NEW YORK - When a young Evander Holyfield fought an aged George Foreman nearly 20 years ago, there wasn’t much publicity necessary. A few press tours, some television ads, and some carefully crafted newspaper stories generated plenty of interest.

To the tune of 1.4 million pay-per-view buys.

Even today, when big fights are synonymous with the buy-for-battle format, Holyfield-Foreman remains one of the top 10 boxing events in terms of viewership. The reasons it has rarely been trumped are many and varied, from waning interest in the sport to stagnant promotions, to the sheer number of alternatives for the casual sports fan.

These days, traditional means of promoting a big fight are not enough.

“Boxing has to reach a younger audience, a new audience,” HBO Sports vice president Mark Taffett said Wednesday. “We need to connect them to the athletes to move the sport forward.”

Golden Boy Promotions and HBO understand this, and are embarking on a marketing blitz unlike anything the sport has seen in recent years, focused on raising awareness for Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on Sept. 19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The fight figures to be one of the year’s most entertaining, carried by the erstwhile pound-for-pound champion’s return from a brief retirement. Mayweather (39-0, 25 KOs) has been involved in some of the biggest promotions in boxing history, including his record-setting fight against Oscar De La Hoya, while Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs) is backed by a feverish Hispanic fanbase.

The difficulty comes in getting their message out to a broad prospective audience, something that boxing has struggled with for decades. The interests of the 40-something sect are far different from the tech-savvy teen; blue-collar workers and urban youth have little in common.

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The trick is to attach the fight, and the sport itself, to something that interests them.

“I really try to come up with ways to do things differently, and be it from the sponsor integration and things like that, we need to look at how we can expose the fights to the largest number of people,” said Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy. “Where do you have captive audiences? Where can I get this message to these locations?”

Already, the often-bombastic and sometimes-belligerent Mayweather has guest-hosted WWE’s “Monday Night Raw.” There’s the popular HBO reality series “24/7,” which takes an inside look at the two fighters’ training camps leading up to the bout. Then there’s social networks like Facebook and Twitter, online media buys, mobile marketing and rich media online ad units.

The fight also will be shown in about 170 theaters nationwide, and as part of that activation, trailers have been showing on about 1,500 screens before feature film attractions.

Ticket sales and overall response to Mayweather-Marquez has generally been lukewarm, especially compared to other big fights, like Manny Pacquiao’s highly anticipated bout against Miguel Cotto slated for November.

Bob Arum of Top Rank is likewise raising the bar for Pacquiao-Cotto, a fight that is especially important to him as the promoter of both fighters. Press conferences are planned for several ballparks, beginning with Yankee Stadium on Thursday, and Pacquiao will be the honorary captain for the Oakland Raiders against the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 18.

One company, which Arum declined to name, has committed $6 million to sponsor the bout.

“The more people you can get, the better,” Arum said Wednesday. “We’re looking to do 1.5 million to 2 million buys on this fight, and it looks like we have a shot to do it.”

The main sponsors of the Mayweather-Marquez card have been carefully chosen to hit specific target audiences. Affliction Clothing is popular among young men, Quaker State motor oil and Dewalt tools appeal to blue-collar workers. Tecate beer is popular among Hispanics, and AT&T and Southwest Airlines help to target mainstream sports fans.

Golden Boy and HBO are spending about $20 million to market the broadcast, which officials at both companies hope serves as a blueprint for future megafights.

It’s a big gamble in what is undoubtedly big business.

Since the Holyfield-Foreman “Battle of the Ages,” HBO has put on more than 150 pay-per-view events, generating 44 million buys and about $2.1 billion in revenue. Mayweather’s fight against De La Hoya two years ago generated $136.6 million in one night, more than twice what the popular Batman film “The Dark Knight” brought in on its opening night.

Although reaching those kind of numbers is unlikely for Mayweather-Marquez, Schaefer said he expects it to be among the biggest pay-per-view events of the year, even going up against a UFC pay-per-view event from Dallas the same night.

“These are two great fighters, we’ve created a great event, the best undercard top to bottom in recent history,” Schaefer said. “We want to give the fan a great night of entertainment.”

As many fans as possible.

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