How often was boxing televised?

[Holtol]

I started watching boxing in the late 80s. I was wondering how often big fights were televised during the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, and when ppv came into effect? I have heard that in the 50s all the big fights were on every Friday night, is this true? If that is the case it would have been great for the fans.

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

I started watching boxing in the late 80s. I was wondering how often big fights were televised during the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, and when ppv came into effect? I have heard that in the 50s all the big fights were on every Friday night, is this true? If that is the case it would have been great for the fans.

Yes I heard the same. I don't know when they first went to cable TV but I know in the early 80's they were on "ON" and "SELECT TV", two cable stations I remember as a kid. Not sure the fights were on both or just one of those. PPV makes everyone more money but its the fans that have to pay in the end. A lot of Tysons fights were on regular HBO. It wasn't until the 90's where everything became PPV.

[StarshipTrooper]

I started watching boxing in the late 80s. I was wondering how often big fights were televised during the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, and when ppv came into effect? I have heard that in the 50s all the big fights were on every Friday night, is this true? If that is the case it would have been great for the fans.

Typically you'd have a fight (including major title fights) on ABC's Wide World Of Sports every Saturday back in the 70s.....Hell, that's how became a boxing fan. Back in the 50s you'd have weekly fight cards on free TV.....enough that it became a cliche that got jokes made about it on "I Love Lucy": Wife pissed cuz every week the dude comes home from work, grabs a beer, and tunes in the fights on the tube.

Poet

[Anthony342]

Weren't most fights before the '50s filmed instead of videotaped and I also heard during the first half of the 20th century, maybe even before then too that some of the bigger boxing matches were shown in movie theaters. Even now on ESPN Classics, they seem to have the opening and closing music and credits when they show old black and white fights.

[jose_palooka]

I can answer this question with considerable expertise as I am an old man who grew up in Brooklyn during the 50s and 60s:

On Friday nights we used to have the Gilette Friday Night Fights Sports show and the Cavalcade show that featured other sports as well as boxing. The ABC Wide World of Sports often had fights as did CBS and NBC. Many of Muhammed Ali's fights were shown LIVE. What a treat that was!!

We also had fights from Los Angeles on Telemundo which was not a cable network in the 60s. The broadcast was in Spanish but the ring announcer was legendary Jimmy Lennon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cyy_rziuk

I still sing the Gillette theme to myself every once in a while.

Today, boxers are no longer household names in the USA anymore. Back then everybody knew who Muhammed Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, and dozens of other fighters were. That's because they were on nationwide TV every week. How I wish we had that again today!!!

[JAB5239]

I can answer this question with considerable expertise as I am an old man who grew up in Brooklyn during the 50s and 60s:

On Friday nights we used to have the Gilette Friday Night Fights Sports show and the Cavalcade show that featured other sports as well as boxing. The ABC Wide World of Sports often had fights as did CBS and NBC. Many of Muhammed Ali's fights were shown LIVE. What a treat that was!!

We also had fights from Los Angeles on Telemundo which was not a cable network in the 60s. The broadcast was in Spanish but the ring announcer was legendary Jimmy Lennon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cyy_rziuk

I still sing the Gillette theme to myself every once in a while.

Today, boxers are no longer household names in the USA anymore. Back then everybody knew who Muhammed Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, and dozens of other fighters were. That's because they were on nationwide TV every week. How I wish we had that again today!!!

We'll be looking forward to more of your posts Jose.

[jose_palooka]

Thanx! I have enjoyed being on this forum & look forward to being here for a while.

[TBear]

The 70's and 80's were a great time for me. I remember in the 80's here in the states I would get up Saturday morning look at the guide and figure how I was going to record/watch several shows divided between ABC, NBC and CBS. Add cable shows through out the week like MSG, USA, ESPN, FNN and even BET and Univision. We were getting 10+ shows a week not counting HBO and Showtime. There was ppv, but it was almost all big bouts(unlike now) with big undercards. It was in the 80's I decided to record every bout on tv and it was costly on the ol' vhs tapes! But I miss those days.

[sonnyboyx2]

Here in the U.K. big fights from the USA was shown tape-delayed the following weekend so we had to wait a week to watch the fights like Ali vs Frazier & Ali vs Foreman etc, during the 60s & 70s the BBC had a mid week programme called Sports Night with Coleman which would show `live`domestic fights like Conteh vs Finnigan, Cooper vs Bugner etc as well as tape-delayed fights from the USA of Leonard v Hearns etc, then during the mid 1980s and the arrival of Mike Tyson SKY satellite was founded and they charged PPV to watch Mike Tyson fights with the downside of it being that they aired the Fight on the SKY Movies channel so hard-core boxing fans had to take out the full SKY package of channels to watch Tyson at a huge cost then pay the PPV (£9.99) on top of their subscription... Today i watch all fights `Live`on the internet at a cost of £12 per year which is fantastic value and far superior coverage as well as choice.

[sonnyboyx2]

The 70's and 80's were a great time for me. I remember in the 80's here in the states I would get up Saturday morning look at the guide and figure how I was going to record/watch several shows divided between ABC, NBC and CBS. Add cable shows through out the week like MSG, USA, ESPN, FNN and even BET and Univision. We were getting 10+ shows a week not counting HBO and Showtime. There was ppv, but it was almost all big bouts(unlike now) with big undercards. It was in the 80's I decided to record every bout on tv and it was costly on the ol' vhs tapes! But I miss those days.

yeah those was the days and very much missed