ESPN Dan Rafael reports the ratings from this past weekend’s boxing events on HBO and Showtime. Notably, the ratings are much lower for the Showtime broadcast of Deontay Wilder’s first title defense drew 678,000 viewers.
The rating for just the fight between Wilder versus Eric Molina drew 678,000 viewers. In the first fight of the telecast, Jose Pedraza defeated Andrey Klimov and drew just 381,000 viewers. The overall Showtime event drew 482,000 viewers. The ratings are considerably lower than Wilder’s last fight in which he won the heavyweight title against Bermane Stiverne. January’s Showtime airing of Wilder-Stiverne drew 1.24 million viewers.
HBO’s boxing card which featured Nicholas Walters taking on Miguel Marriaga drew 588,000 viewers. Walters earned the victory. Prior to the Walters fight, Felix Verdejo defeated Ivan Najera in a lightweight fight. The Verdejo-Najera fight drew 611,000 viewers. The overall event drew 562,000 viewers.
Payout Perspective:
An off-night for boxing on the premium networks. The UFC and NHL were other alternatives for sports fans Saturday night but HBO’s offering was purely for the hardcore boxing fan. Nicholas Walters is not a big name that many of the casual viewers would know unless you recall that he knocked out Nonito Donaire. Based on the ratings, it looks as though the opening bout drew more than the Walters fight. Still, what may be more disappointing is the ratings for Deontay Wilder’s first title defense. The heavyweight is being marketed as the next great U.S. heavyweight champion and while fighting in front of his hometown crowd was great, boxing fans did not tune in. Of course, a part of this might be due to the competition for Wilder. If, and when, Wilder gets a more formidable opponent, we shall see if viewers tune in.
bad fight = bad ratings. the week before cotto did 1.6 million. viewers didnt just die
Shitty fights do shitty numbers.Most Boxing fans watch certain fighters not boxing as a whole. Its not the first time and wont be the last. Also a lot of big fights recently so only the hardcore watched. Like I have said before there are only a million regular boxing fans in the US.
Wilder would have been better off on the Broner/Porter card on Saturday on NBC.
HAHAHAHA!!! More bad news for boxing! More shit cards and shit ratings! No surprises.
Hey fagbusiness, I thought Verdejo was a big draw?
“bad fight = bad ratings”
Dead on. Wilder vs. who? I skipped it because frankly the fight was a joke. I watched him fight Stiverne because that was a real fight. Get a real opponent in there and I’ll watch again. Otherwise I’ll just check ESPN to see who won.
Lol the point is the fight doesn’t matter. The fact remains the guy has no fans. If I liked a fight I would watch him fight bums in a parking lot. Chuck Liddel was selling like 450,000 buys at $50 a pop to see him fight Tiger White. If there was a huge demand for boxing people would watch, if the fighters had fans then they would watch. There is little demand despite few televised events on TV.
How many guys are on PPV in boxing? So guys like this guy are pretty high up on the boxing pecking order. Just behind the few guys who fight on PPV. He can’t do better than 480k on the heels of his promotions hundred million promotional campaign on a dozen networks? Remember the UFC is running 500 televised fights a year along with TV events for Bellator and WSOF and other regional shows.
Liddell vs Tiger White sold 80k not 450k.
So that theories out the window.
If you think those numbers debunk that theory(not plural), you are once again proving how retarded you are.
There are tons of examples of headliners fighting low profile opponents all the time that draw big ratings.
Kimbo vs. Petruzelli did 4.56m viewers and 4.85m vs Thompson
Fedor did 4.04m viewers vs Rogers
Liddell did 500k buys against Sobral
Anderson Silva did 400k buys against Travis Lutter
Silva vs Leites did 650k buys
Also, how many Mayweather fights had very low profile opponents and he still would get a minimum of 800k+buys?
The fact is if the fighter is a big enough name, he can sell with any opponent. No one gives a shit about Wilder that is why he drew such a low rating on his own. His fight he’ll have with Klitschko coming up will not be on ppv and if it is, it will flop miserably.