Top Rank Boxing on ESPN Saturday night drew 1,730,000 million viewers. It is the second-highest rating for Top Rank since partnering the network in July.
The event featured Vasiliy Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeux in the main event. Loma easily earned the victory when the Cuban challenger quit on the stool due to a hand injury.
The highest-rated event was the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn fight which averaged 2.8 million viewers and peaked at 4.4 million. Although there was no peak viewership disclosed for Saturday’s event (yet), the Loma-Rigo fight likely had the highest peak viewership since Pacquiao-Horn.
According to Nielsen, via ShowBuzz Daily, it drew 0.59 viewers in the A18-49 demo and 0.84 with males in the 18-49 demo. It drew 0.52 in the A18-34 demo.
The telecast was preceded by The Heisman Trophy Presentation which drew 2,175,000 and 0.58 in the A18-49 demo.
Payout Perspective:
Good ratings for an event featuring two fighters in the 130-pound division. It’s rare that you find a lot of interest in a fight involving fighters in the smaller weight divisions but Lomachenko and Rigondeux were Olympic gold medalists and Loma is considered one of the best in the world. The true test will be to see if Top Rank can continue to put on fights that will increase visibility for its boxers.
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