Zane ♠️

Boxing | Business | Fitness

[Albert Baker @thealbertbaker]

We all want the big fights and the nostalgia sold to us emphasizes the history of why we do.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, the audience didn’t shrink because boxing is terrible or corrupt. It shrunk because of options.

In the 70’s you watched what was on your local channels, the 80’s gave you 30 cable channels, the 90’s saw 100’s of channels and the 00’s had 1000’s.

But today, there’s an endless choice of literally billions of social media accounts and channels to watch, pipelined straight to your eyeballs through your phone, tablet, laptop, tv- hell, you can even stream on some refrigerators.

You can’t force feed a product to a consumer anymore. You can try, but spending millions of dollars on marketing doesn’t exactly have the same effect as when 3-5 local channels told what the only thing available was.

So, why make a fight immediately between two fighters only a small group of the population are interested in?

The logical answer is: That’s what the fans want.

And you’re right, but are there enough fans to pay the fighters what they want?

Another logical answer would be: Pay them what’s available so the company promoting can still be profitable to continue making shows down the line. Nothing wrong with that?

The downside is, despite making the big fight immediately and satisfying a rabid hard core fan base, you fail to grow the sport.

Big fight yes, but not to the general public. They’re busy watching the billion other options available. Yes, the hard core is satisfied but you’re still planning the next fight from the same small money bucket.

Grow the fan base, grow the money bucket. But the real fight had today is- Who gets the new money in the bucket?

Is it the suits for ushering in sponsorship and investment, or the gloves in the ring that make all of it possible.

It’s the proverbial “Dad gets the big piece of chicken” but who’s dad in this case.

Now, if a fight is built, and god forbid I use the boxing slur “marinated” the odds of increasing public attention grow. More viral clips, more distribution of names and opportunities to reach new people, generate investment and sponsorship. The odds of fan base growth increases. You anger the hard core fanatics, but potentially grow the money bucket and generate a star that crosses over.

Options deliver us instant gratification, and we’re addicted to it. This doesn’t mean you don’t make big fights, lots of great fights aren’t made by stars. In this case, fighters need to understand their media footprint and revenue generation abilities. Their hustle is two fold now, physical and public.

Fail there, and no big piece of chicken for you.

[Paul Magno @Boxing_Tribune]

Thank God Turki came along to save boxing. It's like a paradise in here now!

Support REAL independent media. You know, the kind that actually says something and takes stands.

Link in Bio.

[Reggie Dunlop @Kil787]

@ZaneSpade @iamrahstradamus Exactly right. Plenty of people who few up in the same environment turned out to be decent humans. Tank — not his environment — is responsible for his actions.

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@junglecure And it started long before 3 years ago. Did you hear how much Mayweather made? #gateheads

[Erik Magraken @erikmagraken]

“Pay more? We don’t even know if our fighters are any good!”

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@iamrahstradamus Environment = excuses.

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@officialwalks Yes, boxing will always be bigger and better.

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@EzRawBoxing Just like Mayweather bruh.

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@RLJ2DAY @OlivieriLaw Yes, they need to merge. 🤝

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@_BroadwayJoel Let’s hope they merge. 🤝

[Boog Williams @Ovajay]

Since Keyshawn officially turned down the IBF 140 vacant title fight to move up to 147, it should be a no-brainer to make the Haney fight next.

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@OlivieriLaw @pugboxing @arielhelwani @LoMejorDelBoxeo @DanRafael1 @SteveKim323 @boxingscene @SIChrisMannix @ringmagazine @loudibella @JakeNDaBox @nakisa_bidarian @NotiFight @Boxeo_DeNocaut @BoxeoMundial @IFLTV @FightHubTV @BoxingBobNewman @fightnews @RenatoBermudez Let’s see the two best 🏆 sanctioning bodies merge to make one. The time is now‼️

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@jhabeeb1 Great point. Nobody hurt the sport more than some of those extremely biased “journalists.”

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@snboxing As long as they criticize across the board, all facets. I’m all for it.

[Paul Magno @Boxing_Tribune]

Yep...And that's how ego works, especially ego from a world powered by a brutal monarchy. There is no positive coming from such a power source. Maybe people (like, media) should've seen this coming and informed rather than gorge themselves on blood money.

[Crystina Poncher @CrystinaPoncher]

I wanted to start a podcast when I was with TR but it never came to fruition. Now as a free agent, I can truly talk to anyone and everyone, regardless of affiliation. The possibilities could be endless now… 💭

[Zane ♠️ @ZaneSpade]

@_BroadwayJoel @ASideBoxingTalk Had to be Lefty crashing out.
But @ASideBoxingTalk probably had a few. 🤣

[Bryan Fonseca 🇵🇷 @BryanFonsecaNY]

@ZaneSpade Yeah... you summed it up well tbh.

[Paul Magno @Boxing_Tribune]

Given the Boxingscene stuff today, the parts in this week's free column about boxing writers/boxing media seem somewhat prescient.

Link in Bio.