It's already bigger. Go to instagram and search for popular UFC fighters then search at the popular boxers. Boxing has only 2 or 3 with more than a million followers, UFC has many more.
Go to youtube and search for UFC official channel and then search for Top Rank, Matchroom boxing, PBC or golden boy. UFC has nearly 12 million subscribers, none of the big boxing promotions have even 1 million. Even Bellator and ONE have more than them.
Yes, boxing is more relevant in a lot of countries. It's much older. But you need to understand that is not a big sport in most of them. I'm from Argentina, we are always in the top 10 in boxing. And yes it is bigger here, but the "following" here it's something like: 95% football, 4.4% other sports, 0,5% boxing and 0,1% MMA. So the difference between the 2 is not that big to be relevant. I'm sure is the same in most countries and that's why the numbers in social media are bigger for UFC fighters.
As a casual, take away the Paul bros, 5 is pretty spot on.MMA surpased boxing with the casuals a long time ago. Casuals maybe know 5 active boxers these days.
I can only answer on the UK but you're bang on with that one. MMA is very niche compared to boxing here. Still a strong following but not in the same league as boxing yet.Country by country it seems to me (going by instinct):
Boxing is bigger: Mexico, UK, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, Philippines
MMA is bigger: Brazil, Australia, NZ, Poland, Sweden, Netherlands
Not sure/close: USA, Canada, Russia, Japan, South Korea
Thoughts?
I'm not going to bother listing the biggest names in each sport and comparing them. It's so obvious who has more followers and so easy to check just by going to their profiles. I don't care to do it. We both know who has more followers.The first part is beyond false. Just from the top of my head, pac, canelo, ryan garcia,.loma, tank davis, wilder, AJ, Fury .. all have more than a million followers. As for the promoters likes and subscribers, boxing has a very different model than the UFC. The UFC brand is bigger than the sport, while in boxing, nobody cares or really support a particular promoter.
There’s no allegiance to promoters bough, boxers often change it upI'm not going to bother listing the biggest names in each sport and comparing them. It's so obvious who has more followers and so easy to check just by going to their profiles. I don't care to do it. We both know who has more followers.
And sure, boxing doesn't have the equivalent of the UFC. But the fact that both Bellator and ONE have more subscribers than any boxing promotion says a lot about the disparity between both sports.
I'm not going to bother listing the biggest names in each sport and comparing them. It's so obvious who has more followers and so easy to check just by going to their profiles. I don't care to do it. We both know who has more followers.
And sure, boxing doesn't have the equivalent of the UFC. But the fact that both Bellator and ONE have more subscribers than any boxing promotion says a lot about the disparity between both sports.
Even if you put all the youtube channels of the boxing promotions together they will still not match the number of followers in the UFC. You shouldn't because, most of those fans are repeteaded subscribers to all of them but even with that is not enough.There’s no allegiance to promoters bough, boxers often change it up
I'm not that into boxing. Never have been. So, I hope in saying this I have my bias in check...but MMA has been bigger than boxing since the late 90's, as far as I know. Sure, specific boxing match-ups sell better than most(if not all) UFC cards...but overall, MMA is waaaay bigger a sport.
I don't need to do that. I don't need to take a picture of the sky just because you say it's not blue. Instagram and Twitter profiles are there for you to see. The numbers don't lie.Im far from conviced this would be the case, and since.your first claim was such obviously false, i think you need to dig deeper into this before making such statement. And again, promotions in MMA are much more important than in boxing. MMA fighters usually fights only fighters from the same promotions, and they fight for the promotion title, which, as you probably know, is not the case in boxing. Im a fan of both sports, and i know the promoter of every mma fighters i know, while i only know the promoters of a handful of boxer. Not too mention that boxing fans tends to be older than mma fans.and therefore less active on social media.
Now, im not saying that boxing is more popular than MMA. I tend to think that at the moment they are fairly equal
I don't need to do that. I don't need to take a picture of the sky just because you say it's not blue. Instagram and Twitter profiles are there for you to see. The numbers don't lie.
And it doesn't matter if boxing is divided while MMA is centered around the UFC. Even the biggest fights in boxing which should unite boxing fans are not making the same number of views on youtube than MMA fights. Look at the number of views the press conference between Fury and Wilder did, posted last week. That is one of the biggest fights in the sport. Just 76.000 views. On the other hand the pre fight press conference for UFC last event last week did 1.6 million views. Numbers don't lie.
You hide behind "boxing fans are old" like boxing fans always do to justify the lack of support in social media. It makes no sense, even old people knows how to use technology these days
Bro it took 2 title fights and a bare Diaz fight for the last UFC to touch 600K PPV buys.Pretty sure UFC's PPVs sell better on average than boxing ones. Besides Canelo, who's selling close to 1 million ppvs in the US? Wilder/Fury II sold well and Joshua does well in England, but nobody is even touching 500k regularly besides Canelo and/or Fury/Joshua.
Never was, Never will be despite Mcg being popular and giving enough relevancy.
Boxing is coming along nicely and there's some nice matchups like Pac vs Spence and Fury vs Wilder and Usyk vs AJ, MMA is still very niche and in some countries isn't even known or has the same popularity as boxing. i am saying ths as someone who lives in a non mma country, boxing is more known.