Is UFC contributing to the demise of boxing? Most say that answer is a resounding "No". However, it is apparent that boxing has seen better days. The modern greats of the sport such as Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and George Foreman have all faded into retirement. Considering the uproar from fans at the institution of 12 round bouts from the previous 15 round format one would think that many boxing fans would be searching for a bloodier, guts and glory form of fighting. However, it seems that despite what one would intuitively think, MMA promoters like UFC are not gunning for boxing fans and those who were loyal to the sport of boxing are remaining so. However, as of 2006, there have now been more sanctioned UFC fights in the state of Nevada than boxing bouts, so maybe Zuffa Inc. doesn't need to persuade fans that boxing is passe in order to increase the size of their demographic. There is a strong correlation between the age demographic and the relative popularity of each sport however, with the age of boxing fans being much older than that of MMA fans. As boxing fans die off, it is logical to assume that younger fight fans will be drawn to the more current UFC trend creating diminishing returns for boxing that could end up killing the sport. As the Baltimore Sun reported, The heavyweight title bout between Oleg Maskaev and Hasim Rahman (2006) got just 60,000 pay-per-view buys. The Ultimate Fighting Championship show two weeks later, headlined by Chuck Liddell vs. Renato Sobral, generated more than 500,000 buys. Although the demographic for UFC is completely separate from boxing (mostly white male for the former with much more minority representation for the latter) it will be interesting to see if UFC does bury boxing, especially considering how much revenue is generated from merchandising and if the economic disparity of the demographics will come into play at all.
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5372598/In-time,-UFC-may-TKO-boxing's-audience
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/custom/mma/bal-sp.maese082606,0,4251886.column
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