For a few years, since I got back into boxing, I've been bemoaning the lack of coverage our beloved sport gets in newspapers and news websites.
A few times I've written to the BBC and said that their public service remit compels them at least to report on the weekend's results on the BBC Sport site, but sadly it's normality to see very little fresh content on there.
Now, having read an article on the Telegraph site, I was curious to see what their boxing page looks like.
surfthehurf wrote:For a few years, since I got back into boxing, I've been bemoaning the lack of coverage our beloved sport gets in newspapers and news websites.
A few times I've written to the BBC and said that their public service remit compels them at least to report on the weekend's results on the BBC Sport site, but sadly it's normality to see very little fresh content on there.
Now, having read an article on the Telegraph site, I was curious to see what their boxing page looks like.
There are 20 main stories, and 18 of them are about Mayweather/Pacquiao. If I were a casual lurking fan I would not feel interested in the sport
most newspaper coverage is littered with factual errors so i hardly bother reading it,the BBC sometimes doesn't update the boxing results for as much as a week.To be honest if i want to know something i always look on here first,there are far more people in the know than anywhere else.
Yup boxing is too niche to get any decent coverage in anything other than a dedicated source. And whenever it does get covered in the national press, it's either full of basic errors or just displays the writer's severe lack of knowledge.
Boxrec or Twitter for me for breaking news, that's pretty much all I use. For more detailed analysis, it's good old Boxing Monthly.
Boxing coverage in general is pretty poor if I'm being honest, not just by the main stream press but also by the boxing press. I'll admit it's gotten better in recent times but we still see far too much guff written about Mayweather and Pacquiao and not enough attention being given to the thousands of other fighters out there.
There are some great people who cover the sport but a lot seem happier to jump aboard for the big fight then sod off, ring the bell on sport by declaring it dead, play it down or act as advertisers for the promoters. It'd be great if more fans knew about fighters like Kosei Tanaka (a wonder kid from Japan), Jeff Horn (fastest rising fighter in Aussie boxing), or Brian Carlos Castano (a really talented Argentinian youngster) but instead it's earlier to declare that Pacquiao was robbed, Mayweather's a slime ball, Klitschko is killing the heavyweight scene and various other re-tread stories that appear more fiction than truth.
How it's taken Roman Gonzalez this fornicating long to get some attention in the US says it all.
surfthehurf wrote:For a few years, since I got back into boxing, I've been bemoaning the lack of coverage our beloved sport gets in newspapers and news websites.
A few times I've written to the BBC and said that their public service remit compels them at least to report on the weekend's results on the BBC Sport site, but sadly it's normality to see very little fresh content on there.
Now, having read an article on the Telegraph site, I was curious to see what their boxing page looks like.
There are 20 main stories, and 18 of them are about Mayweather/Pacquiao. If I were a casual lurking fan I would not feel interested in the sport
The Telegraph always seems to be full of cricket. It's far too big of a unit to be taken seriously anyway, unless you intend to spend a week reading it. I think of it more as a "newsletter" for Lords and judges and so forth. I think they turn their noses up at boxing as I've searched for it in there before and that was the conclusion I came to.
I like Bunce and Ron Lewis, first and foremost, off the top of my head.
Boxing coverage in the mainstream press tends to revolve around "individuals" rather than "the sport". Its just the way it is.
When AJ becomes big news in the coming years, which he probably will, he'll likely garner plenty of coverage and boxing generally might shuffle up the ladder of mainstream media interest. But week by week the 'casual' fans largely just don't give a flying feck e.g. who was victorious on the undercards in Newcastle recently.....
Loftgroov wrote:Boxing coverage in the mainstream press tends to revolve around "individuals" rather than "the sport". Its just the way it is.
When AJ becomes big news in the coming years, which he probably will, he'll likely garner plenty of coverage and boxing generally might shuffle up the ladder of mainstream media interest. But week by week the 'casual' fans largely just don't give a flying feck e.g. who was victorious on the undercards in Newcastle recently.....
Boxing is too niche.
It is now but it shouldn't be. Boxing can pull incredible numbers for huge fights/huge names only beaten in this country by football.
The mainstream media might think it's not popular enough or there's not enough big names to cover in-depth, but if they did cover it more, they'd help raise the popularity and help create the big names they crave for.
