Okay, so I’ve been seeing this debate pop up everywhere online: Is UFC more popular than boxing? I got curious, so I decided to do a little digging of my own. It’s not super scientific, but I thought I’d share what I found.
My Little Popularity Investigation
First, I started with Google Trends, it seemed like a good place to start. I entered “UFC” and “boxing” and looked at the search interest over the past few * gave a good overview of what people are searching for.
I played around with the timeframes – looking at the last year, the last five years, even going back further. That was cool to see how the interest has changed over time. I noticed some spikes around big fights, which made sense.
Key things I looked for:
- General trend lines: Was one consistently higher than the other?
- Spikes in interest: Did certain events cause big jumps?
- Regional differences: Was one more popular in certain countries?
Next step: Social media. I jumped onto Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok. I just searched for the hashtags #UFC and #boxing to see what kind of conversations were happening, how many people were posting, and what the general vibe was.
I also checked out the official UFC and some major boxing promotion accounts – looked at their follower counts, how many likes and comments their posts were getting. It’s not a perfect measure, but it does give you a sense of the buzz.
Then,I try to looked up some articles about pay-per-view numbers. I figured that’s a pretty good indicator of how many people are willing to actually pay to watch these sports. Found a few news articles and blog posts that talked about recent fight numbers, compared some of the biggest UFC events to some of the biggest boxing matches.
My Unscientific Conclusion
From my little experiment, it feels like UFC is really gaining ground. The Google Trends data showed it, and the social media buzz definitely confirmed it. Boxing still has its hardcore fans, but UFC seems to be attracting a younger audience.
It’s just my own observation, I think it’s still a close call. Boxing’s got the history, but UFC feels like the new kid on the block that’s shaking things up.
