Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports reports that Saturday night’s Paulie Malignaggi-Adrien Broner fight scored 1.3 million viewers on Showtime. The ratings reflect an uptick in ratings for Showtime and a budding star in Broner.
It was a free preview weekend for Showtime although the 1.3 million ratings is premised upon the number of Showtime subscribers. Currently, Showtime has somewhere north of 18 million subscribers.
Paulie-Broner was the second highest ranked fight on Showtime with only the Miguel Cotto-Austin Trout fight from December scoring higher. In fact four of the highest rated boxing events have occurred in the past 10 months.
UPDATE: As pointed out below, the average for the fight was 890K viewers with the peak at 1.3M.
Payout Perspective:
Broner’s HBO fight with Gavin Rees in February earned 1.4 million viewers making “The Problem Child” a cable ratings success as his two fights have been the highest rated this year. The ratings reflect Showtime’s surge in its boxing portfolio. With Canelo-Mayweather picking up steam for September which will undoubtedly include a 360 series and other sorts of promotion hype, boxing is doing well for the network. With Broner, Showtime may have found the successor to Mayweather.
BOXING Bryant Jennings v Andrey Fedosov 201,000 viewers
WORLD SERIES OF FIGHTING 3 201,000 viewers
http://sonofthebronx.blogspot.jp/2013/06/nbc-sports-network-nba-tv-mlb-network_21.html
Showtime vs hbo would be good for boxing…I hear hbo is offering Carl Foch a lucrative contract…mayweather’s departure leaves hbo with more budget for other fighters…
Tops,
I don’t mind Showtime v. HBO, but I don’t like Top Rank v. Golden Boy, which is what the inter-network competition has degenerated into. That means that too many good matchups can’t be made – unless the promoter start specializing in certain weight classes in which they can own most of the talent.
how is 1.3 million viewers a good rating?
thats actually quite pathetic compared to what boxing pulled ratings wise in the 90’s or even 10 years ago.
Because it’s 1.3 million viewers out of 18 million homes. That’s a very high rating.
Per Kevin Iole, 890,000 viewers was the average throughout the entire telecast. Still, outstanding numbers compared to what Showtime had been averaging.
I agree those numbers are horrible, it’s almost as bad as people giving praise for the UFC doing 1.3m for Rockhold vs. Belfort on FX when they were doing 4.7 million viewers for Jackson vs. Henderson back in 07.
The difference here though is that SHO used to never pull these type of numbers, they are record breaking for a station who has f 1/4 of the viewers that FX has.
Showtime has half the households of Fueltv yet pulls in 4X what the UFC does?
Fastest growing what?
Good numbers for Showtime, too bad Broner didnt live up to the hype. But still a nice number for them.
Thats more than Canelo did on the network.
Why doesnt Comcast ever take part in these free preview weekends? I have Comcast in NJ and never get them.
How many subscribers Showtime has is irrelevant. BOxing fans know that’s where the fights are and pay for it. This isn’t 18 million random people who happen to tune in. That’s like saying even the worst UFC PPV was great because they got 180,000 out of the 180,000 who bought the channel. Also people who buy Showtime tend to watch the network more than others to get their monies worth. That’s why every program on any of the premium networks get very high ratings compared to how many subscribers they have. It isn’t even close to the situation the UFC has with Fuel. This was a top 5 event for the year in boxing. Plus subscribers get access to high quality programming in Showtime that brings people in. The UFC is airing like the 40th best events of the year in MMA on Fuel and they have nothing else on the network. The MMA has enough programs on Spike, Fox, and FX. That there isn’t a real need for fans to tune it to Fuel. Boxing doesn’t have that presence or that quality. Showtime is their big events. Its pretty safe to say if you do not have Showtime. It is very hard to call yourself a boxing fan. You need their fights to be a fan and keep up with the sport. That said. To have a sub 900K viewer average when its the home of the entire sport is not very good.
It is believed that every UFC PPV buy is watched by 4-5+ people. That means even the worst PPV ever in modern history has about 1 million viewers. A comparable UFC PPV to this event on Showtime would have at least 2 million viewers.
Showtime numbers are good because they are moving in the right direction. BUt to use them as any indicator to match them up against the UFC is foolish. They do not compare at all.
HAHAHAHAHA! all I hear is blah blah blah, excuse excuse excuse from Dana White aka “brainsmasher”
Diego
Agree with your observation on golden boy vs top rank…..with hbo vs show time more money would be used for marketing each others promotions….
News like this …sets of b.s. all the time lol….waiting for his memtion of m. c. Hammer thou…..
Just read this
…From Tim Kennedy..”It’s pathetic that so many fighters [have to have other jobs]… I’m one of the three percent of guys in the whole entire sport and it would be slim pickings to survive off what I make in fighting. It’s a good thing I have another job because the UFC doesn’t pay very well. Anybody who accepts [fighters being overpaid] as a reality of the sport is sad and pathetic. I hope this isn’t the reality of the sport. If it is, I should probably go do something else, like empty trash cans. I’d make more money than I do now.”
Funny statement……I see more disgruntled employees coming out soon hahaha….
Lol. The guy has never had a fight in the UFC. You really know how to pick an argument Tops. Hahaha! You are so stupid that you make Sampson Simpleton sound like he has a PHD.
Yeah he’s going to have his debut at UFC 162…..he saw what they would be paying him,….peanuts……hahaha….they do sign contracts before fights….strike force is zuffa owned duh….argument? The statement came from Tim Kennedy himslelf word for word……my favorite part is anybody who accepts fighters being overpaid as a reality of the sport is sad and pathetic lol….
Yes you sign contracts before the fight. BUt you earn your pay by fighting and accomplishments which he hasn’t done. Yes Zuffa owns Strikeforce. BUt it wasn’t Zuffa who signed his to his Strikeforce deal.
Lets remember why he was in Strikeforce to begin with. That means the UFC never at any point wanted him. They end up with him because they bought SF and decided to use what fighters they had to get some value out of the deal. BUt to think he is worthy any thing or has value is crazy. He hasn’t earned anything. IS he doesn’t like his pay then he shouldn’t have signed the contract. If he wants more money then he needs to earn it.
Why did the UFC buy Strikeforce again?
I forgot.
So it’s like overeem…a strike force talent who beat the money making machine Brock lesmar….I get it….
Same with Ronda rousey and diaz…ur right UFC at any point didn’t want strikeforce..fighters….hahaha
You earn by fighting and accomplishments you say…that’s why Brock lesmar got a title shot right away…because he fought the hardy boys and rob van dam in wwe..haha based on merits I see..the UFC has such high and fair standards….lol
I don’t know how to speak slowly to you in text. Do I space the words further apart? Accomplishments do not have to be fighting. Being popular is an accomplishment. So is selling lots of seats and PPVs. So is being a National wrestling Champion. Things Brock had. He also didn’t get a title shot in his first fight. So you are either a liar or a dumbass who talks about things he is clueless about. He won a fight in K-1 and he for all intent and purposes beat Mir and was screwed on a technicality. Herring who was at one time #2 in MMA and a top 15 fighter. The title shot was a little early. But the results after in which he defended twice vs top guys showed it was a deserved title shot.
When Overeem signed with Strikeforce he was on a horrible losing streak. The UFC didn’t want him at all at that time. Rousey was a nobody before SF and the UFC didn’t have a womans division. While in SF both were able to build value in themselves to have something to offer the UFC. However, Tim Kennedy did not. He wasn’t wanted by the UFC when he went to SF and he has no value to them now. HE is just a body. So when it comes to his salary. HE doesn’t get anything because he hasn’t earned anything. Even at the lowest level ofs MMA a fighters pay is dependent on how many tickets he sells. I buy might tickets to loca events directly from the fighters so they get paid. For the most part the top levels of MMA works the same way. If you don’t put asses in the seats then don’t bitch about not getting paid.
Herring was 2w 2 L heading to fight Brock lesnar fight in the UFC promotion…..but he’s number 2? Hahaha…
So now it’s Both SF and UFC build value to themselves….wwe made Brock lesnar not the UFC….Dana signed him because he’s already popular….same with Dana inviting lebron James to the next UFC event…..its suppose to be the other way around that celebrities would be requesting to be given a ticket but now the UFC needs lebron James…just to get into the recent finals fame…..pathetic
Btw…it’s a good thing your line of logic does not apply to established sports and only in the UFC…..because he’s popular and fill in the seats than he’s given the chance right away…because if that happened in the NBA then it would have been Miami vs lakers…because the lakers are more popular and have more fans than the spurs…it lessens the credibility and integrity of the sport….hahaha….now the UFC is doing it again with machida and jones….it’s Dana’s world….