ESPN Dan Rafael reports that boxing’s big return to network television on CBS scored a 1.3 rating. The televised event, “Showtime Boxing on CBS,” on December 15th, aired between 1:45p.m. PT/4:45p.m ET to 3:00p.m. PT/6:00p.m. ET.
The rating equates to roughly 1.5 million viewers although the actual numbers have not been released. The event featured a bantamweight title fight between Leo Santa Cruz and Alberto Guevara.
The event was delayed due to the Indiana-Butler NCAA College Basketball game in which Butler upset the No. 1 ranked team in America in overtime. As Rafael points out, the delay in start time may have helped “Showtime Boxing” as viewers likely stayed until the end of the basketball game.
The network event was a part of Amir Khan’s return to the ring later on that night. The fight was aired on Showtime.
Payout Perspective:
The ratings were good enough that CBS is likely to air more boxing in 2013. As we stated, the event was part of the Showtime event held later on that night. The network fights were entertaining and the lead-in probably helped the numbers too. This past Saturday, NBC aired a 2 hour block of boxing. That event on NBC was entertaining and we should see more boxing on NBC in 2013 as well.
When a program goes over its time slot it makes the ratings for this boxing program almost useless. Whatever time it ran over be it 15 minutes or 45 minutes. Those people watching are watching Basketball. BUt Boxing gets credit for the ratings.
This happens with the super bowl all the time. Something cheesy after the super bowl gets massive ratings because 15 minutes of the Super Bowls 50 million viewers gets added to a show that normally has 1 million viewers. It pushes their average to 15 million for the hour even though only 1 million watched the show. To find out what this program did we need to see Quarter hour ratings. Then we can see how many actually watched the boxing matches.
Has anyone ever grilled Joe Rogan about his ridicoulous statements on ESPN from five years ago? WHen he said that boxing was getting swallowed by MMA and it would never have any more stars? Since then boxing had massive PPVs, filled soccer stadiums with crowds, is on TV more than ever before and even back on network TV too. Meanwhile, most of my friends who were hardcore MMA fans in 07 now watch more boxing than they do MMA. The ones that still like MMA are paying alot less attention to it. NOBODY I know watches TUF at all anymore. Yeah, MMA sure did a real number on boxing, didn’t it?
Boxing is like water…
BS,
I think that rating is for the time boxing was on and not the overrun of the basketball game. Certainly having a strong lead in will help the following show’s ratings but the basketball ratings are not inflating the boxing ratings just because the basketball game ran over. The fact is that it was a good night of boxing with a bunch of good fights, and this was one of them. Apparently ~1.5 million people agree with me.
Very good numbers. Always great to see boxing return to U.S. network television. I hope it’s the first of many times.
Just heard that Adamek vs. Cunningham on NBC averaged just over a million viewers in boxing’s return to NBC.
1.8 million viewers tuned into CBS fight per Nielse. Nor 1.5
The UFC had its window and blew it imo. They lost a lot of their big named fighters, Lidel, Randy and Tito and of course Brock to name a few. They won’t allow any fighter to become too big, they bank on making the UFC what counts and not the fighters. All they need to do is develop 5 big name fighters, make them house hold names and pay them right so they don’t have to whore themselves out to useless sponsors. MMA trashing boxing and vise versa is redundant and stupid. Both sports are great. MMA is going to have to follow in boxings footsteps to some degree if they think they are going to survive as a top sport. Boxing number fluctuate a lot and there is way more money involved, but they do promote names and fighters not some three letter nonsense. How bout the UFC stop with this stupid UFC # whatever, and call a fight card by who’s fighting, the number thing just makes it seem like just some other fight, has no meaning. Boxing has 3 or so major promotions who compete with each other and sometime work together, the UFC does not follow the same formula, bad decision.
Thats dumb. So what you are saying is the UFC should set up bad match ups and protect big name fighters but not letting the real good fighters fight them. IS that what you are saying? The UFC got big and at the time their stars were at the end of their career. When they lost the fans didnt complete move to the guy who beat them. It wasnt the UFC’s fault. They give us the best fights. The only way to build bigger stars is to set up shit fights for long periods of time and build fake fighters with fake resumes.
@ Felix
exactly. in about 2008 joe rogan said their would be no more boxing stars in the future. all the stars that will ever exist would be stars that existed prior to the rise of the ufc. he named, de la hoya, hopkins and i believe jermaine taylor as his examples of the last era of boxing stars.
yet here we are in 2012 both manny pacquiao and floyd mayweather exist. 2 current boxing stars which are bigger then any ufc star ever. now we have canelo and broner who are on the verge of similar superstardom.
and who are the big mma superstars? all they have is st piere the only holdover from that period where the ufc was surging and even his popularity has faded.
joe was just plain wrong. and could easily be made a fool of if anyone brought it up. he’d have to admit he was wrong about boxings death as well as wildly overestimating ufc potential.
Brain smasher is the only one left in UFC lol
It’s crazy all these anti-MMA commenters on an MMA Payout website.
How does 1.5 million viewers for boxing compare to the UFC on Fox 5 numbers?
A third to a quarter the size?
Boxing is pretty boring and one-dimensional to me, but I still respect it as an important component to the MMA skillset.
I see MMA as complete fighting–and boxing as restricted fighting. No boxer could come straight over to MMA and succeed–he would be destroyed, unless he broadened his fighting skillset quickly. The boxer would also have to get used to not having those big pillows on his fists.
That is the appeal of MMA–it is the closest thing to a real fight as legally possible.
I get a smile from all of the posters on this site predicting the demise of the UFC and MMA–I have to wonder at their motives for coming to this site.
The UFC and MMA are doing fine, those who say otherwise have the business acumen of a Florida snowshoe salesman.
@ codemaster
typical mma fan. suggesting mma is better because it’s closer to a real street fight. people who love boxing more like myself prefer boxing because it offers things mma can’t.
1. elite level striking. even joe rogan will tell you mma striking is second rate. watching mma striking is like watching WNBA after a lifetime of being an NBA fan.
2. a pure standup fight. no boring lay and pray can exist.
3. greater fluidity and longer duration to the action. mma tends to have to many “starts and stops.” a guy does well in a striking exchange so the other guy takes him down. stopping all action for an extended period of time.
@jackwio
Yes, I am an MMA fan–on MMA Payout.
So you are….a boxing fan on an MMA site? You do realize there are a ton of boxing sites for you to post on. Just curious why you post here?
All I know is that any top boxer would get creamed by a top MMA fighter.
Boxing is artificial fighting–and the striking is NOT elite.
There are no elbows, backfist, hammer fists, no kicking–in other words, EVEN the striking is limited.
The gloves are these massive pillows, which allow boxers to be hit without the same consequences as in MMA.
The areas you are allowed to punch in boxing are severely limited.
There are no submissions or throws in boxing.
MMA striking is different because the fighter has to worry about a number of attacks–kicks, punches, elbows, takedowns, submissions. Lyoto Machida was choked out to unconsciousness by Jon Jones. The uninformed compare MMA striking to boxing without considering the that MMA striking has evolved specifically for MMA–and MMA gloves. You can’t take shots to the chin with those little gloves like you can in boxing with those big pillow gloves. You aren’t given count when knocked down–your opponent leaps on top of you and hammers you repeatedly.
MMA striking is different from traditional boxing for very good reasons.
I can watch boxing, but it is pretty repeitive and one dimensional as I said above.
In MMA–you don’t know what you will get. Yes, there some less exciting fights–but the same applies to boxing. But the range of possibility as to where the fight can go is much greater in MMA.
no where in my post did i say i did not like mma. i said i love boxing more. some of us can be fans of both and thus post on this site.
i just find it funny in a childish sort of way that guys that ONLY love mma and shit on boxing tend to use the “it’s closer to real fighting” reason to dump on boxing.
a top mma fighter can cream a top boxer? in an mma fight yes obviously. in a boxing match the reverse would be true. again a childish point of comparison you bring up as many typical mma fans do.
btw you’ve never heard rogan say time and time again that the striking in mma is inferior to the striking in boxing? a guy who i’m sure is more knowedgable in this area then you. also not the kind of guy thats inclined to be nice to boxing. given his position in the sports top promotion and love for the sport of mma you’d think he’d keep those thoughts to himself and not broadcast them on UFC cards.
he’s also put K-1 striking above mma striking too. so since it’s less “limited” then boxing something else must be at work. imo it’s really more of a case that mma fighters due to the nature of mma can get by with inferior striking skills. thats why inferior striking is more common in mma then in pure striking sports.