Feb. 22’s Riyadh Season card could be epic, but boxing promoters must plan for Feb. 23 and beyond

If you live in the United States, you can't get away from the NFL. Media covers it like the White House 12 months a year. It's on the internet. It's on your television. It's in your newspapers. It's on the tongues of your friends and family members at the coffee shop, at work and at play.

It's the biggest sport in the U.S. by far, but the league understands it simply cannot be satisfied with the status quo. It has to strive for more, try to make it bigger and better, keep highlighting stars and continuously tweak the rules. It's how the sport continues to grow and evolve.

The owners compete vigorously on the field, but off of it, they have worked brilliantly together for decades to create this sports powerhouse that has made franchises worth billions.

It's also the opposite of what boxing promoters do. They allow petty jealousies to get in the way of improving the sport. They take jabs at each other on social media and work together only when truly necessary. If it weren't for the money being invested in the sport by Saudi Arabia, who knows what state it would be in today?

I know this: It's not great now, though it would be a lot worse without the funding from the Saudis.

So as American Thanksgiving arrives on Thursday, how about a thanks and a tip of the cap to Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia who has almost single-handedly kept boxing afloat the last couple of years?

The latest gem from Alalshikh is the Feb. 22 card planned for Riyadh that looks like a mega-card. BoxingScene's Lance Pugmire reported Wednesday that the card will include a super welterweight bout between a pair of unbeaten KO artists, interim WBC champion Vergil Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs) and IBF welterweight champion Jaron Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs).

If it was just a meh card, that would be enough to get the excitement going for the sport's dwindling hard-core fan base. That, though, is hardly the only intriguing bout on the card. According to Pugmire, the card could look like this:

• Ortiz versus Ennis for Ortiz's interim WBC super welterweight title.

• Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) versus Dmitry Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) for Beterbiev's undisputed light heavyweight championship.

• Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) versus Joseph Parker (35-3, 23 KOs) for Dubois' IBF heavyweight title.

• Carlos Adames (24-1, 18 KOs) versus Hamzah Sheeraz (21-0, 17 KOs) for Adames' WBC middleweight title.

And potentially, it would include lightweights Shakur Stevenson versus Floyd Schofield, and heavyweights Agit Kabayel versus Zhilei Zhang, as well. 

That, my friends, is a super card, and if it occurs, it's worth the support of anyone who even remotely cares about boxing. Don't steal the PPV; buy it to show you're interested in this level of card.

The thing is, this can't be a one-time shot. If this card comes together, it's stronger and deeper than any card in decades in boxing.

But one of the reasons for the UFC's rise to prominence is that its matchmaking is always superb and includes even matches up and down the card on a weekly basis. On a UFC card, you never know if it will be the first fight or the last one that will draw you out of your seat. It's almost always one of the final fights on a boxing show.

Boxing needs to get to where you can't pick the winners so easily. Boxing promoters showcase their stars and prospects on undercards and the B sides rarely have a chance to win.

Getting there means spending money on their own promoting all of their boxers, not just two or four. They need to make their fighters available to the media regularly. Their p.r. people need to pitch stories about not just the fighters in the main and co-main events, but about fighters up-and-down the bill.

They have to spend money to market to increase awareness and visibility. They need to spend money to make the in-arena experience better to bring people back. They need to spend to improve the quality of the TV broadcasts.

Then they need to commit to making the best matches. Don't do the Jake Paul matchmaking, where he's a massive favorite every time out and the result is a foregone conclusion. Let's see fights where the A side is legitimately challenged by the B side. 

One of the common complaints from fans is that the judging and officiating is poor. Officiating is handled by state athletic commissions in the U.S., so promoters could ante up money to the commissions or set it aside and conduct judging and refereeing seminars. Improve the judging on the fights; you'll never make it perfect, but making it better will over time increase public confidence in the shows and lead to more fans tuning in or coming out.

I can't stress enough the need for them to work as a unit and not a collection of individuals who feud with each other. Yeah, we know that Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions hates Matchroom's Eddie Hearn, and while it's funny that they go back-and-forth on social media, it's not bringing new fans to the sport. They should work together like the NFL owners do with commissioner Roger Goodell for the sake of the business.

Alalshikh ought to insist upon it. It's not about stripping away rivalries; rivalries are what make sports great. It's about building a cohesive sport that presents itself as one to the public. 

Hopefully the Feb. 22 card comes together as Pugmire outlined. It would be a huge celebration of how great boxing could be.

But Alalshikh and all those involved have to remember that Feb. 23 comes after Feb. 22.

Promoters need to ask themselves what comes next, as fans undoubtedly will. 

The fundamental problems that have plagued this sport for decades haven't been solved because it's almost always been an every man for himself attitude among those who lead boxing. That must change.

If it doesn't, boxing isn't going to change and will be a sport that garners significant attention a night or two or maybe, at best, three times a year. The rest of the time, it will languish in mediocrity.

Alalshikh has done much to help the sport. If he could convince promoters once and for all to band together and make changes for the good of the sport, he'll wind up every bit as iconic figure in boxing history as Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and, yeah, De La Hoya himself.

He needs to find a way to get the promoters to work together as a single entity to market, promote and stage the events. They need to make more even matches up and down cards. By improving every aspect of the business, the sport's health will skyrocket.

Boxing at its finest is hard to beat. If Alalshikh can spur these changes, boxing can reclaim its throne and ensure its glory for generations to come.