HBO Boxing Saturday night drew 833,000 network subscribers on Saturday for the Francisco Vargas-Orlando Salido fight.
The live fight, which aired from 11:44pm-12:32 am, per Sports TV Ratings was the third-most watched cable sports program on Saturday night. It bested the UFC Prelims which drew 798,000 viewers. The HBO fight received 393,000 viewers in the adult 18-49 demo. ESPN’s Dan Rafael notes that the peak viewership was 954,000.
The other fight of the evening between Julian Ramirez and Abraham Lopez drew 649,000 viewers and 293,000 in the adult 18-49 demo per Sports TV Ratings. Lopez took care of Ramirez in that fight.
Payout Perspective:
Good ratings for an event that did not featured top-named talent yet provided an entertaining fight which ended in a majority draw. There had not been an event in a couple weeks and the death of Muhammad Ali may have had HBO subscribers wanting to tune in to watch boxing.
tops E says
Good ratings…old salido against a not known boxer
fight fan says
big fights this month including showtime this weekend and then thurman porter on the 25th
Diego says
Both fights on the card were great. I think the replay will draw solid ratings as well.
Like I said, last weekend was a good weekend for fight fans. Lots of great action in boxing and MMA.
Wil says
Gentlemen, agreed. Pretty decent ratings. Its clear we have hit a relatively down period in combat sports as a whole though. That fight should have had higher ratings, no doubt the PBC card on ESPN and certainly the UFC card all split viewership. But good ratings I suppose
Chris says
that number is just main event, I believe the event averaged 741k since there were two fights.