HBO Boxing

Broadcasting boxing matches has been one of the longest mainstays on the Home Box Office premier television network, popularly known as HBO. The series has been popular enough to command a pay-per-view audience.

Hbo Boxing

HBO boxing has been broadcasted since the early 1970s, and it has televised such famous matches as the 1973 George Foreman-Joe Frazier world heavyweight match in Jamaica, which was the debut match for HBO boxing. Other famous matches that premiered on HBO boxing include the Rumble in the Jungle, the Thrilla in Manila, the Carnival of Champions, and Thunder Meets Lightning. The series is announced by Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Emmanuel Steward.

Hbo Boxing After Dark

HBO’s original boxing television program is HBO World Championship Boxing, but it has also spawned another boxing program, beginning in the mid-1990s, called Boxing After Dark or abbreviated to “BAD” for short. Boxing After Dark does not feature fights of quite as high a caliber as the World Championship series, but it generally does show reasonably high-profile fighters and generally higher ones than those shown on basic cable programs. Boxing After Dark professes to be a program that is more about exposing lesser-known boxers than one that always showcases the big names. It generally broadcasts matches on a weekly basis, for every Saturday evening.

HBO boxing has carved out a particular niche in the world of sports broadcasting, and perhaps due to its being a premium program has managed to survive into the 21st century as boxing in America witnesses a steady decline in popularity. Though the mainstream popularity may be waning, boxing still has a devoted, hardcore fan base that will likely continue to pay extra to get its weekly fix of boxing matches. The price of broadcasting a world championship match also factors into the premium status of the program. The persistent lack of successful, major boxing programs on basic television is testimony to the fact that it is not quite popular enough to succeed on that level of viewership.

Hbo Boxing Game

Out of the handful of televised boxing programs that have existed for any length of time, HBO Boxing is arguably the most popular and longest-lived. It is not alone, however, in the world of televised boxing series. Showtime’s ShoBox series carries on a similar theme as Boxing After Dark – that is, a theme of featuring emerging and lesser-known fighters. ESPN’s Friday Night Fights is a rare basic cable networking program for boxing, and generally only shows fairly minor boxers and boxing competitions.