ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports (via HBO Boxing) that last Saturday’s fight between Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler drew a total of 1,070,000 viewers in two showings.
As the fight was aired live from England, it was shown at 3pm PDT/6pm EDT and then again at 10pm PDT/EDT . It received 493K for the live event and 577K for the primetime showing.
According to Rafael, HBO should be pleased based on the total viewers in that the event was during the long holiday weekend, HBO likely didn’t pay premium money for the fight and neither fighter is American.
Payout Perspective:
The numbers are very good for all of Rafael’s reasons. Moreover, UFC 160 was held on the same night but it conveniently bookended MMA so if you are a fan of both, you could catch the fight before or after the UFC. The numbers show that HBO still has some fighters it can market and the fact that both fighters were not American shows that boxing is still popular among a certain American demographic.
Froch had never been on HBO and Kessler hadnt been on since 2007. Pretty good numbers for guys who were essentially “Strikeforce boxers”
very good?
577K are Bellator level ratings lol
Good numbers indeed…for non American fighters