Fighting and branding
Posted Under: Entertainment
A Freakonomics Quorum offers various answers to the question “What happened to boxing’s Golden Age?” One participant says:
It’s also a brutally honest sport despite the presence of pageantry. I wonder if the American audience in this current day and age wants to deal with something as raw as the sweet science.
Having spent some time in the last few days following this post learning about how popular “mixed martial arts” (ultimate fighting) is, and how brutal, I’m not so sure about this theory. Maybe that earlier post actually offers another answer: boxing’s problem is the lack of associated fashion brands!
Reader Comments
Boxing’s problems are numerable:
1. Corruption and organized crime.
2. Multiple organizing bodies created confusion – who’s the champ?
3. All the big fights went to pay-per-view and the casual fan, like me, disappeared.
4. Heaveyweight, the glamour division, hasn’t had a compelling champ since the glory days of Tyson.
5. No unified marketing campaign
That’s just off the top of my head.
Everlast, a brand intrinsicly (sp?) linked to the sport has tried to become a sort of fashion brand, but has done a poor job.