining factors that are lacking at the moment, to make this happen.